With insomnia nothing’s real. Everything’s far away. Everything’s a copy of a copy of a copy.
Jack
Contrary to the assertion of the Intern (Richmond Arquette) in David Fincher’s Fight Club that No, you can’t die from insomnia», apparently one can die from insomnia.
In particular, one can die from fatal familial insomnia, the main symptom of which
The main symptom of FFI, as the disease is often called, is the inability to sleep. First the ability to nap disappears, then the ability to get a full night's sleep, until the patient cannot sleep at all. The syndrome usually strikes when the sufferer is in his or her 50s, ordinarily lasts about a year, and, as the name indicates, always ends in death.
D. T. Max
In summer 1997 I was under extreme emotional distress» and developed insomnia. It started out as waking at 2:00 am, tossing for an hour, and sleeping fitfully until 6 am. Then I started waking at 11:00 pm and 2:00 am, then at 11:00 pm, 2:00 am, 4:00 am until I found myself waking every hour. For a week, I could not sleep at all and found myself just drifting off as it was time to go to my library job.
It was, heretofore, the worst emotional experience of my life. I wonder if IFF is at all linked to emotional trauma.