Paul Kern dives into a ditch as Russian bullets fly above his head.
He peers over the edge and sights the enemy position. A whistle blows, signaling him to
move forward. Kern takes a deep breath and launches himself deeper into no man's land.
Moments later, a bullet rips through his skull. He’ll survive, but with one very odd side-effect.
Like millions of other Hungarians, Kern joined the military to avenge the assassination of
Archduke Frans Ferdinand at the beginning of World War I. He would begin his career in the
regular army but eventually became one of the elite members of the shock trooper division.
Their mission was one of the most dangerous of the war. The shock troopers were responsible for
clearing out enemy trenches. This meant they were often the first to charge into battle
and casualties were always high during their missions.
It was 1915 when Kern went over the wall to clear a Russian trench. He had done
it several times before without being hit, but this time his life would change forever.
As he weaved across the battlefield and dove for cover, Russian gunfire intensified.
His comrades were being struck down beside him but Kern knew he had to reach the enemy
trench in order to end the slaughter. He left the safety of the debris he was using
for cover and continued towards the enemy trench, but before he could get there,
a Russian bullet passed through his right temple and exited the back of his head.
Kern went down and blacked out. After the Hungarian force took the enemy trench,
medics searched the battlefield for wounded soldiers. Someone found Kren and noticed he
was still alive. They had no hopes of him recovering from the fatal-looking shot,
but they rushed him to the hospital anyway.
Upon arrival, the doctors bandaged the holes in Kern’s head. He had lost a lot of blood. One thing
that saved his life was that the bullet passed straight through his head instead of getting
lodged in the brain. If this had happened, the doctors would have needed to perform brain surgery
to remove the bullet. This most likely would have led to Kern dying on the operating table.
Instead, all the doctors had to do was close up the wounds and make sure they didn’t get infected.
There was no way to tell if Kern would ever come out of his coma,
so the medical staff kept him comfortable while they waited to see if he would recover.
His vitals were stable, but no one thought he would survive.
The bullet had not only shattered part of Kern’s skull, but it also took a chunk of
his frontal lobe with it. Losing a part of his brain was most likely the reason
for the crazy side effect Kern would live with for the rest of his life.
Upon coming out of the coma, Kern was startled to find himself in a hospital bed instead of on the
battlefield. Doctors and nurses rushed over to him. After performing some checks for signs of
brain damage, the doctors concluded that Kern seemed to be healthy. In fact, he was
acting as if everything was normal, except for the splitting headache on the right side of his head.
The medical professionals were dumbfounded. They thought for sure that if Kern ever did wake up,
he would show signs of brain damage due to the missing part of his frontal lobe. But to
their surprise, the soldier seemed fine. It wouldn’t be until that evening that
the first indications of his unique condition would manifest themselves.
As the rest of the hospital slowly quieted down and people began to go to sleep,
Kern lay awake in his bed. He didn’t feel tired and may have
chalked it up to the days he had spent in a comatose state. But as time went on,
he began to notice that something was different. He didn’t sleep for days.
Doctors tried to figure out precisely what was happening but were baffled.
It seemed as if Kern’s body didn’t require sleep anymore. He was still there cognitively,
and he showed no signs of exhaustion due to lack of rest. They kept him under close observation,
but as several nights passed, they found Kern no longer needed to sleep
and that even when he tried to get some shut-eye, his body would not comply.
This was not a temporary effect either. Many medical professionals studied Paul Kern for
years to come, but the only downside anyone could find for his injury was that he was struggling
to fill up his newfound free time. He spent most of the time he would usually have been sleeping,
reading books, and when everyone else was awake, he would visit his family and friends.
Many in the medical field didn’t believe Kern’s condition was real,
but he was always willing to be examined or put under observation. After countless investigations
by doctors and medical professionals, there were more questions than answers. No one had
ever witnessed Kern fall asleep or could come up with a diagnosis for his condition. The doctors
assumed that the bullet had removed a part of the brain responsible for falling asleep, or perhaps
the section of the frontal lobe that was missing meant his brain no longer needed sleep at all.
But this alone seemed unlikely, especially since all of his other cognitive functions
were completely normal. One doctor proposed the idea that Kern was actually falling asleep
for a few seconds at a time. Throughout the day, Kern would go into microsleep,
which allowed his brain to rest without any signs that he had actually dozed off. This would explain
why he was never observed to be sleeping but why his brain could continue to function.
