Often in people who have this
disorder, they experience loss of muscle tone which presents similarly to
fainting after experiencing emotion (anger, excitement, surprise, laughter). In my case, I thought I was having fainting spells, but was actually experiencing Cataplexy, which is when your body actually abruptly enters a REM sleep cycle. Since we are paralyzed while we are in REM sleep cycles, it results in a sudden loss of muscle tone or fainting.