S4 E3: Beyond Narcolepsy: A Journey of Consciousness and Healing

Trigger Content Notice:

 This episode discusses psychedelics, substance use, religious/spiritual themes, and past trauma. Listener discretion advised.

In this powerful and vulnerable episode of Narcolepsy Navigators, we sit down with Alexander, a 28-year-old from Pennsylvania who shares one of the most unique and spiritually profound narcolepsy journeys we’ve heard yet. Diagnosed at 17, his story moves through misdiagnosis, heavy stimulants, sleep paralysis, terrifying hallucinations, dopamine-seeking behaviors, pre-workout amphetamines, and how he rebuilt his life by shifting his mindset — spiritually, psychologically, and physically.

TOPICS COVERED:

• Narcolepsy diagnosis experience
• Sleep paralysis + hallucinations
• Dopamine regulation & reward cycles
• Pre-workout supplements & hidden stimulants
• Trauma + head injuries
• Spiritual awakenings
• Mushrooms as spiritual tools
• Self-healing mindset
• Cataplexy experiences
• Redefining narcolepsy as “adaptation” instead of “disease.

CONNECT WITH ALEXANDER
IG: @sleepy.b.woke

New Episode Out Now: https://www.napsforlife.com/podcast/episode/7efd5676/s4-e3-beyond-narcolepsy-a-journey-of-consciousness-and-healing

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Transcript

Alexandre Final 7.12.25
[00:00:00] 
Kerly: Hi everyone, and welcome to Narcolepsy Navigators. I'm Kerly your host. I have narcolepsy, type one, 
Liz: and I'm Liz, your co-host. And I also have narcolepsy with cataplexy. 
Kerly: And today we're joined by Alexander from the us. And welcome to his story. Thank you. 
Kerly: So Liz, how was your weekend? 
Liz: My weekend, it was good actually.
Liz: I had a really good balance of chilling out, doing some exercise and seeing some friends as well, which was very much needed because my week at work was just so busy and so tiring. And I think with the dark evenings now, 'cause today it's getting dark about half, five. So that's a bit of a struggle. Tell my brain to try and stay awake past that time, but I'm glad I've had some good rest this weekend.
Kerly: How about you, Kerly? How has your week been? 
Kerly: I'll talk about my weekend instead of my week, but the weekend was good yesterday. Was a very long day. I was up really early 'cause I had my first speaking engagement for Naps for [00:01:00] Life, for a Black History Month event. It was to talk about women's health, and particularly how it affects black and brown women.
Kerly: I was able to talk about narcolepsy and educate them about that. And that was about 40 people in the room. I was really nervous. Before I left home and then my IBS played up and that hasn't happened in a long time. Imagine when the Uber turns up, then IBS decides, hello.
Kerly: Oh no. So that was really annoying and it wasn't close to me. It was in Elford Library and I live in Haringey. Those who live in the UK will understand where, it's not close at all. It's like over an hour away. It was really good day. It was really well received. People bought some of my coloring books.
Kerly: Two people came up to me. One lady told me that she couldn't believe all the stuff I was saying. Her daughter's having the same symptoms, and she talked to other people and people said other things. But no one has said all of the stuff that I said, like especially the hallucinations and the. Dreaming and she was just like, she took one of my cards and she's I'd love to talk to you, call you in the [00:02:00] week and just have a discussion.
Kerly: 'cause she just couldn't believe, 'cause this has happened to her daughter for a while and they haven't been able to figure out what was wrong. There was another person who talked about having excessive daytime sleepiness, but interestingly enough, hers only lasted for maybe a year or so, and it was in the COVID time.
Kerly: She thinks it was stress induced from. Going to college through COVID and having to do her lessons at home, but it stopped and it hasn't come back since. But she wasn't able to be in her classes. She was sleeping through all her classes and she wasn't able to keep herself awake or anything like that.
Kerly: But then it stopped. It just went away. So I said to her, remember what that feels like? And if in the future, if you start ever feeling that out of control. With your sleep. Again, don't hesitate to go to the doctor and ask to have a sleep study. It might not be narcolepsy, but there's so many other sleeping disorders. It's good to just make sure that everything's okay. 
Liz: Wow, amazing that you did a talk. Well done. 
Kerly: Alexandra, how was your weekend? 
 Alexander: I was really fascinated that [00:03:00] you're so involved. That's really cool. I've never really been involved with any narcolepsy groups around here. There's really very few people that I've met that have it, so that's really cool to You're that into it.
