Have you ever awoken to discover you’d slept through something noteworthy overnight? Many of us can sleep through an alarm but some people can sleep through earthquakes or break-ins. Other people are adept at sleeping anywhere and can doze off on buses or planes despite being surrounded by strangers and loud engines. And there are even a few cases of people sleeping through some pretty life-altering events.
10. An Iraqi Man Slept Through the Invasion and Takeover of His Town
You can’t be expected to know what’s going on outside your window 24/7 but there are times when you really need to pay attention to local events. Back in 2014, Mohammed Abu Ali, a clockmaker from Iraq, went to sleep in the town of Mahkmour like any other day. When he woke up, he was the only man left in town. Or the only citizen of the town left, anyway.
Overnight, Kurdish forces had evacuated the town as ISIS forces moved in and took over. With all the citizens gone, Ali was the only resident left having slept through it all. More remarkable was that he didn’t even realize what happened after he awoke.
For several hours in the morning he puttered around his house. He watched a movie; he fixed his air conditioning and did what he would normally do. It wasn’t until six in the evening when the call to prayer was late that he realized something was wrong.
When the call did come, he didn’t recognize the voice, so he went outside and found himself held at gunpoint. He had to prove his identity and the fighters eventually allowed him to go home where he stayed safely until the town was retaken.
9. A Snail Woke Up After Spending Years on Display in a Museum
We’re cheating a little on this one because it isn’t a person, but it’s one of the most remarkable tales of sleeping through the impossible ever. In this case it was a snail and he must have been very tired indeed.
In the mid-1800s a collection of snails was donated to the British Museum in London. The snails had been collected in Egypt and were therefore items of interest to the museum crowd. The snails were glued to cards, labeled, and added to the collection.
Four years later a zoologist noticed an unusual coating on one of the shells, something snails do to prevent themselves from dehydrating.
Suspecting the snail was less dead than four years on a card in a museum would lead one to believe, the snail was removed and plopped into some water. Minute later a head emerged, and the snail came to life.
Suspecting the snail was less dead than four years on a card in a museum would lead one to believe, the snail was removed and plopped into some water. Minute later a head emerged and the snail came to life.
The snail was kept alive in the zoologist’s care until it truly died in 1852.
8. A Woman Slept Through the Entire Jonestown Massacre
Jim Jones led a group of followers of his Peoples Temple cult to their death at what became known as the Jonestown Massacre back in 1978. Over 900 members died after drinking a fruit drink laced with cyanide which is where the modern phrase “drink the Kool-Aid” comes from in reference to insinuating someone has gone all in on cult-like beliefs.
The massacre came after the cult was being investigated for holding people against their will. A US congressman had traveled to the compound, located in Guyana after they fled the US, and the cult turned on him as he tried to leave, shooting him and several others in the process.
One cult member, a 76-year-old woman named Hyacinth Thrash, fled to her bedroom to hide after hearing of the violence. She fell asleep there as Jones ordered everyone to take their own lives, killing the children first before the adults joined in. When she awoke, she discovered she was alone and thought everyone had died.
7. Eminem Slept Through His Academy Award Win
For many people, being honored with an award is a big deal. Attending awards ceremonies has always been treated with a degree of reverence which is why the Academy Awards broadcast is still such a big deal every year. However, that’s not always the case for everyone.
In 2003, Eminem’s song Lose Yourself from the movie 8 Mile was nominated for an Academy Award. It ended up winning as well, but the rapper wasn’t present to accept it. He had figured he wasn’t going to win anyway, so he decided to stay home with his daughter and ended up falling asleep before the award was even presented. He wanted to be rested so he could take her to school the next day.
6. POW Edwin Rose Slept Through The Great Raid
The Great Raid was one of the most famous POW rescues of the Second World War. It took place at a place called Cabanatuan in the Philippines and saw the liberation of over 500 POWs held by Japan. The raid was conducted by Army Rangers, guerillas, and Alamo Scouts.
One POW who didn’t have quite as successful liberation was Canadian Edwin Rose. Rose had a reputation around the camp for being weird, maybe due to the fact he was already elderly, almost blind, deaf and just quirky to begin with.
Rose had not been in the military. He was a civilian who had been rounded up, and it was believed he was a mail carrier in Singapore. He’d been imprisoned for years and others believed that had badly affected his mental health.
When rescue came in the night, Rose was confused. Hard of hearing and with bad vision, he wasn’t 100% sure what was going on, but managed to stumble to the latrine. He went back to the barracks having missed the entire liberation and didn’t notice everyone was gone, so he returned to bed, thinking he may have also just passed out on the toilet.
