A 17-year-old Indonesian girl simply known as Echa, has been dubbed a “real-life Sleeping Beauty” or the “sleeping daughter of South Kalimantan because she occasionally falls asleep for several days at a time
Echa, who hails from Banjarmasin, in Indonesia’s South Kalimantan region, first made news headlines in 2017, when national news outlets reported that she slept for 13 days straight.
She has experienced a some worrying episodes since then, but last week, her condition worsened and she fell into a deep sleep for about seven days. Her parents took her to the Ansari Saleh hospital in Banjarmasin, but her tests came out fine. The teenager finally woke up after a total of nine days, but doctors say that she is still very weak.
No one really knows what is causing Echa’s unusual long sleep, but symptoms suggests that she is suffering from hypersomnia, a very rare neurological condition that causes sufferers to feel excessive sleepiness during the day, and fall asleep for long stretches of time.
Hypersomnia comes in many forms and has many probably causes, from neurological damage, to genetic factors and physical or emotional trauma.
Echa’s father, Mulyadi, told Tribunn.com that he had tried waking up the girl several times, but to no avail. Interestingly, the girl reportedly chews and swallows food in her sleep, if fed by her parents.