 Alexander: Yeah. This week was rough. I can't lie. Like I've been flying by on autopilot for quite a long time. No problems. But man, like this seasonal change is really. Powerful. Like I really forget every year how difficult the first couple transitionary weeks are into days slowing down. And that the circadian rhythm really affects me and it's so necessary to force myself to go outside in the morning.
 Alexander: 'cause if I don't, I'll just send a laying on the couch, laying in bed all day. It's tough. But it's just something where I feel like I gotta set my alarm and I really gotta stick to it, and I gotta hold myself. Because it's really difficult to be right now my couch is so comfortable, [00:04:00] but I can't complain. Everything's going well for me. Yeah, 
Liz: it's rough this time of year when things start getting darker and colder and I feel like all the light that signals to our brain to stay awake, obviously there's less of it. So as soon as it gets dark, I know my brain is okay, time to sleep now for the next 12 hours.
 Alexsander: There was the cartoon that I saw earlier. There's a bear and it starts to turn into winter and the bear is just so sleepy and he's nothing left to do but sleep. And I'm just like, yep, that's. Pretty much my animal brain right now. 
Kerly: I'd love to interview someone from Norway or Finland or in the Arctic Circle area to find out how do they manage with when it's winter most of the time it's in the dark. 
 Alexander: I imagine there would be some interesting sleep studies. On people that they have that perpetual day and perpetual night. That's something I'd be interested to look into. 
Kerly: Could you please introduce yourself, tell everybody your [00:05:00] name, what state you are residing in your age, if you feel comfortable, and what year you were diagnosed.
 Alexsander: So I'm in Pennsylvania in the United States. I'm 28 years old. I have narcolepsy type one. I was diagnosed at 17. It took me about probably six months. To diagnose me. So it really wasn't that long, but in that six months it was like hell, 'cause I had no idea what was going on. It was really terrifying.
Liz: What were your first symptoms that came up? 
 Alexander: It was pretty instantaneous. I would just pass out at the desk in school. I'd be sitting in a my morning chemistry class, my first class of the day, not even half an hour after waking up. I'd just be sitting there and my head would slam on the desk and everyone in the room would just stop and look at me.
 Alexander: My teacher would just stare at me. What's wrong with you? Why aren't you paying attention in my class? Taking like offense to it. It's funny 'cause even after I was [00:06:00] diagnosed, whenever I could tell them, listen, I have narcolepsy, it was still a gawking that they would give me, they would still give me such an attitude about why I'm not paying attention to them, and I didn't know how to react to it because I didn't have that energy to try and explain myself. I'm just like, I have narcolepsy. I'm sorry, I'm just so sleepy all the time, and those were my initial symptoms. 
 Alexander: But I know that my condition is heavily behaviorally based. Narcolepsy for me personally came because I had very poor behaviors and continued them repetitively day in and day out for long periods of time, and they really just put me deep in a hole to the point where I wasn't only falling asleep in class, I would falling, but sleep behind the wheel and then it turned into the hallucinations. And sleep [00:07:00] paralysis every night, and then the constant dreaming all the time, just straight lucid dreams. 
Liz: It's behavior based. What do you mean? What kind of behaviors do you think for you led into narcolepsy, 
 Alexsander: dopamine seeking behavior that give you the quick fix of dopamine video games? Working out, I was taking a Freeworkout supplement. I'm not sure how popular those are over in England, but in the bodybuilding and gym community, these Freeworkout C Beated supplements are really high in caffeine. But also back when I was taking them, which was not that long ago, but long ago enough that they weren't as regulated as they are now. They used to hide drugs in them, and they would put the amphetamines in them that are non-prescription drugs, but since they weren't illegal, they were legal because that's how the drugs work in the us. If they're not illegal, they're legal and they're [00:08:00] untouchable, so they could just put whatever they wanted to in these pre-workout supplements that make you feel on top of the world. I would go into the gym 16, 17 years old, and I would be just slamming the weights like in. Crazy animal feel like better than I've ever felt in my entire life.
 Alexander: But it's 'cause I was on amphetamine that was on a really strong street grade amphetamine and it took me a long time to accept the fact that had to do with it. My mother knew that was. The stuff that led to this sleep deprivation and the extreme reward seeking behaviors that I was displaying. She knew that it was stemming from this.
 Alexander: But when you try and take that kind of a drug away from somebody, they get defensive. I'm not sure if meant is common over there, but over here, if you try and take meth from someone who's addicted to meth, they're probably gonna try and kill you. It's a very [00:09:00] primal state that it puts you in. These street amphetamines and so yeah, that's been a very big problem and that's something that concerns me because if they're able to hide those things in the preworkout supplements and all these people are taking them, then I think that people getting narcolepsy is going to more common because they are so used.