The next morning he realized everyone was gone, so he shaved and walked out of camp. Guerillas later found him on the road.
5. More Than One Diabetic Slept Through Dogs Eating Their Toes
We’ve all heard stories of heroic animals waking their owners to alert them of dangers. How about the opposite? More than one diabetic dog owner has experienced sleeping through their canine companion eating the toes right off their feet. And this is fully eating, not just biting. These people woke up missing an entire toe.
Diabetics frequently suffer from poor circulation issues and problems like peripheral neuropathy can lead to serious damage to a diabetic’s toes and feet which can require amputation. A man in Michigan didn’t realize his toe was infected due to the nerve damage he was suffering. He actually needed an amputation but didn’t realize it. Luckily, his Jack Russell terrier Kiko was an amateur physician and gnawed the man’s toe off in his sleep.
Tests on the stump revealed the infection had traveled to the bone, so the rest was amputated as well. The dog may have saved his life by forcing him to go to the hospital
In 2008, a woman in Illinois suffered much the same fate when her dog ate her toe after she suffered an infection from a hangnail.
4. Dick Van Dyke Fell Asleep on a Surfboard and Got Lost at Sea
This story may need to be taken with a grain of salt or two, but it came right from the source for whatever that’s worth. According to Dick Van Dyke, he once got lost at sea because he fell asleep on a surfboard.
To hear Van Dyke tell it, he was learning to surf, and he’d just got out beyond the breakers when he passed out. He woke up and couldn’t see land anywhere and had no idea which way to go to find land. And then, right out of a Disney movie, a pod of dolphins showed up and pushed him back to land.
He’s told the story more than once and doesn’t seem to be joking about it, so it’s entirely possible we have dolphins to thank for Van Dyke’s whole career.
3. A Woman Fell Asleep on a Plane and Was Stuck There for Hours After it Landed
Some people can konk right out the moment they sit down on a plane. Red Eye flights are set up to help you sleep. They turn the lights down, you can get a pillow and maybe an eye mask, and off you go. If you’re flying for eight hours across an ocean, it may be the perfect chance to catch some shuteye. But even the heartiest sleeper tends to wake up when a plane comes in for a landing, the lights come on and everyone gets up to leave.
Back in 2010, a woman woke up on a plane in Philadelphia, which was where she intended to be. Unfortunately, the plane landed several hours before she woke up and she was alone on an empty, locked plane.
Fifty passengers had left the plane, along with all the crew, before the plane was locked leaving her on board. She ended up suing the airline for false imprisonment. She says a cleaning crew woke her up, but she was left locked on the plane until law enforcement decided she wasn’t a terrorist.
2. Ozzy Osbourne Once Fell Asleep During a Driving Test
Not everyone passes their driver’s road test the first time out. Not everyone has to take it 19 times, either. That was the magic number for Ozzy Osbourne who finally became a legal driver at age 60. So what was the problem with the 18 previous attempts? If you know anything at all about Osbourne, you can probably make an educated guess.
The Prince of Darkness offered up one explanation for a failure during an interview. He claimed he was “so out of it” that he actually fell asleep in the middle of a test. When he woke up, he found a note in the car telling him he’d failed. It wasn’t made clear if he’d actually been driving at the time he fell asleep or not. No one died at least, so it was a failed test but a success at survival if nothing else.
1. Hitler Slept Through Most of D-Day
World War Two has been a source of endless speculation for historians, writers, politicians and the average person on the street for decades now. How things could have happened differently, how things did happen and what things happened that we never realized for years afterward.
There’s no way to change the past, of course, and we can’t always trust new information or theories that people come up with either. But even what we do know can be surprising and helpful in learning about how it all unfolded.
D-Day is the name we’ve given to the Allied invasion of Normandy that marked a major turning point in the war on June 6, 1944.
The Germans might have had more success in defending against the Allies if Hitler had made one simple change in orders. If he had not asked to not be disturbed then German forces may have rallied and forced the Allies back. But that didn’t happen. He went to sleep on June 5th and ordered that no one bother him. His generals were not allowed to make major decisions without his approval so they could not counter the Allied attack until their leader woke up.
Word is that Hitler slept until somewhere between 11 and noon. By then it was far too late and he still thought Normandy was a diversion, anyway. Had he set an alarm or let his people wake up, history may have painted a vastly different picture.