10 Incredible Stories About Waking Up

1.

Our first story seems straight out of a horror movie. In 2010, Maria de Jesus Arroyo was pronounced dead at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles after going into cardiac arrest. However, the 80-year-old "deceased" woman was still very much alive. According to court documents, she was found in a body bag face down. The bag was halfway unzipped, and her face was battered. She had a broken nose, bumps and bruises. A pathologist ruled that Arroyo hadn't died of a heart attack but had died from asphyxiation and hypothermia after she was put in the morgue. Arroyo's family, who sued the hospital, alleged that she woke up inside of the mortuary freezer and died after failing to get out. Her injuries were consistent with a struggle. The family's lawyer agrees. He said, “The cold from the hospital morgue woke her up, and she was fighting her way out when she died.” The hospital has since denied any wrongdoing.

2.

Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones loved (and still loves) playing guitar. Richards loved the guitar so much he would often sleep with it. "I go to bed as usual with it, and I wake up the next morning, and I see that the tape has run to the very end," Richards said. "And I think, 'Well, I didn't do anything. Maybe I hit a button when I was asleep.' I put it back to the beginning and pushed play and there—in some sort of ghostly version—was a whole verse of it. After that, there's 40 minutes of me snoring. But there's the song in its embryo, and I actually dreamt the damned thing." What was the name of the song, you ask? “(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.” I don't know about you, but I would love to hear the complete tape, snoring and all!

3.

In May 2015, residents of Goulburn in New South Wales, Australia woke up to their agricultural fields almost blanketed in white. Was it snow or frost? Not quite—their land was covered with interlocked spider webs filled with arachnids. What causes this seemingly infinite amount of spider webs to occur? According to naturalist Martyn Robinson from the Australian Museum, there are two types of spider migration at play. The first is called “ballooning." Spiders climb vegetation and release a streamer of silk that catches the wind and transports them like a parachute. They can travel this way for several kilometers, and some have even been seen flying almost 2 miles above the ground! After ballooning, "gossamer"—the name for the “parachute” webbing—is left behind. Spiders also fire “silk rope lines” into the air to avoid terrain that has become waterlogged. Spiders are thought to rain down like this because of a change in weather conditions. Although ballooning is a pretty common occurrence, it's not so common for this many spiders to do it in such a concentrated area. You have to hand it to our arachnid friends for their survival skills. Spider-Man would be proud!

4.

Maybe the movie Groundhog Day wasn't as far-fetched as we thought. A man, known only as William, can remember everything in his life up until 1:40 pm on March 14, 2005. That's the moment he was given anesthetic before a routine root canal. Since that fateful moment, the now 48-year-old Brit can only store his memories for 90 minutes. However, William shows no sign of brain damage, which baffles neuropsychologists as to what causes his curious condition. William's symptoms are similar to patients suffering from anterograde amnesia. This type of amnesia is caused by damage to certain regions in the brain and results in short spans of awareness as well as complete and rapid memory loss. Experts believe William's amnesia could be a breakdown of protein synthesis in the brain. Although William can remember his life up to 2005, but can't remember what happened more than an hour and a half ago. He manages his daily life and remains oriented via continuous access to an electronic diary and prompts.

5.

Our next story takes falling asleep on the job to new heights—literally! In April 2015, an Alaska Airlines pilot heard a banging noise coming from the plane only moments after taking off. Banging of any kind is enough to cause a great deal of concern for a pilot, but to his surprise the noise wasn't from faulty equipment or pressure from the change in altitude. The sound was from a drowsy luggage handler who had fallen asleep and had woken up to find himself in the plane's cargo hold! Alaska Airlines flight number 448 turned back to Seattle after 14 minutes in the air and declared an emergency landing. After the plane had touched ground, ramp agent Willa Junior was found inside the front cargo hold, which was pressurized and temperature controlled. The agent appeared okay, but he was transported to the hospital as a precaution. Junior passed a drug test following the incident, and it turned out he was just plain exhausted. During a pre-departure huddle, his co-workers noticed that he was missing and called his phone but never got an answer. They just believed he finished his shift and went home. Junior's 911 call from inside the cargo hold has since been released to the public. During the call, he said he was “inside a plane, and I feel like it's up moving in the air. Please tell somebody to stop it.” This caused a great deal of confusion to the emergency dispatcher. Wouldn't it to you?

6.

In 2014, doctors were forced to put 15-year-old Kai Thomas into a medically induced coma after suffering a brain hemorrhage. Although the teen from Chesterfield, England regained the ability to move and speak when he came out of his coma, he was left with two bizarre side effects. Thomas is now addicted to cheese and swears like a sailor. His mother, Tracey, first noticed Kai's penchant for dairy and profanity when his speech started to come back. While working in the kitchen, she heard her son uncharacteristically yell “f*ck, bastard, sh*t” and other expletives from inside his bedroom. As she opened his door, she saw him munching on a wheel of cheese. His cheese addiction is now so bad that he adds it to his cereal. After asking a doctor about his condition, the physician told the family that it's quite normal for people to develop inappropriate or aggressive behavior after waking up from a coma. Kai is now undergoing therapy, and his condition is improving. However, it still might not be wise to ask him to say “cheese” for a photograph.

7.

Let's head to Knoxville, Tennessee for our next story. In December 2014, Sharista Giles, 20, was in a serious car accident. She was five months pregnant at the time. Doctors told her family that it was unlikely that she would ever wake up, but in April 2015, she did. She learned she'd had the baby, whom her family calls "baby L" as a placeholder until she can name him herself. Sharista's father showed the new mother a photo of the boy, and she reportedly followed the picture around with her eyes. When he turned around to put it on the bulletin board, she turned her neck and her whole head to follow and find the picture again. We hope both mother and son get healthier with each passing day.

8.

In August 2015, an Algerian groom took his bride to court after only one day of marriage because she did not look as pretty as she did before their wedding. He said felt cheated when he woke up to see her face without makeup the next day. The groom told the court that he was shocked when he woke up the next morning to see that his wife looked so different, he could not recognize her. He went on to tell the court that he mistook her for a “thief who came to steal (from) his apartment." The groom is demanding $20,000 in damages for his psychological suffering.

9.

In 2014, surgeons mistakenly amputated the penis of Alabama resident Johnny Lee Banks Jr. In his lawsuit against Princeton Baptist Medical Center, the 56-year-old said he went in for a routine circumcision but woke up without his private part. Judge Hughey tossed Banks' original lawsuit in August 2014—he ruled it was not specific enough under Alabama's malpractice law. Banks' second lawsuit was also thrown out of court. Of course, the hospital has denied any wrongdoing and lawyers for the hospital claim Banks has a history of health problems, including diabetes. This led to dead tissue accumulation in the patient's lower extremities. Unsurprisingly, Banks wife also sued for loss of consortium.

10.

Without question, some people have a hard time getting up in the morning, and alarm clocks just don't cut it. Heavy sleepers worry no more! Inventor Colin Furze has solved your sleeping problems. His latest invention is the high-voltage ejector bed. From the maker of the toasting knife and the gigantic metal butt (for “farting in France's general direction”), this bed throws a stubborn snoozer out of it when the alarm goes off. As you can see in the video below when Furze turns the power up during various test runs, the bed ejects him further into the room until he's practically hitting the wall. Whatever will they think of next!