 Alexander: To these drugs that give them that quick dopamine. So like I know a lot of people that they complain about how they can't sleep, but meanwhile they're on 400 grams of caffeine, which if you don't know, that's five or six cups of coffee. That's a lot of coffee. And then on top of that, they have all these other supplements. It's just a big cocktail of supplements that they put in these things. So I would say that's it. All those wic reward seeking behaviors, really you up my dopamine reward system, which is a very delicate [00:10:00] thing in your childhood.
 Alexander: And at my age, my brain was still very plastic. It still is very plastic now, but I firmly know. That's the reason why I have narcolepsy. It may have tuned it up being something that you could do a genetic test and see, yes, there's the code for narcolepsy. There's codes that represent narcolepsy, but I know that only reason I have those codes is because I went off. Upon this really bad path of poor behaviors and imprinted that for myself, 
Kerly: usually some of reasons why people end up with narcolepsy, apart from genetics, if they had a brain injury, a four. If they got some type of really bad virus. So around that age, did you ever have a fall before when you were younger or have a really bad virus?
 Alexander: That's actually an awesome question. That's fascinating that you say that. 'cause like I haven't really thought too much about. That [00:11:00] being something that to it. 
 Alexander: But yeah, like when I was younger, I got assaulted by some random person and I got knocked out. I was just hanging out in the street with some friends and some random person came up to me and assaulted me and knocked me out I had some fractures in my eye. I was blacked out for quite a little bit of time. I would say that was a traumatic brain injury that I had when I was younger, and I cracked my head open a few times as a kid too. 
Kerly: I didn't realize until maybe six years ago that head injuries could cause narcolepsy. I always thought it was genetic or the virus. And when I think back, the only virus I had was when I was like 16, and that was chicken pox. But my symptoms started before then. And then I remember the accident I had when I just came to this country when I was seven and I had a head injury. When I fell out the bus and my leg was being dragged, I was being dragged along by the double decker bus. And it's lucky that I didn't die. Because I spent so much time at the dentist. For the damage that was done, I [00:12:00] just never, ever thought of it as a brain thing that happened to me. I just only thought of it as the dental issue, and I put it to the back of my head, and then I started meeting more people who had car crashes and other stuff like that, which had brain injuries or had a brain injury as a child. And then when they're a teenager, something just. Happen in the system and they started to have these narcolepsy symptoms. 
 Alexander: Yeah, I've met people that have it straight genetically, like from 10 years old, which changed my mind on what it really is because for a long time I thought this is a hundred percent behaviorally, but then I'm meeting these people that have it just genetically too. I think it's so complicated because with the head injury thing, it's definitely not the cause. For me, it's just like that may have predisposed my body for the inability to, at that critical time because I think we all, our body is the healer, like we have the healer in [00:13:00] us, but those types of things could really disrupt the coating of the healer, so then you're not able to heal in the proper way. Think. It's so complicated to say where it comes from for each person, so I think it's for them to decide. But I have another friend just like me that it was by it. It wasn't even by chance, it was destiny that I met this guy because he has it for the same exact reason that I have it. We literally shared just about everything, like the same su we were doing the same supplements.
 Alexander: Destroying or autoimmune and nervous zones with heavy weightlifting because if you're on amphetamines, you want to do something and you wanna go into the gym, you can really overexert yourself and overexerting yourself really puts. Taxing on your nervous system. I think that because of that taxing that we're putting on the nervous system and not allowing our [00:14:00] bodies to recover in the proper way, it just made us even more predisposed to our inability to heal from something, some illness or however, whatever other way that narcolepsy worked itself into us.
 Alexander: I believe you said something about. Some people get it after being sick and it could have been something that we didn't even notice. Yeah. I find that all that's fascinating. 
Kerly: Alexandra, what do you do for work? How did your families and friends. Deal with your diagnosis and stuff. 
 Alexander: So I'm a manager in a warehouse and I recommend the job if you can get a standing desk and you can get an accommodation for that.
 Alexander: It's so helpful because can't sit down for eight hours a day or I work for 11 hours and wow. I don't have any problems. I have a standing desk. I get to walk around and talk to employees, so it's a really great job for, it's really the perfect job for me. 
Kerly: Wow. 11 [00:15:00] hours. That's mad. Do you get to take naps in that time?
 Alexander: If I do take a nap, it's for about five minutes. In my car during that five minutes. I don't know about you guys, but I'm hearing music. I've never heard. I'm having visions. I'm blasting off, dude. I'm going out into the universe in that. Yes, it's an amazing feeling, and then I come right back down. It takes a little while for me to feel my spirit or whatever, that feeling of the energy coming back down into my body, but I feel. Perfect after that. And I don't even need naps most days, but if I do, that's all I need. That five minutes. 
