Sandman on Netflix: Sleeping Sickness is a True Story!

In the first episode of Sandman, a dreamcatcher played by Tom Sturridge causes a worldwide epidemic called sleeping sickness. But this is not a fantasy imagined by graphic novel author Neil Gaiman. sand man, who co-starred in its adaptation for Netflix. This fact is based on real events.

The disappearance of the Dream Lord destroys the waking world and the kingdom of Morpheus, the dream world that has begun to collapse. In the process, several dreams and nightmares such as Corinthian (Boyd Holbrook) left the kingdom and their functions to pursue their own projects.

Meanwhile, in the waking world, sleeping sickness has spread, affecting millions of people who simply fell asleep and never woke up. One of them, Unity Kincaid (Sandra James-Young), was to become the dream whirlwind of her time. Instead, this power was passed to his granddaughter, Rose Walker (Vanesu Samuniai).

To tell this story, Neil Gaiman was inspired by a real epidemic that happened between 1916 (the year the dream was captured) and 1927. Known as lethargic encephalitis, sleeping sickness has struck 5 to 10 million people worldwide, killing half. in their short time. The virus responsible for lethargic encephalitis has never been clearly identified.

Many sleeping sickness survivors recover, but years later are debilitated by a Parkinson-like syndrome. Dr. Oliver Sacks wrote the book Awakenings (waking up in French), on which the film of the same name starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro is based, about sleeping sickness and its victims. Cleverly, Neil Gaiman made a connection to the real epidemic and sand man And he blamed the imprisonment of dreams on sleeping sickness.

After more than a decade, the sleeping sickness epidemic ended abruptly in 1927 for no apparent reason. Thousands of victims have been in institutions for decades, still alive but trapped in their bodies, just like Unity Kincaid in Sandman.

Many patients returned to their normal lives after treatment, but their miraculous recovery was short-lived. Most patients return to a catatonic state within days or weeks. Although the lethargic encephalitis epidemic of 1916-1927 has not recurred since then, there have been rare cases, leading doctors to believe that the lethargic encephalitis virus is merely dormant.

In Sandman, the story is different. The dream was imprisoned for a hundred years and the sleeping sickness continued until Morpheus escaped at the end of Episode 1. While Dream was in captivity, even those who were not victims of sleeping sickness, such as Johanna Constantine (Jenna Coleman), suffered from terrifying recurring nightmares.

Morpheus’ return to his kingdom ended the sleeping sickness and set the world back until John Dee (David Thewlis) threatens all of reality by possessing the Dream Ruby and altering it. And that is until Morpheus stops him.