NARCOLEPSY AND THE

WAKEFUL GAZE

Created by Dane Victor Galloway

In the following video I use my experience with narcolepsy and cataplexy to do three things: (1) illustrate two established notions of the gaze (medical and ableist), (2) introduce one novel notion of the gaze (wakeful), and (3) test the potential of an unexplored sociocultural medical metaphor (cataplectic collapse). None of these ideas will be fully developed here, but they may give a sense of the direction the research will take in longer form. Read the full background statement to learn more.

Note: Cataplexy is unique to narcolepsy, but hypersomnia (also called excessive daytime sleepiness or EDS) is not. Furthermore, evidence shows that capitalism is characterized by increasingly disparate levels of sleepiness, sleeplessness, and fatigue. Narcoleptics may live in the house of exhaustion, but we certainly don’t own the place. All are welcome, and all will pass through its doors at one point or another. To learn more about narcolepsy visit danegalloway.com/narcolepsy.