Liz: Do you take medication or not at all at the moment, 
 Alexander: absolutely not. Nothing
Kerly: did you used to take any before that when you were just diagnosed? 
 Alexander: I tried everything. Am I allowed to name them? 
Kerly: You can name them.
 Alexander: All right. So I was on the Serra Lee, which really is nothing. I was on Adderall. [00:16:00] Vyvanse, Ritalin, Modafinil, Xyrem, the GHB tried all the different stimulants, different antidepressants, the sleep medicines, and for me personally, it all it did was mask the symptoms and made me feel good. They're all tools and I think that I didn't get that.
 Alexander: I didn't understand them as being tools. I understood them as being something that was required. That I needed, so I wasn't able to use them properly at the time because I was stuck in this loop of, okay, I take this one at this time and then this one at this time, and then I would still suffer. I would have terrible symptoms all day long, like even on the highest doses of Adderall, even when I was on the highest doses of Xyrem and like I worked my ways up to those doses.
 Alexander: I tried so many things, but I wasn't getting at the root cause. 
Kerly: So what was your turning point when you said, okay, I've [00:17:00] tried everything, had enough, you want me to go there? 
 Alexander: For me, it took me smoking some marijuana. I had to try marijuana, and then I realized that now I can sleep. And the interesting thing about marijuana.
 Alexander: People don't know with narcolepsy that it's a REM suppressant. It suppresses rapid eye movement. Now, I think this is certain strain. You have to have the right strain because there's so many different kinds that have different cannabinoids and they definitely affect people differently. It's to each their own.
 Alexander: And I'm not recommending any of this, but I am saying it is a rapid eye movement suppressor. It suppresses REM sleep. And the problem with people with narcolepsy is that they go into REM sleep before they fall asleep. I'm not saying cure, it's definitely not. I'm just saying like it for me was a tool that opened my mind, and then from there I was open-minded enough [00:18:00] because I had already tried every hard drug that the doctors were willing to give me.
 Alexander: They gave me everything, and so I was open-minded enough to go try psilocybin mushroom. Now. That for, it's nothing like the movies or media make you think the mushrooms are For me, it was literally like I ate the mushrooms and then I had a hand on my shoulder saying, Hey, you don't have to do this any longer this way.
 Alexander: Okay. I'm with you and I want to help you. It's like it brought out the healer that's inside of me that I didn't know about before. I didn't know that I had a healing power within. And it's not even religious, but it's, it was an experience of, for me, and the way I was brought up, it was literally like I had Jesus there with his hand on my shoulder being like, Hey, it's okay.
 Alexander: Like I'm with you. I want to help you, and everything's gonna be okay. You [00:19:00] don't have to be so hard on yourself. You can be gentle with yourself and that's the way you're supposed to be.
Liz: It sounds and nice experience.
 Alexsander: It was a life changing moment for me. Like it really opened doors for me that I feel like when you have narcolepsy, when you're going through all the negative symptoms, you get so caught up that.
 Alexsander: It's hard for you to even fathom being healable and to even be able to realize that you have the healer with you at all times. Like I couldn't have ever fathomed that until I had this psychedelic experience and since then. My journey's just been up and away from the negative symptoms because I started to become aware of why am I experiencing the sleep paralysis? Why am I experiencing the hallucinations? What do they mean? I started asking the right questions and I started [00:20:00] getting the answer very subtly, but I started getting the answers and like paying attention to my actions. My behaviors were affecting me. Even if there were like really small behaviors that I would have, I started to pay attention and I'm by no means like perfect in any way right now. Still have so far to go, but like from where I was for that, I feel like I've come so far and it shows in my ability to stay awake and my ability to not. Be hindered by the negative aspects of the condition anymore. I really hope that other people are willing to ask the right questions because if we wanna know the answers, all we have to do is knock at that door and it will be revealed to us in a way that we may not like at first, or we may not be ready for. But I feel like the answers are always there. 
Liz: So when you say you are [00:21:00] asking yourself. Why am I having sleep paralysis? Why am I having hallucinations? Like when you say, oh, it was certain behaviors that led into that, what kind of things was it?
Liz: And also, another question is, do you take. Sort of mushrooms and smoke weed regularly to help support your narcolepsy, or what does that look like to you? 
 Alexsander: So I'll start with that one. I don't need it. I, it was a tool and it served its purpose and now I no longer need it, it's something that I could do without the rest of my life, and I'm okay with that because the doors are already open. I already know the doors are open and all I have to do is ask and the doors will continue to be open before I had that experience that the doors were just shut. And no matter how hard I banged on the doors, it felt like I was just hopeless and stuck. 
