I visited various doctors over the years but was always fobbed off. I have always needed a boost and recently an old university friend reminded me how much I would dose up on ProPlus before a night out, just to make sure I would stay awake. My drug habit didn't get me high, it simply helped me get up in the morning. Two years later, I was taking cocaine to help me stay awake. I was told it was hypersomnia, the opposite of insomnia, and sent on my way. I first went to the doctor when I was 14, but no one took me seriously. Despite sitting on a hard, marble backless seat I was asleep, still upright, in seconds. The place was packed, everyone was shouting. I remember waiting for a delayed flight at an airport with an old boyfriend. It does not look good to doze off halfway through a lecture, but sometimes there is nothing I can do. My work as a neuroscience researcher at London's Goldsmiths University means I often attend conferences and seminars. I try to fight it, but sometimes I just can't. Sleep will creep up and envelop me within a matter of minutes. They would make me so exhausted that I had to take Mondays and Tuesdays off because I was too tired to get up. My mum stopped me from going to sleepovers and parties when I was a child. But now past experiences have started to make a lot more sense. It is horrible to look back on life only to see how much I have missed because I was asleep. I am 27 years old and I have slept for at least 15 hours a day, every day, for the past 13 years. But daytime sleepiness sounds like quite a gentle, cosy disorder. This is defined as daytime sleepiness: the inability to stay awake despite a normal, full night's sleep. Finally, the doctor told me I had narcolepsy. I had already been at the sleep clinic in Guy's & St Thomas' Hospital in London for 24 hours, electrodes attached to my body as they ran test after test. My eyes are open, I can look around me but my brain has not come out of REM so I cannot tell whether what I am doing is real, or part of a dream. But I can wake up during this stage of sleep, and when I do I am completely paralysed. This is the stage of sleep where we dream and this paralysis stops us getting up from our beds and acting out our dreams. With the exception of sleepwalkers, most people's bodies become paralysed when they enter REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. ![]() Sleep paralysis is the most terrifying thing about narcolepsy, so I am lucky that it doesn't happen to me that often. While I was imprisoned in my mind, my body had been cast adrift. ![]() It was as though my body and brain had been completely severed from each other. I was awake, yet paralysed and still dreaming. But when I looked down at my hand, I realised I hadn't called anyone. I knew I had my phone near me, so I grabbed it and started dialling for help. The last time it happened, I remember trying to scream but no sound came out of my mouth.
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