We all remember from childhood a beautiful fairy tale about a princess who slept for a hundred years in her castle, until the kiss of a handsome prince brought her back to life. But today we remembered her not by chance. The fact is that modern psychology and psychiatry also faces a similar phenomenon, when a person falls into a deep sleep, and it is almost impossible to get him out of this state. It has received the beautiful name of the sleeping beauty syndrome, although such a life is a little like a fairy tale.
Modern realities
With the wild pace of life, many of us dream of getting at least a few extra minutes of sleep, torn between household chores and work. It would seem that it would be very cool to spend the whole day in bed. And someone in anticipation of a vacation wants not to get out from under the covers at all, except to eat. However, there are people in the world who spend their whole lives in the arms of Morpheus. At the same time, the desire to extend the time of their rest causes them horror, butcan't do anything.
Sleeping Beauty Syndrome
This is a rare disorder that experts put on a par with schizophrenia. This disease develops suddenly, a person can be completely he althy, and then fall into "hibernation", in the truest sense of the word. Relatives are usually completely confused, because they do not know how to help him return to normal life. Doctors shrug, saying that all processes in the body are running normally, and no one in the modern world knows what is the reason for such an anomaly.
History
Sleeping Beauty Syndrome was first described back in 1786. The French doctor Edme Pierre Chavot spoke about him. During his practice, he encountered an inexplicable phenomenon when patients fell asleep for 10-14 days, then returned to normal life, but soon everything repeated. At the same time, the doctor only stated the presence of a strange anomaly, and suggested that the cause could be a violation of the brain.
For a long time, medicine and psychiatry had little to say about these cases. This is also due to the fact that such patients are extremely rare. In a lifetime, a practicing physician may not have a single such patient. Already in 1925, Willy Kleine described in detail a series of cases when a person was diagnosed with the sleeping beauty syndrome, which significantly replenished the treasury of world medical practice. Ten years later, Max Levin added several cases, and he also found a relationship with eating disorders. It was thanks to these two people that the official name of this disease appeared. Now in official reference books it is called sleeping beauty syndrome or Klein-Levin syndrome.
How the disease manifests
This property is characteristic of any neurological disorder. Depending on the state of the nervous system, age, gender and other characteristics of a person, it can manifest itself in different ways. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome is no exception. What is this disease, and how it manifests itself, we will now talk in more detail. Usually, until adolescence, a child is no different from his peers. He normally attends school, gets up in the morning and hardly fits in the evening. The first signs occur between the ages of 13 and 19. Parents are, to put it mildly, shocked when their beloved child falls asleep for several weeks. Examination in the clinic leads to the diagnosis: sleeping beauty syndrome. Symptoms that occur in all patients are "hibernation", which comes on suddenly, and which a person is unable to fight, as well as increased appetite.
Sick people sleep 18 or more hours a day. They may sometimes not wake up for several days. When relatives try to wake up to feed and take to the toilet. However, this is not so easy to do, patients become very aggressive. But that's not all. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome is a complex set of symptoms. In patients, all cognitive and perceptual processes are disturbed. They do not understand where they are and what is happening to them. Patients even inperiods of wakefulness are as if in a fog, speech is incoherent, everything that happens is quickly erased from memory, as if it were in a dream. The sick cannot attend school or take care of themselves.
Eating disorders
Besides the fact that a person spends a lot of time in a dream, he is very different from himself in those moments when they try to wake him up. Relatives and attending physicians note that, being kind and accommodating people, during the period of "hibernation" they change beyond recognition. Awakened, they are very sensitive to noise and light, complain that everything around is not in “focus”, too blurry. They can fall asleep at the table and in the toilet, just on the floor, so in order for a person to not be exhausted, they will have to feed him very quickly.
At the same time, waking up from sleep, they, on the contrary, demonstrate all the signs of bulimia. In 75% of cases, they have voracity without a feeling of fullness. That is, metabolic processes suffer, then the body is completely deprived of food, then it begins to flow without any measure.
Gender differences
In most cases, the sleeping beauty syndrome, the treatment of which is currently not possible, occurs most often only in men. However, there are cases in world practice when young girls also suffered from it. All of them are severely disturbed by the usual rhythm of life. During the period of "hibernation" they miss classes, control, important meetings, which affects their daily life quitestrongly. In men, hypersexual behavior is formed as a compensation, and women are more prone to depressive appearances.
Duration of the course of the disease
This is a chronic disease for which there is no cure. Episodes may occur every 3-6 months. They last 2-3 days or more. The maximum period was fixed at six weeks. In the intervals between them, a person looks quite he althy. In addition to the violations described above, he is no different from his peers. However, the periodic loss of real life has a strong effect. Such people are lagging behind in development, they cannot fully work. When the patient wakes up after an attack, he does not recognize anyone, he does not understand anything. This continues until it is complete. Usually relatives over time already begin to notice the approach of an attack. The patient becomes more aggressive and begins to eat a lot, as if stocking up for the hibernation period.
Statistics
In total, 1000 patients with this diagnosis have been registered in the world today. Of these, 70% are men. Medicine cannot help them in any way, so relatives have to keep a round-the-clock watch, quit their jobs and forget about a normal, ordinary life. It should be noted that in most cases, the symptoms gradually soften, become less pronounced. If the first attack can last more than 10 days, then subsequent ones are usually shorter. The period of remission between them increases, however, bulimia may well cause weight gain.
Psychology and psychotherapy
Both the patient and his relatives really need professional help. The sleeping beauty syndrome in psychology is studied very deeply, since all its manifestations need to be corrected. Many experts agree that the cause of the disease is a disorder of the subcortical centers of the hypothalamus, which regulate hunger and thirst, sleep and sexual desire. At the same time, during an attack with a person, no therapy can be carried out. The only thing that psychotherapists and psychiatrists agree on is that lithium helps to improve the condition, at a dosage of 600-1000 mg per day. After about three weeks, the patient's condition improves enough that further work can be done.
Even today, we don't know much about Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. What kind of disease, doctors continue to study, and have not yet come to a consensus about its treatment. The choice of a corrective program depends on the patient's condition, his characteristics and complaints. Today, there are many effective techniques, including within the framework of psychoanalysis, symbol drama or art therapy, that will help to correct sexual and eating behavior. Unfortunately, this work only with symptoms, the cause remains unknown. But you don't have to choose. Help is needed not only by the patients themselves, but also by their loved ones. They have to learn how to properly respond to the patient, to survive the feeling of resentment for the limitations of their own lives, and the feeling of guilt for this resentment. A competent psychologist will teach you how to correctly respond to attacks of aggression before "hibernation" and afterawakening. This work is extremely important for all family members, so do not neglect professional help.