 Alexsander: And I think a lot of people with narcolepsy are having that experience.
 Alexsander: Such a condition where you just are stuck in this cycle of trying [00:22:00] and fighting to stay awake. And you just can't. You just can't. And no matter how hard you slam on the door of consciousness to bring you the light, you're not getting that. And it sucks. I remember how hard it was at that time.
 Alexsander: But no, to answer your question, no, I don't use weed anymore. I don't need it. I don't think anybody needs it. But I do think it's a great tool and. Same with the mushrooms. The mushrooms are a fantastic tool, not medical advice at all, but they are spiritual tools that allow you to manifest and if you have the right intentions and if you have a good heart, I think like it can be a very positive thing for people.
Liz: So do you feel like it helped you, like the weed helped with the sleep and then the mushrooms helped you to connect? With a more kind of positive voice in yourself, is that what you mean? Or does it? Did it also impact your day-to-day symptoms? 
 Alexsander: It also impacted my day-to-day [00:23:00] symptoms because it changed my attitude.
 Alexsander: And it's hard to realize how much of an effect our attitude and our mindset and our concepts of the world, the way that we conceptualize the world has such an impact on our experience that whenever I started to think of narcolepsy as an adapt patient and not a disease is, so I've meditated. Deeply on mushrooms, on the word narcolepsy, just the word narcolepsy.
 Alexsander: And I really went deep in, I really magnified as deep in as I could go on this word and what it meant in my psyche, like what it meant in my mind at a deep level. And what I experienced was hell was monsters, was. Demon terrifying. Just absolutely the most negative thing ever. Just pure wickedness and evil surrounding this word, [00:24:00] narcolepsy.
 Alexsander: And I just realized like, wow, just allowing myself to stay narcolepsy really puts like a spell on myself. A way because I had, because the doctors and everybody talking about narcolepsy had such a negative narrative that was being pushed on me, and it built into my personal experience of it. And so I feel like changing my mind about what narcolepsy is.
 Alexsander: I feel like everybody should be. Primary Bo and now that I'm thinking about narcolepsy, being an adaptation really becomes more of a superpower because like I said, my naps, they're five minutes. I get to blast off into freaking space, hear music I've never heard before, and have an out of body experience that people do all kinds of drugs and rituals to experience all around the world. I just get to put my [00:25:00] seat back in my car.
Kerly: On the support groups, we always laugh about that saying how the amount of money that people pay to and we just need to put our head down and then we are in that space. In the other realm. 
 Alexsander: And it's such a realm where you have such a power to manifest things through prayers and setting intentions because your consciousness, I don't know what your experiences are, but the other people with narcolepsy that I've spoken to say we also are like in that sleep week state.
 Alexsander: We have conscious control over our thoughts in a way, maybe not completely over our experience. . When we're having a sleep attack, it's like thrust upon you and you eat the wrong food and suddenly you're like, you're just traumatized. And you have to go into that realm. And so why not take that opportunity, set intentions, and pray and have a conversation with God and ask for. Positivity. [00:26:00] Ask the right things. Ask for guidance, ask for wisdom. Ask can I improve? What can I do to be a better person, to help other people in that short little burst. For me personally, I take that time to ask for wisdom and guidance and I, and every time I wake up, I come out of it and I start to walk around in the world. I just feel so much more lighter and upright. I feel like my body's just loose all the inflammation. If you're experiencing the inflammation and the negative symptoms, ask to be loose of them. Just ask God or the higher power, whatever you believe in, to loose you of them because like it's a cease where. Those messages get out there a lot more than they do. Like in the state that we're in right now, our messages get out while we're speaking, but we could really put something out in the universe in that sleep week state, and I think a lot of [00:27:00] people are having a missed opportunity there. So I just wanna shine a light on that 
Liz: and where you always. 
Liz: Spiritual or do you feel like narcolepsy has led you to being more in touch with that side of yourself? 
 Alexsander: No, I was never spiritual, like before I had it I was raised Catholic, like a lot of people and I hated the Catholic church and so I chose to go against it and be atheist. When I was diagnosed, I was in that stage of atheism or agnosticism where I'm like, oh, I don't believe in God, or I don't know if I believe in God. Seeing what I've seen in those sleep paralysis states, I don't know how it's been for you two. I'd be curious to hear your experiences as well, but for me it was terrifying to see what was waiting for me because I was due those things.
