A man believed to be unconscious was conscious, but completely paralyzed, for 23 years.

He had no way to communicate to the people around him that he could hear, think, and understand everything.

"All that time I just literally dreamed of a better life."

How terribly sad. The condition is unimaginable. All that time. What would you do with your mind as all those years passed? Wouldn't you drift into hallucinations and dreams? Could you reach enlightenment? Or would you dwell on your plight endlessly and ache for the times when people would be around you talking, hoping someone would talk to you, read to you, do something.

If this happened to one man, it seems that it must be happening to others.

Doctors used a range of coma tests, recognised worldwide, before reluctantly concluding that his consciousness was 'extinct'.

But three years ago, new hi-tech scans showed his brain was still functioning almost completely normally....

'Medical advances caught up with him,' said Dr Laureys, who believes there may be many similar cases of false comas around the world.