For those of you who don't know the story, Rip van Winkle is a story telling of the titular character falling into a 20 year nap after sipping some spiked booze he acquired from a shady traveler in the woods. 20 years of sleep, huh? Sound nice? Nope. This genetic disease is so rare that scientists have hardly had a chance to study it, but just like the story, the patients suffering from RVWS slip into deep periods of sleep without even needing to drink spiked booze.This sleep can last for weeks or even months at a time. This syndrome is also known as Kleine-Levin Syndrome, in case you're feeling fancy, and has a tendency to show up in teenaged boys, most notably those of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. The symptoms in teenagers include "sleeping for weeks solid, sometimes bingeing or becoming hypersexual." which, now we think about it, sound like pretty normal teenage behaviour. The syndrome could very well have something to do with a problem in the hypothalamus, a section of the brain that regulates sleep and memory, or it could be genetic caused by a virus or bacterium that some people are genetically susceptible to. Scary. Want to write for WhatCulture Science? Click here to find out how you could get paid to write about what you love.There's plenty more science where that came from. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter for more all the latest.
Lover of snacks, murder mysteries, and guys named Adam. Just a college student living life like a bad indie sitcom. Mother of three plant babies. Resident weirdo.
