Lived Insight Beyond the Clinical Frame
Independent Narcolepsy Advocate | Writer | Artist | Photographer | Skateboarder
🔹 Who I Am: Solomon Briggs (aka Narcoplexic)
Through deep observation, articulation, and creative formats, I aim to expand the understanding of what these disorders truly feel like – beyond the textbook descriptions.
Solomon Briggs is a multidisciplinary artist, author, photographer, and advocate operating under the professional handle Narcoplexic. Living with three separate sleep disorders, he is devoted to advancing public comprehension of the lived experience and bridging the communication divides in clinical discussions.
His extensive involvement spans peer support, industry consulting, literature, and visual arts, all dedicated to elevating the unfiltered, lived experience of the condition.
Advocacy & Community Leadership
- Support Group Co-Leader: Co-facilitates (a co-leader of) the Colorado Strong Narcolepsy/IH Support Group (since December 2025).
- Industry Exhibitor & Presenter: Presented the abstract and poster, ‘Redefining Cataplexy: A Patient-Derived Visual Severity Scale and Linguistic Audit,’ at the SLEEP 2026 conference.
- Event Participation: Attended over 25 in-person non-profit and industry events since 2013.
- Digital Outreach: Active daily contributor to online sleep communities since 2008 and founder of Narcoplexic.com, an independent advocacy website providing tools, insights, and perspectives on the lived experience.
- Non-Profit Contributions: Served as a volunteer event photographer for various non-profit organizations and participates in the outreach committee for PWN4PWN.
- Artistic Advocacy: Showcased artwork in various [N]Art exhibits at annual non-profit conferences.
Professional Ventures & Media
- Sleep Wake Dynamics LLC: Serves as Lead Sleep Translator and Consultant, offering 1-on-1 and B2B consulting. The educational production studio Sleep Wake Dynamics creates highly visual media resources and consulting, focused on sleep disorders.
- Documentary Feature: Featured in the upcoming film Flicker to Paralysis, a documentary focusing on his art and life with severe cataplexy, anticipated for international film festivals.
- Podcast Appearances: Interviewed on specialized platforms including Sleep Science Today (with Andrew E Colsky, JD, LLM, LPC, LMHC), Sleep Is My Waking Passion (with Dr. Alison Kole), and the upcoming Narcolepsy Navigators (with Kerly Bwoga).
- Serial Storytelling: Creator of Leo’s Daily Normal, an ongoing graphic novel series on Patreon that illustrates the unvarnished lived experience of a teenager navigating unacknowledged sleep disorders without relying on clinical terminology.
Published Works
Solomon has self-published a diverse portfolio of art + literature, utilizing distinct styles to capture different facets of life with sleep disorders:
- Expressions of My Own Narcolepsy with Cataplexy (2013): A collection of sketches and descriptions detailing the lived experience.
- Rolling A Path (2015): A three-part memoir combining factual insights, lifestyle adaptations, and an exploration of how skateboarding intersected with navigating severe cataplexy.
- Invisible-Ill Living the Dis-Understanding (2015): A poetry collection reflecting on life with sleep disorders.
- DIS (2023): A heavily visual art book providing information on the six categories of sleep disorders, including a dedicated section on severe cataplexy.
- Insights & Clarity Towards Living with Sleep Disorders (2024): A text-focused adaptation of DIS.
Upcoming Release (September 6, 2026):
- The DARC Manual: From Loss of Muscle Tone to Calculated Response A patient-derived field manual detailing the Dynamic Atonia Response for Cataplexy (DARC). While not a medical cure, DARC is a highly scalable, step-by-step Rapid Response Protocol. It provides a practical, mechanical method to mitigate and navigate strong episodes before they lead to uncontrolled collapse through passive observational awareness, threshold recognition, and calculated physical response.
🔹 What I Do
- Author & Self-Publisher: Of 5 books grounded in lived experience and narrative insight, contributing to broader understanding across sleep disorders.
- Resource Creator: Including the Narcolepsy Symptom Severity Range Tool (NSSRT), which helps articulate the range and variability of symptom intensity and manifestation.
