Fatal Familial Insomnia

Having insomnia; reading about fatal familial insomnia, vowing to sleep:

In 1986, this disease was given a name: fatal familial insomnia, or FFI.

Much of what doctors first learned about the disease comes from a family in Venice, Italy, who have suffered from it for over 200 years.

..."It's been a disaster. A brutal suffering," said Lucia, 63, one member of the Italian family. She has lost many relatives to the disease, including her father, brother and sister.
But when another family member, Silvano, started showing signs of the disease -- he began sweating profusely, with pinpoint pupils -- he decided it was time for his family to stop suffering in silence.

It was 1984, and he was 53 years old.

Silvano went to the University of Bologna, where researchers filmed his final months. In some of the videos, his eyes are half-open, staring into space. Just as it appears he's dozing off, he jerks to a half-wakefulness.

"Exactly what you can feel if you get a sleep attack when you are driving," said Dr. Pietro Cortelli, one of the researchers Silvano approached at the University of Bologna. "You are falling asleep, and then you wake up."

In other videos, he is lying in bed, pretending to comb his hair or button an imaginary shirt.

Sleeping pills didn't work. No matter what, his brain didn't allow him to reach the deeper, restorative stages of sleep.