A 14-year-old girl reportedly slept for 32 years and woke up as a 46-year-old woman.
Have you ever experienced waking up after a slumber, feeling as though you’ve slept for decades? This feeling is quite common, even if you’ve only napped for a couple of hours.
However, for Karolina Olsson, the situation was very different as the young girl from the small island of Oknö near Mönsterås, Sweden, allegedly snoozed for over three decades...
She has now earned the nickname of a real-life "sleeping beauty" due to the shocking stories circulating about her.
Born on October 29, 1861, Olsson was the only girl in her family and the second-eldest of six children.
She grew up normal for the first 14 years of her life, but things took a turn in 1876 when she returned home from school with her brothers and complained of an excruciating toothache and a feeling of general unease.
According to reports, the teen's family suspected that she might be influenced by witchcraft or under some sort of evil spirit, however, it is also believed that the young girl informed them that she had slipped on ice while crossing a frozen river.
Nevertheless, Olsson's concerned mom instructed her to go to bed and she did with no complaints.
But, little did the family know that the girl would not wake up for 32 years.
At first, Olsson's worried family and neighbors collected money to have a doctor examine Olsson. However, when all attempts to wake her reportedly failed, they decided to conduct regular checkups to monitor her condition.
Over time, the girl's condition is believed to have remained unaltered, despite attempts to awaken her including subjecting her to electric currents in the hospital. Medical experts from a range of fields were apparently stumped by her situation, as it defied the usual understanding of sleeping disorders.
Reports state that the girl's mother continued to care for her through the years by feeding her milk. And, this continued even when the matriarch passed away in 1905, and a housekeeper was hired to help look after Olsson.
Three years later, the housekeeper heard peculiar sounds coming from the girl's room and rushed upstairs. To her shock, she found the now 46-year-old woman crying and staggering around her room.
Astonishingly, she had no recollection of the 32 years she had spent asleep, and could not recognize her brothers.
Several doctors examined Olsson and learned that apart from some weight loss and her younger behavior, the now-46-year-old was unaffected by the many years she had spent sleeping.
While Olsson ended up regaining her strength and speech in a matter of weeks, it left some people to wonder whether she really had been sleeping, or whether there was another reason for the bizarre ordeal.
It has been speculated that Swedish psychiatrist Harald Fröderström believed that the woman suffered from some sort of psychosis brought on or triggered by a traumatic event.
This may have led her to withdraw from the world by going under her blankets as a way of protecting herself. However, this is all unconfirmed as to this day, Olsson's story remains one surrounded by mystery.
Reportedly, after her awakening, the woman went on to live for another 42 years before she passed away in 1950 aged 88.