 Alexsander: And I don't think everybody is what they're experiencing, but I think. The reason why I was seeing what I was seeing is because I was meant to see [00:28:00] it with something that was a reflection of something that was going on inside of me and I was just projecting it out and it was terrifying. And , it drew me to God because I was like, God, please help me. What is this that I'm seeing? It's terrifying. Please help me get it away from me. I needed to know, can I be saved from this? Am I protected from this or am I just damned and like broken to the point where I can't be healed and fixed and protected anymore because, I really felt so broken in those times that I would experience those negative things. 
 Alexsander: And it took so many years and frankly the psychedelics were what helped me to heal from those. Because it allowed me to stare them in the face and see, what are you, what do you want here? Why are you here? And not fear, because the problem is like we get in such a fear state when we're having [00:29:00] to sleep paralysis. Experiences that we're not allowing ourselves to just experience it and understand it. A fascinating study on the psilocybin, on the mushrooms is that they are very powerful tools for Phoenix, and I think this is why it was so helpful for me it allows you to go into those terrifying places and face them and not be afraid and just be present and just be aware and observed.
Liz: You manage sleep paralysis or hallucinations now if you have them. Do you feel like you can just be present rather than being reactive to the situation? 
 Alexsander: Most of the time, yeah. There's still some experiences that just can be overwhelming. But I know that I'm meant to experience them. So afterwards I'm like, I'm grateful that I experienced them because I get the message out of it that I was supposed to receive. But it took me so many years to like even realize that there's a me. Then there's an underlying message of these interdimensional [00:30:00] beings that I'm seeing, like they're coming between dimensions. Are these aliens? Is this what aliens are? Is it something religious? I had all these questions that I didn't understand and I think it's to each their own. I think it could be a very positive thing for you to shine a light in that area because once you realize what the dark side of you is, then you can become more comfortable facing it when you have to. Because can't, it's very difficult to be a shining star all the time, as much as we can try. But if we can get to know that dark side and know it well enough to be able to have authority over it, having authority over it is everything. And I'm not gonna get religious with you, but Jesus says, I give you all authority to stump on snakes and scorpions, and he's not just talking about snakes and scorpions on earth. He's talking about these damn things that we're seeing in our rooms [00:31:00] at night. 
Liz: Lots of interesting ideas I think it's so interesting about how narcolepsy can, with the sleep hallucinations, the paralysis, it can take you to like a different plane almost. Maybe you are connecting with the universe in a different way that people, who don't have narcolepsy can't do that as easily. And I also had a question for you around, so you've mentioned about these behaviors and how they kind of impact. Narcolepsy and how some of your actions when you were younger with the gym, medication, that kind of thing , you feel like that led to you having narcolepsy. And I was wondering how you feel about that, because if there's that idea that you've done something that has caused narcolepsy, does that make you feel a certain way?
Kerly: Does it upset you that you did those things? 
Liz: Or do you feel like guilt around that?
Liz: Because it sounds like you feel, some of your behaviors led to developing narcolepsy.
 Alexsander: No, I felt guilt., That's a very low vibration. That's one of the lowest energies to be on, is guilt. And in [00:32:00] that space is where I would see what I would see in my bedroom and be terrified. And it was all stemming from those vibrational energies, like guilt. And I would just feel guilty. And this is more of a thing for men, but men. Or in a, an epidemic right now of pornography. It's a very uncomfortable thing men can't talk about with women, but for me personally, I struggled with that. And every other man right now knows like that is so difficult. There's a major guilt factor that comes. A lot of it would stem from things like that. And then just all the dopamine reward seeking behaviors would add up to the point where like at night, I would feel so unfulfilled. It would feel awful and I would just feel pure guilt. And so I don't regret the behaviors because I think that I was meant to go through all this for a reason. I, it's not that I think I know I was meant to go through all [00:33:00] this for a reason, like God did this, worked all these things in my life and weaved everything back together to the point that I'm at now, so that I can tell other people, listen, you can be healed.
 Alexsander: We can work through this condition. We don't have to suffer from it. There's no suffering to be had. It's just part of the experience. It's part of the human condition, and we're just experiencing it in a different way than other people. And we get too caught up in saying, I have narcolepsy, I have arthritis, I have this disease, that disease. Then we're just putting these negative expressions upon ourselves, and so , I want to help other people realize that this isn't something that has to hinder your life. It's just part of the experience and you just have to accept it for what it is and begin to see the areas that you can change to help. Prove it because it took me forever to realize that I was not the disease because I [00:34:00] felt like I was the disease and I identified with it so much that I would lash out at anybody that would tell me that narcolepsy doesn't exist or you just need to get sleep at night. I would lash out at that in anger when really, yeah, they were right. They were right. I just needed to pay more attention to what I was doing. And I think that it's important message because I think that over the years, although you two may have. Completely different experiences of what caused your narcolepsy. I think that over the years, this is gonna continue to be something that's much more behaviorally based than anything and diagnosable by people's poor behaviors. Because I see the world going in a direction of these quick dopamine vectors that are really detrimental to our mental health and to our ability to rest and get our brain into a restful state. Because to get into that deep sleep state, our reward [00:35:00] system needs to be int. If we're destroying our reward system, it's not allowing us to tap into that reward system to get that deep rest. And that's why Xyrem is such a powerful, great sleep medicine is because it allows you to tap into that reward system and go deep into it. So I feel that I'm not upset at all that I went through what I went through. I was meant to go through it. I'm totally okay with that. 
