Is Narcolepsy Simply Funny Or A Serious Sleeping Disorder?

A lot of people are familiar with Narcolepsy since it has often been used for comical effect in stories and movies. The common image is that of an individual in the middle of a conversation who suddenly falls to the ground going from a state of alertness to complete sleep. The person then awakens without realizing that she has been sleeping and continues on with their conversation.

Of course, narcolepsy is not quite as it is portrayed in the movies. Although in some very rare cases of narcolepsy people do fall asleep with no warning whatsoever, the majority of sufferers have problems with overwhelming tiredness during the day and from time to time have to give in to the desire for a nap.

As with many other conditions there are different degrees of narcolepsy. For example, some people might simply have a problem with becoming extremely sleepy during the day while others might have a variety of difficulties that all point to narcolepsy.

One example of narcolepsy is falling asleep while you are engaged in conversation or working and not even appearing to be asleep to others around you. Although other people might think that your mind is merely wandering or you might start to believe that you are developing memory problems because you do not seem able to remember things people tell you, the simple fact is that you are actually sleeping during your interactions. You just do not appear to be sleeping because your eyes remain open and the people around you cannot tell that you are asleep.

Other characteristics of the rarer types of narcolepsy include hallucinations and paralysis. Experiencing hallucinations on waking can be an indication of narcolepsy but it is certainly not an absolute indicator although people with severe narcolepsy could well find themselves experiencing dramatic and scary hallucinations as a result of their quite rare sleep disorder. Sleep paralysis is actually a relatively common thing and our bodies are in essence 'paralyzed' during sleep so that we do not act out all the actions in our dreams. But for a person with narcolepsy the paralysis goes beyond the usual sleep paralysis and a narcoleptic individual might be totally paralyzed upon waking up yet be aware of the situation and understandably very scared.

There is medication that is designed to assist people with narcolepsy and medication is usually fairly effective in assisting people to keep awake during the day and then to enjoy a full night's sleep.

A few people find difficulty with medication because the stimulant effect that is designed to keep them awake during the day also makes them feel jittery or nervous. It is a trade-off for some narcoleptics who must either continue to suffer erratic sleep or solve their sleeping problems and put up with the side-effects of the medication.

However, some narcoleptics have no choice because for them the desire to sleep during the day is so strong that they wind up falling asleep while driving a car or at other dangerous times. For these rare instances medication is quite literally a life-saver.

A lot of comedy has been made of narcolepsy on both the big and the small screen but is narcolepsy really funny or is it in reality a serious problem?

Help-Me-To-Sleep.com provides information on a range of sleep disorders including narcalepsy and looks at such things as narcolepsy symptoms, narcolepsy treatment and narcolepsy medication.

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