Other doctors theorized that whatever the bullet had done to Kern’s brain made sleep unnecessary,
but the condition would eventually catch up with him. They hypothesized that due to Kern’s lack
of sleep, the brain would eventually become so strained that it would lead to an early death.
Many scientists are still theorizing about what was going on in Kern’s mind,
but for the average person, lack of sleep can definitely be dangerous.
A human body needs between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night to recharge fully. This amount
of rest often eludes many of us, and we feel the negative effects of being under-rested.
But what happens to the body if you never sleep? Or another question would be:
what should have happened to Paul Kern’s body that didn’t?
A study in 2014 discovered a correlation between sleep deprivation and a decline in
cognitive abilities. The investigation found that people who slept less than
7 hours a night showed signs of cognitive decline earlier in life.
At the end of the study, people who did not get enough sleep tended to develop
lower cognitive abilities about two years sooner than people who received over 7 hours of sleep.
Lack of sleep may also play a role in an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
When you sleep, parts of your brain shut down and the synapses between nerves are repaired.
If this process does not happen due to lack of rest, beta-amyloid proteins could accumulate on
the nerve endings in the brain. When enough proteins build up on a nerve,
it can result in plaque forming around it, leading to the nerves becoming damaged.
This is hypothesized to be one of the reasons Alzheimer’s occurs. If enough plaque builds up
on the brain cells, it can cause them to die. And when brain signals cannot travel freely
between synapses because they are being blocked or because there are dead brain cells it can lead
to neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s. This did not seem to occur during Kern’s life,
which is just another thing that puzzled doctors about his condition.
Lack of sleep doesn’t just affect the brain, however. Sleep is vital for the body as a whole.
With lack of sleep often comes high blood pressure and an increase in heart disease.
This means that people who receive less than 7 hours of sleep each night are at
a higher risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
The surprising thing is that even after decades of no sleep,
Kern’s body and mind seemed to be doing just fine. His biggest complaints all
came from finding ways to kill the time he was supposed to be sleeping for. One
unfortunate consequence of Kern’s condition was that his cost of living significantly increased.
Being awake for 24 hours a day meant that the lights in Kern’s house needed to stay on every
night so that he could read. This resulted in his utility bills being much higher. Also,
the 7 or so hours when someone is asleep they don’t eat, but being awake all the time
means that his body requires more calories to keep going. Therefore,
Kern would need to eat or have a snack while everyone else was resting.
The cost of never sleeping added up over 40 years, which meant Kern needed to budget accordingly.
We don’t know everything that Kern did in his waking hours, but perhaps he picked up a night
shift to get a little extra cash to cover his expenses from never going to sleep. Regardless of
how Kern spent his time, doctors were never able to uncover the exact reason for his condition.
Paul Kern was awake for 40 years straight before he passed away and got the rest he had missed out
on over the decades. The craziest thing is how much extra time Kern had that the rest of us lose
because of sleep. Again, around 7 hours of sleep is vital for your body to recharge and to maintain
a healthy brain, but think about all the things you could do if you never had to sleep.
To put it in perspective let’s do some quick math. If the average person spends 7 hours
a day sleeping, that means over the course of a year they lose around 2,555 hours to sleep.
That is just over 106 days. Think about all the things you could get done if
you had another 106 days worth of time every year.
Now in Paul Kern’s case, he didn’t sleep for 40 years meaning that he was awake for around 102,000
hours more than he would have been if he had never been shot in the head. This means he had an extra
4,258 days worth of time during his life from not sleeping. You can see why his biggest problem was
finding ways to keep himself busy and paying for the costs associated with never sleeping.
Was Kern a real person? Did he really not sleep for 40 years? We can’t say for sure
as much of Paul Kern’s story comes from an article published in The Adelaid Chronicle on January 16,
1930. That being said we can’t say for certain that his story was a lie either,
as he is not the only person who has claimed to go without sleep for years.
Others such as Al Herpin who lived in Trenton, NJ at the turn of the 20th century,
and Thanh Niên who swore he had been awake for 48 years both may have had the same
condition as Paul Kern. Like Kern, there is only anecdotal evidence supporting their stories.
Paul Kern is said to have died at a relatively young age, probably from some of the effects
that never sleeping took on his body. His ability to always be awake was more of a
curse than a blessing. However, for the rest of us who never seem to have enough
time in the day to get everything done, not sleeping for 40 years may be nice.
Now watch “Russian Sleep Experiment - EXPLAINED.”
Or check out “50 Insane Facts About Sleep You Didn't Know.”