The strange sleeping sickness of “The Sandman” existed in real life

Netflix’s new fantasy series based on the work of Neil Gaiman has positioned itself as the most popular in 80 countries, but continues to generate doubts about it. And in its first episode, “The Sandman” reveals that a strange sleeping sickness has caused thousands of deaths around the world, but as unbelievable as it may seem, this epidemic is inspired by real events.

In the series “The Sandman”, Tom Sturridge’s character is mistakenly captured and kidnapped for over 100 years, causing the Realm of Dreams to collapse, while in the waking world, the absence of Morpheus causes a strange sleeping sickness.

When no one was at the controls, a strange disease widespread in the universe of ‘The man of sand’ from netflix, and nearly a million people fell into such a deep sleep that they could not wake up until Morpheus was released and, in some cases, could not sleep. This epidemic became known as “sleeping sickness”.

In the real world, this “sleeping sickness” is called lethargic encephalitisoccurred between the years from 1916 (the year in which the capture of Morpheus in the Netflix series takes place), until 1927, when for no apparent reason, he ended up among those who suffered from this strange condition.

What is lethargic encephalitis, “Sandman’s disease?

Lethargic encephalitis is inflammation in the brain of which there are no records of what actually causes it and which has caused more than 500,000 deaths worldwide. Those who survived were semi-unconscious and only a few were able to wake up from that state, well past the age of sixty, and under the care of neurologist Oliver Sacks.

It is said that, after a short time, the few who woke up were again unconscious, showing symptoms of a Parkinsonian-like syndrome. All this true story served to Neil Gaiman to write the original novel of “The Sandman” that inspired the Netflix series.

Since then, this strange disease has not repeated itself to such an extent, but some active cases are known around the world, that some patients with lethargic encephalitis inspired the story of the film ‘Awakenings’, in which Robin Williams and Robert De participate. Niro, on the life of the neurologist Oliver Sacks.