Japanese Public Sleeping

Well, it just so happens that this topic was mentioned in Psychology when we were learning the aspects of sleep. I thought it was relevent so I’d make this post.

The case is narcopelsy, a sleeping disorder. All narcopelsy pretty much causes is extreme daytime sleepiness and sudden, uncontrollable sleep attack that lasts anywhere from a minute to an hour. This is unrelated to how much an individual sleeps at night, people that have narcopelsy will fall asleep regardless of whether he slept during the night or not.

When it’s sudden, it’s sudden. The case in the picture above probably isn’t the most comfortable case but it certainly isn’t impossible. When it strikes, the person experiences a sudden loss of muscle tone, the knee buckles and the person collapses. Narcolepsy is often triggered by strong emotion.

The cause of the disorder is currently unknown, it may be genetically coded but that hasn’t been proven yet. Treatments include taking stimulants or anti-depressants, which pretty much decreases daytime sleepiness.

It’s actually not quite surprising how Danny and his crew managed to find all these people sleeping (though I don’t really count the ones that were sleeping in a park or on the train). People with this disorder vary in countries, and Japan holds the highest in the world with 1 in 500 people having narcolepsy.

The main reason why I decide to write this article is a question one of the students asked the prof (anonymously):

Question:

Can one who has narcolepsy fall asleep while docking?

Response:

As the sleep attacks are triggered by high levels of arousal, it occurs when one is feeling highly emotional. So yes, it is very possible that a person can get a sleep attack while docking.

Some info I thought folks would like to know ^^