This segment features a lovely young woman, Kay Underwood, living with narcolepsy and cataplexy.  GMTV accurately and effectively highlighted narcolepsy with cataplexy. Hip hip hurray!

This video shows Kay collapsing while laughing – but she is not falling over asleep – she’s falling over with the paralysis of dream sleep while awake. 

Why is Kay Underwood collapsing when she laughs?  

• For ALL people, when you enter dream sleep, you are paralysed so you don’t act out your dreams (since this would be quite dangerous).  
• For both Kay and myself, we’ve lost the brain cells regulating the boundaries between consciousness and dreaming. Thus, our brains misperceive normal everyday emotions like laughter for dreaming and paralyzes our bodies accordingly – even though we are conscious and aware of our surroundings.