- Community Engager: A regular blogger, video creator, and advocate, fostering open dialogue on platforms like Reddit and Discord where unfiltered conversations occur.
- Field Observer: A longtime participant and observer at scientific and medical events in the sleep field.
- Independent Advocacy: Offering lived experience, unique perspective, and deep narrative insights into sleep disorders.
🔹 What I Offer
- Unique symptom articulation: I explore depths of each symptom often skipped in standard frameworks—revealing overlooked patterns and connections.
- Bridging gaps between patient narratives, medical language, doctors recognition, and research goals.
- Independent, unaffiliated insight: My insights are drawn from lived experience and a deep, unbiased understanding of Narcolepsy’s complexities, not external affiliations.
- Non-prescriptive, variability-respecting education: I don’t claim a universal path or push solutions. I reflect patterns, provoke thought, and clarify nuance.
Sol.Briggs@gmail.com
WHO, WHAT, WHY?
– Background + A bit of my Story –
Narcoplexic is my author/screen name that I’ve used for some years. There are 3 books I’ve self published, which have helped people.
RightTrash is another name which I have used for gaming as well as in a certain subreddit that I frequent regularly, helping others with what I have to offer, on the subject of sleep disorders.
Even though a lot of my time is focused on, spent attempting to preserve and/or maintain my functional capabilities and/or capacity, there are many things that I enjoy and am passionate about. These are the combinations of things that I do, that I have gone, or go, out of my way to do throughout the years as the seasons change, and in different areas I have expertise with:
Skateboarding, Skateparks (Design & Build), Ice Hockey, Snowboarding, Biking, Traveling, Cooking, PC Gaming, Custom PC building tech geek (no squad), Photography, Videography, Painting, etc…
Narcolepsy with Cataplexy (a symptom of Narcolepsy , a difficult and complex piece of Narcolepsy Type I) really needs better awareness and recognition. It’s a big piece of what’s within the bag of my health matters.
It is what it is, and I can only do what I can mange to.
Perhaps through following, and/or coming into some familiarity with my story, partly to do with attempting to understand my own health, you can better understand sleep, as well as possibly more into yourself.
Please don’t overlook what you are capable of doing yourself, and for yourself in ways that benefit you.
Dream On.
Background:
Spent a lot of time in hospitals as an infant and child.
Had 90%+ of my Pancreas removed at 4 months old due to growths of islets producing too much insulin, which had been causing bad, and worsening seizures.
The surgery, Pancreatectomy, I received was experimental and done at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN by a Norwegian surgeon.
My health has been a rollercoaster from the beginning, I was lucky to survive.
My parents were told to look out for unknowns, as well as to warn me of the likelihood of developing and/or dealing with diabetes, seizures or other matters.
Grew up spending time each year in Nicaragua between age 8 and 22, I go down rarely anymore, my step Father is from Nicaragua.
Learned a great deal through my time/s there, and I’ll always reflect on the experiences.
Played a lot of Piano up till around age 15, began skateboarding in ’88 at age 8, started playing ice hockey in ’89, got Tae-Kwon-Do black belt in ’92, built first mini ramps in ’97.
In October 1998 there was a major Hurricane, named Mitch.
It devastated the area near Posoltega, which is where I know well, a massive mudslide occurred, killing thousands.
Some friends and I, drove down within a ‘pastors for peace’ caravan, bringing needed relief aid.
Searching for a drain pipe, helping on phase 2 of the Homewoods Bowl in 2005!
Since then, I’ve helped on a couple handfuls of skateparks, doing conceptual renderings while being part of the design team for Hunger Skateparks, I also have done a fair amount of construction, tying rebar is what I would say I’m best at on site, aside from helping with, or on the design.
Family:
My older Brother, years ago as a boyscout, he’s got his eagle scout.
He’s been a very positive being and role model.
I’d not be technologically comfortable in the ways that I am, had he not both given me my 1st computer upon graduating high school, but also always influencing me with his skills.
My hero, my late beloved Mother, ‘Barbara Joan Seitz de Martinez’.
I Thank You for Everything, I Love and Miss You, Every Single Day.
No one could have taught me more, and of what is important, as so much is absolutely not.