(n) a chronic and usually hereditary sleep disorder in which the person affected
will suffer spontaneous bouts of sleep (or "sleep attacks") during the day. Symptoms include: extreme sleepiness, typically followed by sleep attacks and last for fifteen minutes;
dream-
like hallucinations; sleep paralysis, where you cannot move when you start to fall asleep or just after you wake up; and cataplexy, which is an abrupt loss of muscle
tone (basically, your muscles "
fail you").
The disorder is not fatal, but can be depending on the situation you find yourself having a sleep episode. There is no cure for narcolepsy at the moment.