Have you ever had the sensation of waking up from a short nap, only to feel like you’ve been asleep for decades?
This sensation is actually quite familiar, even if you’ve only taken a brief nap for a couple of hours. But for Karolina Olsson, things took a rather unique turn.
Olsson, a woman hailing from Sweden, has been called a genuine ‘sleeping beauty’ due to the incredible tales that are making rounds about her.
As per the reports, she drifted off to sleep when she was just 14 years old, and incredibly, she awoke at the age of 46.
A lot of us might daydream about enjoying uninterrupted sleep every now and then, but Olsson’s prolonged slumber wasn’t simply a reaction to a tough week.
Her prolonged period of sleeping was far more remarkable than just a basic need for rest.
Born on October 29, 1861, Olsson was the sole girl among her five siblings. Her initial years were spent in a typical family environment until the age of 14.
The life of the teenager took an unforeseen twist when it’s reported that she returned home one day with a face swollen and in intense tooth pain.
It’s believed that Olsson told her family that she had slipped on ice while crossing a frozen river.
Worried about her health, her parents chose to have her rest and sent her to bed. Little did they know that the girl wouldn’t awaken for 32 years.
At first, her concerned family and neighbors pooled together enough funds to have a doctor examine Olsson.
Yet, when all efforts to rouse her allegedly proved quite challenging, they turned to performing routine checkups to keep an eye on her condition.
As time went on, it’s believed that Olsson’s condition remained unchanged, despite efforts to rouse her, including exposing her to electric currents in the hospital.
Medical professionals from various disciplines were seemingly baffled by her condition, as it deviated from the typical understanding of sleep disorders.
Over the years, it’s reported that Olsson’s mother took the lead in caring for her. However, when her mother passed away in 1905, a housekeeper was hired to help look after her.
Three years later, the housekeeper became aware of strange noises emanating from Olsson’s room.With a sense of urgency, they rushed upstairs and found the woman, now 46 years old, stumbling around her room, tears streaming down her face.
Remarkably, she had no recollection of the 32 years she had spent asleep, and her brothers were no longer recognizable to her.
A multitude of doctors rushed in to examine Olsson, and to their astonishment, they found that aside from some weight loss and her apparent youthful behavior, Olsson was actually unaffected by the many years she had spent in a horizontal slumber.
After awakening, Olsson supposedly went on to live for another 42 years.
