{"id":75391,"date":"2025-05-10T13:09:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-10T11:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/?post_type=magazin&p=75391"},"modified":"2026-10-31T18:24:43","modified_gmt":"2026-10-31T16:24:43","slug":"narcolepsy","status":"publish","type":"magazin","link":"https:\/\/visualjournalism.de\/en\/magazine\/after-dark\/narcolepsy\/","title":{"rendered":"Narcolepsy: when sleep becomes an illness"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n
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\n\tAfter dark<\/a><\/div>\r\n

\r\n Narcolepsy: when sleep becomes an illness <\/h2>\r\n\r\n
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Sudden attacks, hallucinations, leaden tiredness: student Livia Sommer looks for answers in a sleep lab.
\nBy Antonia R\u00f6hrer<\/a> (text), Anton Vester<\/a> (photos)<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/div>\r\n \r\n

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It feels like chewing gum.<\/strong> Like chewing gum stuck to the inside of her skull. Livia Sommer* is trying to fight off an approaching sleep attack. The gum stretches longer and longer; she tries to stick it back with her thoughts and so stay awake. It doesn\u2019t work. At some point there\u2019s a \u2018pop\u2019 and the gum comes away from the bone. A feeling as if worlds were blurring. She is aware of what\u2019s happening around her, and at the same time she is dreaming. Sommer falls asleep \u2013 in the middle of the university library in Hannover\u2019s city centre. Yet again.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n \"Student\n \n Hannover, June 2024<\/span>\n <\/div>\n\n

Student Livia Sommer<\/strong> (name changed) in the TIB university library \u2013 she has often suddenly fallen asleep here while studying.<\/p>\n<\/figcaption>\n \n <\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n



The feeling that<\/strong> feels like chewing gum is nothing new to her: sleep now governs Sommer\u2019s everyday life. She falls asleep several times a day, wherever she happens to be \u2013 in lectures, at work, in the car. Around 40,000 people in Germany who have narcolepsy suffer similar sleep attacks. Now the neurological disorder is a possibility for the student too. That\u2019s why today Sommer is heading to one of the three neurological sleep labs in Lower Saxony: the one at Lindenbrunn Hospital in Coppenbr\u00fcgge. In one of the clinic\u2019s two beds, doctors will test tonight whether Sommer, as suspected, has the \u2018sleeping sickness\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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