Liz: Do you think epilepsy can be cured?
 Alexsander: Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. I think everything can be cured, but it's just a difficult thing because you have to be a little bit of a lunatic. You have to be a little crazy to allow yourself to not believe what the world is telling you because the world is telling you this is a chronic condition that is lifelong and you are going to experience these symptoms and they're spoonfeeding you this idea and you believe.
 Alexsander: Because they're doctors and they have [00:36:00] PhDs. They earned these PhDs because they're very well studied and well versed. I've never met a doctor that knows more about narcolepsy than I know, and I don't even know all that much. They don't know anything. At least where I live. I've never had a good narcolepsy doctor.
Kerly: No, I do agree with you in that people mustn't be afraid to remember that although someone went to school and learned medicine from a textbook, only you can say what you are feeling in your body. You are the expert of your body because you know what you are physically feeling another person can't say to you, oh, no, you didn't feel these things. You are having these feelings all the time. It would seem to me that you've eliminated with this positive mindset, you have reduced the stress in your life, and we know that stress makes narcolepsy 10 times worse.
 Alexsander: Absolutely. Yeah. I really think, I'm not an advertising, but I really think that the psilocybin mushrooms changed my life because they opened me up to this [00:37:00] spiritual, they opened me up to the. I have a spirit. Like I didn't know that I had more than just a body and a brain. I never felt that because I was just so exhausted that I didn't even have a concept of what a spirit was or anything. And then I started to feel that, and stepping into that made me realize. Maybe all of this just manifested because of my behaviors. So it started in the physical, and I feel like if I go into the spiritual that I can begin to manifest the healing of it. And so I started to step into speaking that more positively about it and.
 Alexsander: Stepping into the idea that I can be healed. That I can have deep sleep, and because you're told you can't have deep sleep, you're not allowed to have deep sleep, you have narcolepsy, you can't, you're told that, and I really believe that. These are very subconscious suggestions that they go eat and I found the [00:38:00] stronger of a prayer than I have before going to sleep tonight.
 Alexsander: And the more sure that I am that I'm not going to wake up, I put myself in a seat of prayer where I'm asking for that. Peaceful rest clothed me in deep peace. As I go to sleep tonight, allow me to have six to eight hours of unhindered sleep. Allow me to feel deep rest and you can repeat it until you believe it and whenever you begin to believe it. Then you actually see, whoa, okay, I went to sleep at midnight and I woke up at four in the morning. That's four hours of sleep. Like I've never, I never could have that 'cause I would wake up every hour or every hour and a half and never get into a deep sleep. That really gives your body the regenerative energy that it needs.
Liz: And what do your symptoms look like now, 
 Alexsander: earlier I took a nap, lasted about 10 minutes. Like I've said earlier, it's crazy visions and dreams and [00:39:00] everything, but I get up. If I ever need a nap, it's just five to 15 minutes and I'm back to norm. And yeah, I might need two or three a day, but 45 minutes is nothing because I used to be struggling in bed, like I'd be in bed all day if I let myself back in the day. But now I'll sleep for seven to eight hours, and then I'll just live on those two to three naps and spread them out as I need to throughout the day. But symptom-wise. You would never know that I am experiencing any of it. Like people at work, they're, they don't know they, they've heard that I have it, but like they've never seen it because I don't have the cataplexy that I used to have, like I used to have cataplexy to the point where I would be just laughing and I would just fall on the ground, go completely limp and not, and people would think they had to call an ambulance because I thought I'm on the ground.
 Alexsander: Season up, but getting [00:40:00] my behaviors right really helps. Because the reward seeking behavior was what was really disruptive and causing my cataplexy symptoms to really fluctuate eating the wrong foods that you guys probably have a lot healthier food over there in uk, but like they have a lot of fake sugars foods over here and those would really affect my cataly C and make my muscles just go limp.
 Alexsander: But nowadays, that's it. Couple naps a day if that. Some days not even. 
