These Creepy Gifs Will Make Sleep Disorders Seem A Whole Lot Worse To You
Sleep disorders, like most disorders, are extremely difficult for those without them to understand what they're like and just how they affect a person. Unfortunately, they're just as confounding for those with them.
To help both sides better understand sleep disorders, artists Petra Svajger and Maja Poljanc explored the psychology of disrupted sleep and found a way to better depict sleep disorders, in a series called PARASOMNIAs.
Something those with sleep disorders seldom, if ever experience, REM sleep is the deepest stage of sleep - also known as "dream sleep." Many with severe sleep disorders rarely get to enjoy the pleasures of REM sleep, and therefore, also rarely dream.
A transitional stage between sleep and wakefulness, 'sleep paralysis' causes its victims to be both cognizant and still partially asleep. Often times, this state of "half-wakefulness" is accompanied by hallucinations, or continuations of dreams - or, more commonly, nightmares.
Possibly the most well-known sleep disorder, Insomnia can simply be characterized by the inability to fall and/or stay asleep. Regardless of how physically exhausted a sufferer is, falling asleep can sometimes feel impossible - and sometimes, it is.
'Sleep eating' is easily one of the more bizarre known sleep disorders, and requires little, if any explanation. Essentially, it's sleep walking with eating added on. And yes, there is a serious downside to it - sufferers wind up with things like teeth problems and halitosis.
Possibly the most interesting of the group, 'Restless Leg Syndrome' is a disfunction of the nervous system that causes one's legs to move involuntarily, often disrupting sleep multiple times a night. Because of this, RLS sufferers associate very few, if any positive thoughts with sleep.