Sleeping Beauty, the classic timeless fairy tale of a beautiful princess charmed into
a deep sleep by an evil witch, and woken only after being sexually assaulted by a random
wandering prince who decided kissing unconscious women isn't something that should immediately
send you to prison.
Luckily, we live in a world where this in fact, can and will send you to prison- no
matter how princely or charming you are- but it turns out that sleeping beauty syndrome
is all too real.
And you might be surprised to hear that more often than not it's men who end up the victim
than women.
That would certainly put a new spin on the classic fairy tale.
Sleeping Beauty syndrome, or Kleine-Levin syndrome, is a form of hypersomnia, which
is basically the reverse of insomnia.
It's likely that most people will go through a bout of hypersomnia in their life- like
for instance after a giant turkey dinner on thanksgiving.
But people suffering from KL syndrome don't just find it difficult to remain awake or
take inappropriately long naps- sleep is basically all they do, sometimes for months at a time.
Actually, it's not quite that simple- after all, if all you did was sleep for months at
a time you'd quickly die of dehydration and starvation.
Sufferers instead will experience very brief moments of wakefulness during which they will
go to the bathroom, eat something quickly, and drink water.
Then it's back to bed for a snooze that can last a day or more.
Take the case of Rhoda Rodriguez-Diaz, an American college student diagnosed with KL
syndrome.
She suffered bouts of hypersomnia as a kid, but when she went to college she fell into
a weeks long sleeping episode that caused her to fail her second year of college.
Rhoda would sleep for 22 hours a day and wake up only to eat, drink, and use the bathroom.
As a result, she slept through her final exams and ended up failing.
What's strange is that Rhoda will go for months at a time without a single episode, and unlike
most medical conditions she'll feel perfectly fine and normal during that time.
Then out of nowhere the tiredness will come, and Rhoda will fall into an exhaustion that
can last for weeks.
Rhoda says that the worst thing about her condition is missing out on the rest of the
world while she slumbers away.
As she commented, the world doesn't stop when she goes to sleep, and it can be difficult
coming to terms with what's happened while she was asleep for several weeks.
Long term plans are all but impossible, and relationships are extremely difficult if not
impossible.
Another thing she hates is when people just think she's lazy, not an uncommon judgment
against sufferers of Kleine-Levin syndrome.
Rhoda's first sleeping bouts hit her when she was 4 or 5 years old, and she'd fall asleep
for two or three weeks at a time, leaving doctors puzzled.
Then suddenly her drowsiness cleared up until she was 15 or 16.
Though she didn't fall asleep for weeks at a time as she had as a child, she was plagued
with persistent fatigue, which made normal life very difficult.
Inevitably this led to teasing, and allegations that she was just lazy.
Then in college the long duration sleeps returned, completely upsetting Rhoda's life.
Rhoda ended up being expelled from school for failing to earn enough credits.
It wouldn't be until shortly after being expelled that she was officially diagnosed with KL
syndrome, and thanks to the official diagnosis she was able to re-enroll in college.
However, she faces persistent difficulties from her condition which will make her studies
even harder than they normally are.
Rhoda is one in about one to five people per million diagnosed with KL syndrome, making
this one of the rarest diseases in the world.
What's surprising is that the disease affects men much more often than women, with 70% of
sufferers being men.
It's likely to manifest in the teenage years, and naturally has a hugely disrupting effect
on people's lives.
Perhaps most frustratingly though is the fact that KL syndrome can simply disappear for
years at a time, and reappear a decade or more later to wreak havoc once again.
Sufferers will experience brief moments of wakefulness, though exhibit great mental confusion
and difficulty concentrating.
One girl in Columbia even forgot her mother's face after a 48 hour sleep session, hinting
that there's more going on in the brain than just tiredness from KL syndrome.
These brief waking spells are typically only so individuals can use the bathroom, eat,
drink, and then return to sleep, with people showing almost no energy or emotion while
awake.
Sufferers also complain of the world being visually out of focus and that light and noise
can feel overwhelming.
KL syndrome can also wreak havoc on a person's life in other ways however.
Sufferers will often gorge themselves on as much food as they can, almost like a bear
preparing for hibernation ,which is perhaps a very apt metaphor in this case.
However, one of the most perplexing symptoms is hallucinations, along with an extremely
heightened and uninhibited sex drive, which can certainly complicate someone's social
situation.
Even stranger, once a sleeping episode has passed, sufferers appear perfectly normal
and healthy, showing none of the psychological issues they had just endured.
Doctors have no idea what causes Kleine-Levin syndrome, though it's believed that it stems
from a dysfunction with the hypothalamus.
The hypothalamus helps regulate our sleep schedule, and people with tumors that affect
the hypothalamus can experience symptoms very similar to KL syndrome.
However, due to the variety of symptoms, experts believe that the disease affects several areas
of the brain simultaneously, only adding to the mystery.
Some doctors have even hypothesized that it might have to do with the body's immune system
attacking the brain directly, as many sufferers have also been discovered to have another
infectious disease.
Whatever causes KL syndrome, it's likely that it's genetic as the disease is much more prevalent
in Jewish populations than non-Jewish people.
While it's hoped that future breakthroughs in genetic research can isolate a cause, and
produce a fix, for now there remains no treatment for KL syndrome.
Adding to the difficulty of researching the disease is that there's so few people affected
that it can be difficult to find willing research subjects.
The random nature of the episodes, and the multi-year stretch between attacks also makes
researching Kleine-Levin syndrome next to impossible.
For now, treatment with lithium has shown some promise, with two studies showing that
lithium treatment had positive effects on 20 to 40% of research participants.