This isn’t a literary question so don’t move me
in the story by Irving, Rip Van Winkle wakes up an old man. But if he had somehow hibernated (or slept, but hibernation would be a better word) for 20 years, would he really have aged like he had lived 20 years?
I accept that hair would grow during rest so he would correctly have a long beard, and need a bath, but what’s with the aging process?
It would depend on the exact magical process used to keep him asleep. For instance the Sleeping Beauty curse would keep eternally at the same age.
People in comas age naturally. So if he were merely sleeping, he would have aged.
I’m not sure, but I think you are asking:
A minimum aging would occur, granted, but would a person who hadn’t had any stress, eaten anything bad, exposed to sunlight etc. have aged less than a person living a real life, eating bad foods, having stress with people, exposure to sunlight etc.?
My non-doctor guess is yes, cells age, but without any external factors, I’d expect for example far less skin aging then somebody who’s out in the sun everyday for 20 years as opposed to being shut into a cave.
Living a life also means you experience the ups and downs of feelings, which will leave happy and sad wrinkles in your face. A person in deep sleep shouldn’t move his facial muscles and therefore have much smoother face.
Your body burns about 60 calories per hour of sleeping, so for round-the-clock sleeping that would be about 1,450 calories burned for each day, which compares to just over 2,000 calories for normal activities with around eight hours sleep per day. So in terms of cellular aging due to free radicals and other metabolic waste products 20 years of uninterrupted sleeping would equate to around 14 years of normal living.
Of course, Rip didn’t eat during the 20 years he slept. I also imagine he didn’t urinate or defecate, since I’m pretty sure he would have noticed a 20-year-old load in his pants upon awakening. The metabolism would have to slow an incredible amount to allow someone to hibernate that long. I know that’s not actually possible in humans, but I wonder how it would affect the aging process if it were.
My magical reasoning is that it’s *hibernation *and not sleep is the proper term here, as he would have starved to death if he burned 60 calories an hour, but hibernation would have him burn maybe 0.001 calories and hour (or whatever).
I know it’s fantasy for humans but some animals do in fact hibernate, I can remember bears in the winter, and some lower orders can hold out for years, if my wildlife documentary knowledge is correct.
So if it’s hibernation, would he really age that much? Does hibernation age at all?
Actually, bears in hibernation are still burning calories comparable to that during deep sleep. To get to 0.001 an hour, you’d need cryogenic suspension.
Rip had consumed a beverage provided by the ghosts of Hendrick Hudson’s crew. We have no idea what was in that brew or how it would have affected a living person. I suspect he was dead for 20 years until the magical liquid lost it’s potency, based on the well established factoid* that the hair of the dead continues to grow.