Why some people sleep for weeks at a time

A closer look

Imagine the moody, exhausted teenager stereotype dialed up to pathological levels. Kleine-Levin syndrome is an incredibly rare neurological disorder where patients fall into episodes of hypersomnia, sleeping up to 20 hours a day for weeks or even months at a time. When they finally do wake up to use the bathroom, they are trapped in a zombie-like fugue state characterized by confusion, compulsive binge eating, and aggressively inappropriate hypersexuality, before passing out all over again.