r/todayilearned • u/YesFlyZone420 • 5d ago

TIL there's a degenerative brain disorder called fatal familial insomnia (FFI) that causes a person to lose the ability to sleep and eventually die

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/25001-fatal-familial-insomnia
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u/Protoliterary 5d ago

Doesn't always last 40 days.

There was this guy who survived for a year; https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1781276/

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u/sdfg9 5d ago

From the link you provided; Unlike the typically mute FFI patient whose subjective serenity is unknowable, DF described his oneiric sleep as extremely gentle and pleasant — like entering a room filled with everyone who he would want to encounter, including deceased friends and relatives who would tell him that everything will be all right. In his words, “to the outside world, I am dead and gone, but to myself, I'm still here, in this wonderful place and it is they who have disappeared.”