Neil Gaiman’s dark fantasy comic The Sandman is getting highly positive reviews on Netflix. The adaptation took years to make because it was deemed unfilmable. The unique fantasy series stars Tom Sturridge in the lead as Dream of the Endless. It follows his quest to retrieve the totems that were stolen from him and exact revenge on the ones that had done him wrong. While the narrative is indeed enthralling, you’d be surprised to know that the sleeping sickness depicted in the series was actually quite real. 

It’s not all fiction folks.

The sleeping sickness in The Sandman is based on true events 

Neil Gaiman has crafted a marvelous story from real events that took place between 1917 and 1927. He put a genius spin on the real epidemic that affected nearly 5-10 million people globally and blamed it on the King of Dreams. In the series, when Roderick Burgess captures Dream and steals his tools – a pouch of sand, helmet, and ruby, he does some serious damage to both the Dreaming and the waking world. While Dreams’ realm crumbles in his absence, as Dreams and Nightmares abandon the realm, an incomprehensible disease like sleeping sickness affects humans. Humans fall into an endless cycle of sleep, never waking up.

But in the real world, an unidentified bacteria caused lethargic encephalitis otherwise known as sleeping sickness. The mysterious disease caused an inflammation of the brain and killed the affected almost immediately during that period. But weirdly, the epidemic ended suddenly in 1927. Doctors and researchers couldn’t find an answer to its abrupt ending. The survivors of the disease suffered from Parkinson’s-like syndrome years later. 

The Sandman isn’t the first series to bring the event to light. Robin Williams-starrer, Awakenings, a 1990 movie also chronicled this very event. In fact, it was based on Dr. Oliver Sachs’ books about sleeping sickness. His books also talked about L-Dopa, the drug administered to survivors who exhibited Parkinson-like syndrome.

In Neil Gaiman’s fictional series, however, Dreams’ escape from captivity and his return to the realms sets things right in the waking world. People started waking up after years of slumber. 

Stream the dark fantasy series here.