Sleeping Beauty Syndrome: Beth Fell Asleep On The Sofa One Day And Didn’t Wake Up For Six Months

By rights, Beth Goodier should have finished university by now and started her training as a child psychologist. With a string of impressive exam results as well as a confident, outgoing personality, she was a young woman who had every reason to believe she had a bright future ahead of her.
But then in the run-up to her 17th birthday in November five years ago, Beth fell asleep — and didn’t wake up properly for six months. For 22 hours a day, she kept sleeping, only waking in a dream-like trance to take a little food and drink and go to the toilet. Over the past five years, Beth’s mother, Janine, calculates that her daughter has been asleep 75 per cent of the time.

But that fairy-tale name is far from the grim reality faced by those youngsters who are sleeping through the most formative times of their lives. What is known is that it mainly hits teenagers — the average age it strikes is 16 — and lasts around 13 years, destroying young people’s hopes of passing exams, going to university or forging a career. At the moment, Beth is two-and-a half months into another deep sleep episode. Nothing — not drugs, loud noises, pleading or cajoling — will wake her.