‘Lauren’s dreams are as real to her as reality’

Lauren Kavanagh wakes with such speed from deep sleep that her dreams can seem real and she is terrorised by the sense of a presence.

“What she experiences is way beyond my definition of bad dreams,” says her father, Larry. “Her dream is as real to her as reality.”

Lauren, 14, from Piercestown, Co Wexford, is one of 47 people in Ireland diagnosed with narcolepsy as a result of receiving the swine flu vaccine Pandemrix. As a result of this incurable sleep disorder, Lauren suffers hallucinations, nightmares, and successive daytime sleep.