Karolina Olsson

Karolina Olsson, April 14, 1908

Karolina Olsson , also Carolina (born October 29, 1861 on Oknö near Mönsterås , Sweden ; † April 5, 1950 ) was unconscious for 32 years from 1876 to 1908 and is therefore the person with the longest unconsciousness before waking up.

It has been speculated whether it really was a total loss of consciousness, as there are several unexplained events, such as that she always had her nails and hair cut as normal.

Early life

In addition to her father and mother, Karolina Olsson's family consisted of one older and four younger siblings. The family lived in a torp on the island that their mother had inherited. The mother was born in 1829, the father, a fisherman, was born in 1825. The two married in 1859. Karolina received home schooling in household affairs and did not begin school until the fall of 1875, even though she could already write and read.

unconsciousness

Olsson fell asleep on February 22, 1876, at the age of 14. Earlier in the day she had complained of a toothache. The family believed witchcraft was involved and they should lie down. She did not wake up from the sleep that followed.

A doctor from the area, Johan Emil Almbladh, visited her several times. He said that her sleep was a severe case of hysteria. She was treated for a month in July 1892 in the hospital in Oskarshamn . Attempts were also made to cure the disease with the help of electricity. She was released on August 2, 1892, without any change in her condition. The diagnosis made by the hospital was “dementia paralytica”. However, there is little evidence of actual dementia paralytica . No trained psychiatrist ever saw her before she awoke.

The whole time Karolina was fed two glasses of milk a day. Her mother died in 1905, then a housekeeper took care of the household. When the mother and one of the brothers died in 1907, she is said to have suffered hysterical crying fits both times. She was always clean and never had long nails or dirty hair. She had no contact with the bedside food and the housekeeper never heard her speak. However, sometimes she heard crying or whining.

Wake up

Karolina Olsson woke up on April 3, 1908, at the age of 46 years, 32 years and 42 days after the start of her absence.

The housekeeper found her crying on the floor. When the brothers came into the house, she did not recognize them. Karolina was very thin and pale and in the first few days she was shy of light, weak and taciturn. She was swollen all over for the rest of the summer. On April 6th, she was visited by her old teacher, and it turned out that she was still unable to read fluently. Many wanted to see them and traveled to Oknö.

She was intelligent, but of limited knowledge. She didn't know anything about Swedish history and couldn't find Stockholm on a map. She knew very little about mathematics.

Explanations

In 1912, psychiatrist Harold Fröderström published an investigation, La Dormeuse D'Oknö - 21 Ans de Stupeur Guerison Complete , which was based on a meeting with Olsson in 1910, but which failed to clarify the reasons. Professor Bror Gadelius suggested it could be an internal secretion disorder with the result that she fell asleep during puberty and overcame the fertility period in her sleep. He also said that one reason could be that the mother "pampered" the child with constant care and that Karolina's regression was the result. In interviews with two of her brothers, Fröderström received the information that they never saw her sister get out of bed, while the father said that he had seen her crawl on the floor a few times and heard her speak on three occasions. Once she is said to have called: "Oh my Jesus, have mercy on me", only to crawl back into bed. The mother looked after her all alone.

It later emerged that Karolina had occasionally been conscious and able to react with grief. Fröderström speculated, among other things, that Karolina herself believed that she was seriously ill and that she therefore kept quiet and closed her eyes and refused to eat, partly to arouse sympathy. It has also been suggested that the mother and daughter lived in a kind of collusion: the mother helps her daughter and they keep this a secret. It has continued to be speculated that the mother wanted to protect her daughter. People were skeptical that she would have survived with two glasses of milk a day. When her mother died, she must have organized food. It would have gradually become difficult to organize the whole thing. So she has started a gradual retreat because the benefits of "sleepwalking" turned into disadvantages. Fröderström said that she suffered from a negativism such as catatonia , although this does not normally affect people over 25–35 years of age. Another possibility would be dissociative syndrome .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h} Soverskan på Oknö ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Different sources give a different date. Bo Holmstedt believes that she passed out in late autumn 1875. This date is based on a newspaper article.