SIX YEARS AWAKE

Greymouth Evening Star, 7 February 1939, Page 9

SIX YEARS AWAKE

MAN WHO CANNOT SLEEP NEW YORK, JanuarylO. A 69-year-old odd job man, Isaac Wilbur, of Orleans, Massachusetts, today, eutc'-ed his sixth year without slec-ii. WTen 1k... ;s he is known to his friends, when a youngster he found ho could earn more money by working the clock round, so he trained himself to do without sleep. Now he cannot sleep at all. He has not slept a wink since December, U»33.

“1 am getting old now,” he said, "and I’d like to have a nap, but J guess it’s no go.

"I close my eyes just to rest them, but I never really sleep.” When he was a youth Ike found he could work day and night for' three months '■■■ itli only one hour’s sleep in 21. In l’J2t> he rend in a . magazine th;.', nobody could go 80 days without sleep. 1 hat struck him as. ridiculous, and to prove it he went sleepless for S 3 -.lays and nights. h ne following year he bettered his own record, staying awake 147 days. And in 1034 he completed his first year without sleep.