Liz: And how are your family with supporting you, with your diagnosis with narcolepsy and also the journey you're on in terms of your kind of positive mindset, connecting with yourself spiritually.
 Alexsander: They've been really supportive.
 Alexsander: They haven't intruded at all. They've allowed me to do my thing. I'm like. Hey, mom, I'm trying cannabis. Hey mom, I'm doing trim now. Hey mom, I'm trying all these different substances, and she was open to it because she knew like [00:41:00] I was already getting prescribed some of the strongest substances that are out there. How is this stuff? As long as it's tested and clean and the source. How is that stuff gonna hurt me any more than the stuff that was prescribed to me? So she was really supportive and they've always been very supportive about me needing my naps and allowing me to have that time if I need it. Yeah, I've had good support system, me and self-help journey my, it was a very self-help, self-realization journey for me. 
Liz: And I can see on your Instagram, you've shared some of your ideas and make videos and things. What brought you to being an advocate social media?
 Alexsander: I had a friend, I talked briefly about him earlier, a guy that I met with narcolepsy. One night I was driving home from the club. Me and some friends went out clubbing and we were driving these two random people home, didn't really know. And my girlfriend, she said, Hey, by the way, [00:42:00] this guy has narcolepsy. And I'm like, he has narcolepsy. I've never met anyone with narcolepsy before, so that was like so crazy to me. And at the time he was really like. Really struggling, like deep states of likes, almost like episodes from narcolepsy where you're like just so drained that you're just like, you're living in that sleep week state. He was like living in that state and he was really struggling and I had broken free from that at that point.
 Alexsander: And the one day we decided, oh, we're gonna have a psilocybin journey, and so we tried the psilocybin together and we went down to the creek. We hung out there for an hour or two the entire time he was just staring at the creek. He was a hundred miles away. It's like he wasn't even there just staring at the creek, just letting go into the flow of nature in like the most genuine [00:43:00] sense.
 Alexsander: He was just being still, he was so still, and it just allowed this healing power to come into him. And ever since then, he's literally been free from his narcolepsy, which is. Unbelievable. 'cause like he was really strong. He was in that sleep wig state all the time. And this one single experience allowed him to free himself from it. And so ever since then I'm like, wow. So it's not just me, it's this guy too. And who else is out there that wants. To be healed from this. And I'm not saying go do mushrooms. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we can be healed, like we can heal ourselves so much on our own. We need to begin to step into that power that we have. Ever since then, I just, I feel like I need to tell people you can be healed. And you asked earlier, do I think it can be cured a hundred percent. It can be cured, a hundred percent may not be in the way that you think.
 Alexsander: But do you really want it to be cured? Because I don't, [00:44:00] this is like seriously a superpower for me. Other people, when they get tired, they feel like crap. They're all groggy. I'm either in a state of wakefulness or I need a nap, and after I get my nap, I'm back to wakefulness. But I'm never like tired.
 Alexsander: I'm never like exhausted because. The naps are such a powerful adaptation for me. They've evolved me to allow me to be in like this steady state. 
Liz: Interesting. Very interesting. 
Liz: , I think I know the answer to this question, but I'm gonna ask you, if you could press a red button and totally get rid of narcolepsy and never have experienced it,
 Alexsander: no, 
 Alexsander: It's totally part of the spiritual journey like I've had to see what I had to see to get to where I am. 
Liz: And what's the main thing that you feel you have gained from narcolepsy? 
 Alexsander: Understanding of the spiritual realm, understanding. There's a lot more going on in my [00:45:00] psyche than I realize, and psychology is very powerful and we should all try and learn more psychology.
Liz: And if you had one key takeaway for all the listeners out there, what would it 
 Alexsander: Ask if you want the door to be open to you. Just knock if you have questions. If you're not sure, ask and they'll be answered. But don't allow yourself to be trapped. In the mind state of having a disease, open your mind to the fact. It's just a condition and you don't want to give it that negative connotation. So try and ask for a more positive experience if you want that. 
Liz: Thanks Alexander. It feels good to hear your story and you have interesting idea. 
Kerly: Yeah, it's very interesting if you tell people what your handle is so they can find you on Instagram.
 Alexsander: Yeah, I'm sleepy, but woke.
Liz: And if it's legal over there now, you can set up a mushroom business and start selling. 
 Alexsander: It's definitely not legal, 
Liz: maybe not then.
 Alexsander: [00:46:00] No, I'll just advocate for open-mindedness.
Liz: Or move to Amsterdam where it is legal. 
 Alexsander: Oh yeah. 
Liz: Yeah, 
 Alexsander: my healing cafe. 
Liz: Okay. Fab. We like to end everyone say Happy napping. Everyone happy nap.