In a small town called Karachi in Kazakhstan, a mysterious incident occurred. On August 28, 2014, a man named Viktor Kazachenko drove a motorcycle to a nearby village to run errands, but never got there. It was later discovered that he was sleeping not far from his motorcycle.
He only woke up from this deep sleep a week later. When asked after regaining consciousness, he said, "My brain is turned off. That's it. I don't remember. I woke up on September 2nd. When I woke up in the hospital, I knew I was asleep. ”
This was the first case of "sleeping sickness" beginning to affect the people of the village. And no one will be able to explain why.
Since 2014, about a quarter of the village's residents have stopped their original work and fallen into a deep sleep. The village is now known as "Sleepy Hollow".
Scientists have called this phenomenon "sleeping sickness", and they are now trying to analyze the mystery.
These sleep symptoms manifest as instantaneous, deep coma that lasts for several days and is defined by doctors as coma. The affected person wakes up confused and dizzy. Most people don't remember what happened, while those who do report seeing horrific hallucinations.
Professor Leonid Rikhvanov, who studied the disease, explained: "It is almost impossible to keep them fully awake on the first day. ”
Even after the affected people wake up, most of them still suffer some effects of sleep symptoms.
After a deep sleep, my blood pressure started to rise for no apparent reason. For six weeks, I didn't know what to do. It seriously affects your state of mind. I was nervous. Viktor Kazachenko told Eurasianet。
Viktor Kazachenko and 30 other villagers have already been affected by this mysterious condition twice.
So what makes these villagers sleep?
This is one of the most fascinating mysteries that took place this millennium, attracting doctors and scientists from all over the world to Karachi. Many of them have come up with interesting theories to try to explain this phenomenon.
There is an abandoned Soviet uranium mine right next to the village. Some scientists believe that radon gas from a mine that has been out of service for two decades may be the cause. To corroborate this claim, they found elevated radon levels in the village. But the doctor involved in the matter rejected this theory, saying: "I am an anesthesiologist myself, and we use similar gases for anesthesia, but the patient wakes up within a maximum of an hour after the operation. These people slept for two to six days, and what was the concentration of this gas at that time? Why is it that a person falls asleep and the person who lives with him does not have the same effect? ”
So it looks like the concentration of radon is not enough to keep someone in a coma for many days. It also doesn't explain why one person is knocked unconscious while another person who comes close is not affected in the same way.
Some scientists believe that the wind direction seen and the location of the village may have caused the carbon monoxide emitted from the home to sink and affect people.
The symptoms we see in the case of carbon monoxide poisoning are similar to those exhibited by those who fell into a deep sleep. But this still doesn't explain why a husband can be affected while a wife is in the vicinity and completely normal.
The "Plague of Dance" of 1518 was a phenomenon of mass hysteria caused by 400 people in the town dancing for several days in a row. Scientists believe that this sleeping disorder may be a different type of group hysteria, but the lack of conclusive evidence invalidates this theory.
Despite these theories, in this day and age, no one has yet been able to explain the phenomenon and put an end to this event. As of today, cases are still increasing where people have been sleeping for days on end.
Narcolepsy