In the Middle Ages, executioners practiced terrible torture - a person was not allowed to sleep for a long time, after which he confessed to the most terrible imperfect sins.
Day turns to night. Wakefulness replaces sleep. It would seem that everything is clear and unshakable in this matter, if … If not for Yakov Tsiperovich, who lives in Minsk and has not closed his eyes for the 17th year already. Moreover, he not only does not sleep, but also does not age.
Now he is 43 years old, although outwardly you won't give more than 27. Karina's wife has long been accustomed to her husband's unusual abilities. Son Sasha goes to first grade and also wants to be the same as dad. It would seem that it is an ordinary Minsk family, steadfastly enduring all the current Belarusian economic troubles. Everything would really be normal if it were not for the presence of a phenomenon that is extremely rare in the world.
It all started quite corny. In 1979, when Yakov was 26 years old, his first wife, out of jealousy, decided to poison her husband. The attempt ended in failure: clinical death, resuscitation, almost a week of complete oblivion. After Jacob woke up, he did not recognize not only the world around him, but himself.
“I felt a complete substitution of my thoughts,” he says. - My head was filled with knowledge that simply had nowhere to come from. It was a real waterfall of new ideas, clothed in a poetic form, which was also a wonder for me. There was much I did not understand, only passively passing it through my consciousness. I saw a different world around me, everything began to be perceived very clearly. I began to see the causes and consequences of many events, I understood who was who, and this understanding was not the fruit of reflection, but came from somewhere entirely and immediately. I felt acutely that I was not who I was before.
But that was not all. It happens that as a result of any critical events, people feel the substitution of their souls. This, as a rule, is followed by a complete change in a person's personality: his habits, character traits, etc. Something more happened to Jacob: he did not recognize his own body! There were moments when he sat down and felt with surprise his hands, feet, face. Everything seemed to be in order, but at the same time it was unfamiliar. It was strange to feel how the hand always obedient to you reacts to your commands in a different way than it did before.
The oddities did not end there. After Jacob returned to normal life, he found that he could not sleep. You shouldn't think that it was a wonderful feeling. He really wanted to sleep, as happens during insomnia, but he could not sleep. Unlike insomnia, when a person is passively lying and sleep cannot come, Jacob simply could not lie down.
- Imagine a toy vanka-stand up, - explains Yakov. - No matter how hard they try to lay him down, he still gets upright. Exactly the same situation was with me. I lay down on the bed, and immediately some kind of force lifted me up and made me sit on the bed. As soon as oblivion began, something like a click was heard in my head, which returned me to a state of wakefulness. It was a real nightmare and a continuous struggle for the opportunity to forget even for a moment in a dream! It didn't stop for a week, month, year. I was scared, because I thought that the body could not withstand such a load. Now I remember that period with horror!
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Then came the turning point. Suddenly, as if by magic, forces began to arrive, muscles build up by themselves, weight increase. There was a feeling of tremendous physical strength, which seemed to come from somewhere inside. He stopped getting tired. Once, trying to set the limits of his physical capabilities, Jacob did 10,000 push-ups for nine hours with interruptions, but he did not achieve the desired result of fatigue, which would help him fall asleep.
The lack of sleep has ceased to be perceived as physical suffering, only psychological dependence remained, something like the attitude - "A person should sleep!" Insomnia became easy to tolerate. It turned out that the painful process of the formation of a new organism, or maybe a new person, seemed to have ended and the period of its growth began, as a child grows, constantly discovering new and new opportunities and gaining strength.
And finally, another phenomenal ability manifested itself only many years later, when, meeting with friends-classmates, acquaintances of the same age, who were bald, gray, acquired wrinkles, he was surprised to notice that he himself remained completely unchanged. The body seemed to be conserved, and, most likely, the reason for this was the same state of clinical death, which made it possible for him to do without sleep. Looking at photographs from twenty years ago, it is quite easy to make sure of this.
“I stopped feeling the passage of time,” says Yakov. - It doesn't exist for me. There is no division into day and night, all this is a single indivisible process. For me, life is like one huge day. Probably, the feeling of timelessness is a consequence of the state when the body suddenly becomes immune to the aging process. I live out of time. It seems to me that life will always be.
By the way, there is some objective evidence of the presence of the process of "conservation" of the body. For a long time, Yakov's body temperature did not exceed 34 degrees and only in the last year rose to 35 degrees, that is, the body seemed to plunge into a state of suspended animation, when metabolic processes were extremely slowed down.
Well, what does science say, and in particular medicine? Indeed, perhaps it is the Tsiperovich phenomenon that will make it possible to obtain a recipe for eternal life. Add to this remarkable physical abilities, as well as a significant increase in time for self-realization, work, creativity. Alas, science traditionally says nothing. Yakov speaks of doctors and scientists with poorly concealed resentment:
“No one has seriously investigated my abilities. On my own initiative, I repeatedly went to the examinations, where they took an encephalogram, did tests. The trouble is that I have an excellent state of the body and, accordingly, excellent analyzes. There are no anomalies. Once I was even accused of simulating. The first years I traveled to hospitals in Moscow and St. Petersburg, was examined by professors Vein, Ilyin. The Bekhtereva Brain Institute refused to take me for examination. There I was told: “You never know why a person does not sleep. Many do not sleep. " After traditional medicine, he tried to recover from a strange "ailment" of psychics - Moscow Dzhuna, Minsk psychoneurologists Plavlinskaya, Semenova. Everyone said the same thing: "You are absolutely healthy." Turning to scientists from academic science also gave nothing,there they just laughed: "We have enough of our own problems." So nobody is interested in my abilities.
How can you dispose of such a gift - an additional 8 hours of full-time working time, and even if you have excellent physical shape?
“Oddly enough, I don’t use this time in any way,” Yakov replied after thinking. - The Lord gave me life, and I just live. Besides, please understand that for me this is not extra time, but just the usual time that every person has, and I fill it with ordinary things. Of course, there is a certain specificity: at night you will not be engaged in noisy business when everyone is asleep around. Therefore, at this time I read, write, think.
Over the past year, I have spent a lot of time learning how to sleep. Of course, this is not a real dream, but with the help of some mediation techniques, I have learned to completely disconnect from the outside world for several hours. In the first years I struggled with insomnia in a different way - I tried to forget myself with the help of sleeping pills and swallowed large quantities of radedorm, elenium, relanium. The battle ended with the victory of the organism: sleep did not come, there was only a feeling of lethargy and depression, which could not replace the feeling of full sleep. Therefore, I immediately refused medications.
I must say that even now I still want to become a normal person who can sleep.
Jacob writes poems, of which he has accumulated a fair amount. The content of the poems is usually philosophical and lyrical.
By the way, the Japanese and French made a film about the Tsiperovich phenomenon, the central and local newspapers wrote, the Belarusian radio station "Liberty" made a program about him.
“Honestly,” complained Yakov, “the journalists did me a very disservice. After the publications, I cannot calmly go out into the street: already in the courtyard people come up, start asking questions. Lots of phone calls. All this does not correspond to my reclusive lifestyle. Moreover, life became unsafe: once sectarians came to me, pounded at the door, demanded a meeting - for some reason they needed me. Saved only by the fact that I have a huge Caucasian Shepherd Dog. So the fame was not so pleasant.
From the book: “XX century. Chronicle of the inexplicable. Opening after opening”. Nikolai Nepomniachtchi