An 80-year-old farmer in Vietnam says he has not slept in more than 60 years. According to him after he got sick when he was 20 years old he was never again able to sleep.

Thai Ngoc says he does not even need a short nap. To corroborate his story, his wife, children, friends and neighbors all say they have never ever seen him sleeping.

Speaking to Vietnamese website Thahn Nien News he said, “I don’t know if the insomnia has impacted my health or not but I’m still healthy and I can do the farm work normally like others.”

Sleepless Vietnamese Farmer

The Vietnamese farmer said when he became sick when he was young he survived the fever but never could sleep again despite trying all kinds of medications and even drinking a lot of alcohol.

Although in Vietnam he is considered someone who almost has superpower doctors have another theory. They think he might be sleeping and not know it.

According to Dr Vikas Wadhwa at Sleep Services Australia some insomniacs lack the ability to tell the difference between being awake and being asleep for short periods of time during the day and just not know it. These naps could in fact be enough to sustain them.

The Vietnamese farmer is not the only anomaly when it comes to sleep. In 2021, Chinese media reported a case of a woman who claimed she had not slept in 40 years and has never felt sleepy or tired.

The Henan Woman

Li Zhanying from Henan, China says she has gone 40 years without ever sleeping and her husband and her neighbors can vouch for her. She said the last time she slept was when she was 5 or 6 years old.

Upon further investigation a team of doctors used advanced sensors to monitor her for 40 hours to see what was happening. She apparently sleeps but not in the way most of us do.

Data gathered during the 48 hour brainwave monitoring showed that Li did get light and moderate sleep like ordinary people, only not while laying down in bed with her eyes closed, but while conversing with her husband.

Doctors described this phenomenon as ‘sleep when awake’ which is said to be similar to sleepwalking, which means some of Li Zhanying’s nerves and organs are still active during sleep. Doctors say that her brain deceives her into believing she is awake although part of her body is already dormant.

For example when she was talking to her husband she sometimes had slow eyeballs and hollow eyes which indicates she is actually resting. Technically one can argue that she is actually awake as her eyes never close.

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The photo above is from Wikipedia