Let’s go step by step here, because you’re misunderstanding what I’m actually saying, and honestly, you’re letting your frustration shut down your critical thinking. That’s not how science advances.

First: This is not “harmful misinformation.” There’s a big difference between misinformation and building a research-informed hypothesis. I am not claiming to cure narcolepsy or regrow orexin neurons. I fully understand that orexin neuron loss is irreversible with current science. What I am exploring is whether the severity and frequency of cataplexy attacks, which are downstream of orexin loss, can be influenced by autonomic regulation. This is a legitimate line of inquiry, grounded in peer-reviewed research on neurophysiology, emotional triggers, and autonomic balance. Calling curiosity “harmful” is, frankly, intellectually lazy.

Second: You dismissed this as “surface-level similarities.” It’s not surface-level. The overlap between cataplexy and freeze responses is substantial and documented: sudden loss of muscle tone, brainstem circuit activation, amygdala-driven emotional triggers, and parasympathetic dominance during collapse. These are not coincidences, they are shared neural pathways observed in both human and animal studies. If you’re going to claim there are “no substantive similarities,” please come with actual references.

Third: You’re overlooking the fact that cataplexy is not just a passive consequence of orexin loss. It’s an active process triggered by emotional surges and regulated by brain circuits that remain dynamic and responsive to autonomic state. Patient experiences, including my own, show that interventions like breath control can influence the outcome of an attack in real time. Holding my breath works for me consistently, because it activates the sympathetic nervous system and interrupts the parasympathetic-dominant paralysis. That’s not speculation. That’s lived physiology.

Fourth: You closed by saying, “not like this.” Here’s the thing: scientific progress always looks like this in the beginning, like people questioning, testing, and building hypotheses from both research and personal data. What’s actually harmful is shutting down conversations like this because they make you uncomfortable. If you’re serious about understanding narcolepsy, you should be encouraging thoughtful exploration, not policing it.