The disorder termed "narcolepsy" was first identified and named by Gelineau in 1880. He defined narcolepsy as the "pathological condition characterized by irresistible episodes of sleep of short duration recurring at close intervals...sometimes accompanied by falls..." (Gilleminaut, 1994, p.338). Later on, Daniels (1930) suggested an association between daytime sleepiness, cataplexy, sleep paralysis, and hypnagogic hallucination (see "Symptoms"). Narcolepsy has been brought to public attention as more people have been diagnosed, thus resulting in the First International Symposium on Narcolepsy held in France in 1975. Narcolepsy was defined, during this symposium, as a "syndrome of unknown origin that is characterized by abnormal sleep tendencies, including excessive daytime sleepiness and often disturbed nocturnal sleep and pathological manifestations of REM sleep" (Gillemineaut, 1994, p.338).
Small but solid advances have been made in the study of narcolepsy. Although there is an ongoing debate over the etiology of the syndrome, one thing is certain--narcolepsy is accompanied by pathological manifestations of REM sleep. These manifestations were evidenced by the works of Yoss and Daly (1957) and Vogel (1960) in narcoleptic patients and have been confirmed (Billiard, Salva, DeKoninck, & Besset, 1986; Broughton, Dunham, Newman, Lutley, Duschesne, & Rivers, 1988; Hishikawa & Kaneko, 1965; Takahashi & Jimbo, 1963).