Looking to Take a “Sleepcation”? What You Really Need is Comacocoon

In 1990, Joey Skagg, posing as German anesthesiologist Dr. Joseph Schlafer, offered the ultimate alternative for the stressful vacation: Comacocoon.

These days (36 years later), HuffPost reports that tourists are choosing “Sleepcations” rather than seeking taxing and exhausting adventures. These wellness retreats offer a “clinical cocoon” of white noise and lavender oil. You can visit the most exotic places on earth, and sleep the whole time.

Comacocoon offered both. Dr. Schlafer’s clients could chose the “Magical Mystery Tour” where they could be rock stars on a sellout tour, or take the Thrill Seeker to ride the rapids of a selected adventure, all while in an anesthesia induced coma. The Honeymoon Tour was particularly enticing. Each bride and groom could have the honeymoon of their dreams, while believing their partner was having an equally good time. And, while you were under, you could have elective surgery, quit smoking, and wake up fluent in a foreign language. Much more productive than just sleeping your way through your vacation!

As we see people flocking to “sleep hotels”, it’s clear that Skaggs was right. We do want to check out of reality. When the world gets too stressful, the ultimate luxury isn’t a destination, it’s a dream.


“More Americans Are Choosing To Take ‘Sleepcations’,” by Caroline Bologna, Huffpost, February 3, 2026.

Travel experts break down this growing industry trend and what you should know before you attempt this kind of trip.

From “gig-tripping” to “travel dupes” to “hush trips,” the number of new travel trends is seemingly endless. But perhaps the most appealing concept in the tourism space of late is the “sleepcation.”

So much of travel these days seems to involve running ourselves ragged trying to hit every amazing attraction we see on TikTok and Instagram. Sleepcations, however, take the polar opposite approach to vacation. Read the whole article here.

Dadara’s Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia

More on the subject of dream vacations… submitted by artist Dadara:


dreamlandsecuritylogosmall-200If you picked a destination from the Travel Guide for a Dream Vacation please be informed that the Department of Dreamland Security has enforced pretty strict regulations for entering your own Dreams Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia – a Border Control Checkpoint to enter your own Dreams





Dreamyourtopia at Burning Man 2008 on Current:

http://current.com/e/89252184/en_US

To see more of Dadara’s work for this project, Continue reading “Dadara’s Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia”

LiteratEye #17: Travel Guide for a Dream Vacation

Here’s the seventeenth installment of LiteratEye, a series found only on The Art of the Prank Blog, by W.J. Elvin III, editor and publisher of FIONA: Mysteries & Curiosities of Literary Fraud & Folly and the LitFraud blog.

[Editor’s note: This piece brings to mind ComaCocoon. In 1990, Dr. Joseph Schlafer (aka Joey Skaggs) offered the world’s first comprehensive dream vacation package. Its purpose being to combat the ever increasing risk involved in traveling away from home, as well as the negative effects of tourism on native environments.

Utilizing the revolutionary and totally safe pioneering BioImpression(tm) computer system, the company would, at its New York City facility, provide a state of total suspended animation and intensive, concentrated regeneration through anesthesiology and subliminal programming. The resulting subpoenas added a layer of reality to this dream vacation. Read more about it here.]


LiteratEye #17: Travel Guide for a Dream Vacation
By W.J. Elvin III
June 12, 2009

the-wizard-of-oz-200Don’t know about you, but I figure to be spending summer vacation in my head. It’s not just a matter of economy. There are lots of advantages to head travel. Like, you get back home without neat souvenirs like swine flu, STDs or bomb-fragment tattoos.

Of course, unless you’re relying on private visions, you’d probably need a guidebook. The best guidebook I’ve found, far and away, is The Dictionary of Imaginary Places (Expanded Edition) by Alberto Manguel and Gianni Guadalupi. This is a big, hefty book, rich in text, illustrations and maps.

The editors put some boundaries on the scope of their work. After all, fiction is chocked full of imaginary places. They do not, for example, include realms from the future. They left out real locations in disguise, like Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha. But they also put fun ahead of rigid rules, so some locations are in there just because the editors found them fascinating.

As with a conventional travel guide, from time to time there’s helpful advice to the traveler. You get tipped off if you might run into pirates or cannibals. And, just so you don’t lose your head in some far off corner of the dream-world, it’s advised in one locale to show respect for royalty by rubbing your nose on the ground. Continue reading “LiteratEye #17: Travel Guide for a Dream Vacation”