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Sleepwalking
I promised someone I would do a post on the topic of sleepwalking, which they apparently suffer from. It’s actually a really interesting topic when you look into it. As far as I know, I’m not somebody who engages in it. But I have had a thirty minute phone conversation with someone once who was essentially asleep and dreaming. It was very odd, because I could ask certain types of questions and get answers, but for the most part, the scope of the conversation was limited to the scenario this person was dreaming. I also have a friend who has told me stories about him sleepwalking as a kid. His mom apparently found him outside in his underwear one snowy wintery night staring up at the sky. And he has another one where he apparently was dreaming that he was a Jew and the Nazis were coming. Unbeknownst to him at the time, he proceeded to get out of bed and pack up some of his prized possessions into a box, so that he could flee before they arrived. He woke up in the morning with no recollection of the dream until he saw the box full of personal objects, which triggered memories of the dream. From another person, I’ve also heard a story that he woke up in the middle of the night and apparently was very angry with his wife for sending him off to fight in Vietnam (which he of course never did in reality).
Then there are also more bizarre news stories where people have commit murder while sleepwalking, wrecked their cars or climbed to the top of a crane. Apparently people who sleepwalk do so with their eyes open, not with them closed and their arms outstretched like you see on tv. See also the case law for criminal acts performed under what’s called “automatism” for more.
I’m interested in hearing other people’s personal or second-hand experiences of sleep-walking, maybe that of a spouse or child, etc. If there are any really good ones, I might also like to cross-post them over at my Traces from Beyond site. I would also be curious to hear people’s theories about why sleepwalking happens, both from scientific viewpoints, as well as psychological, occult, spiritual, etc. And how come it happens to some people but not others? Wikipedia says that something like 2 out of 11 people are sleepwalkers. This is an extraordinarily high figure and must point to something important about the nature of the mind, dreams, sleep, consciousness and behavior. Wouldn’t you think?
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July 13th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
An implant of an organ from a serial killer? I’m not familiar with cases of possession in relation to sleepwalking. I just googled ’sleepwalking possession’ and nothing relevant came up besides people believing sleepwalking to be demonic possession and a mention in one article or forum or other.
A mention in an article on spirit possession in Haiti
http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/spiritpos.html
July 13th, 2006 at 2:16 pm
Yeah the sort of possession and trance/medium explanation of the whole thing interests me, as does the possible intrusion of past life memories…
July 13th, 2006 at 2:41 pm
The reason I’ve heard that sleep walking occurs is essentially the opposite of sleep paralysis, where the brain ‘forgets’ to release a chemical that keeps us from acting out our dreams.
In terms of stories someone I know was dating a marine and went to visit him one night. She kept calling out his name and got to the top of the steps to the bedroom and he charged her and almost hit her in the face before he woke up from her screaming. She said another time he punched a sliding glass door in his sleep, stood outside, walked over to the bed and laid back down. Another time he answered the phone and kept screaming into it and then just laid back down. He doesn’t remember any of these things except for the one about having her in front of him.
Another girl had walked out of her house when she was 14, got into her parents van, locked the doors, and was ‘driving’ when her dad when out and got her.
I’ve heard that you’re not supposed to wake people up when they’re sleepwalking, anyone know anything about this?
July 13th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
One website I saw said that was a superstition, which they suggested was because people will be shocked and confused if you wake them.
July 13th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
My only sleepwalking experience happened as a teenager, sleeping over at a friend’s place. I woke up in the middle of the night in my underwear, drawing on the floor with crayons, in my friend’s sister’s room. I vaguely remember going through her closet, as if to decide on what clothes to wear.
I think she was a troubled girl going through puberty, with a lot of psychic energy that either influenced or attracted me. I don’t know of any other sleepwalking episodes.
July 13th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
When I was little, around 6, my dad caught me sniching oreos late at night. I couldn’t remember it, but I could remember having a dream were I was looking for something. I think there is a link between sleepwalking and dreams. If your dream is powerful enough, not nessasarily memorable, you act it out. Past-life memories could play a part, as they are a part of dreams; so could alternate universes. (You did some articles on that, Tim)
July 13th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
My father attended UCONN back in the early 80’s and he had a roommate named Jay. One night he heard his roommate talking some sort of gibberish in his sleep. It persisted for a couple of minutes or so. My dad saw his roommate get up and walk through the door without opening it, meanwhile Jay’s body was still in bed.
My dad recounts he was suprised and yet sort of detached at the same time. He thought maybe he was imagining things, so to prove he was not dreaming he scratched ’saw Jay’s spirit walk through door’ on paper.
Later that night he was awakened by Jay gently shaking him and looking over his head perplexed. Jay said something on the lines of ‘i think I just saw you walk out the door.’ My dad was floored- he showed his roomate the note he had written and told him what he saw.
This happened one other time in which my dad saw his roommate walk through the door, and the next morning his roommate said it felt like he hadn’t slept at all.
July 13th, 2006 at 9:56 pm
Here’s something that occured to me question wise: since (when i dream at least) the dreamscape that is supposed to be like “my town” is really different, i mean the dream town and my real town which i know are the same look really different. how do those dreamscapes match up with how we’re acting in the real world if we sleep walk?
July 13th, 2006 at 10:46 pm
The only sleepwalking experience I’ve had was in 5th grade at a sleep-over party. We had done a few weird, but popular at the time sleep-over activities like, lifting people with two fingers and fainting by crouching down and hyperventilating. When everyone had finally fallen asleep, about 5am, I got up in my sleep, walked out the front door and walked to their next-door neighbor’s house. I knocked on their door and when one of the children opened the door, I asked where all my friends were. I remember doing this, but it was like a dream and my vision was strangely cartoonish. I walked back to my friend’s house and went back to sleep. What really upset me later, when I found out what I did. is that my friend’s mom, who was a nurse, watched me do this and never stopped me. What if I just kept going? What if I didn’t come back? Thankfully, this has never happened again, however, my daughter has had a few sleepwalking experiences when we have been on vacation. The scariest one was in the Dominican Republic when I heard her banging on the door at 3am, crying to be let in. I have no idea where she was or for how long.
‘
July 14th, 2006 at 11:20 am
http://www.aphroditewomenshealth.com/news/20020314231802_health_news.shtml
“Guilleminault divided the patients into three groups depending on the severity of their behavior. Those whose disturbances were simply annoying included two women who made sexual moaning sounds during the night. Though relatively harmless, one woman felt embarrassed and guilty that her moaning disturbed her spouse and children.
The second group consisted of a man and a woman whose disturbances placed them at physical risk. They experienced periods of violent masturbation that left bruising or soreness. The man also reported breaking two fingers trying to escape from restraints he had used to prevent the behavior.
The third group included six men and one woman who made unwanted - and sometimes violent - sexual advances on their bed partners while asleep. In one case, the patient tried to strangle his wife. A teenage child in the home heard the disturbance and called the police, eventually leading to a referral to the Stanford Sleep Clinic.”
July 15th, 2006 at 2:28 am
My mother-in-law takes sleeping pills, and she told me about the time she tried a sleep drug called Ambien. The day after she took it for the first (and only) time, she was going about her day as normal when she noticed, as she was writing a check for something or other, that her last check written was from the day before, but she didn’t remember writing it. Then it all started to come back to her…
She remembered it like a dream, which I guess it was (but acted out physically)… After taking the Ambient that previous night, she got up and (luckily she’d worn clothes to bed) walked out of her house and just kept walking. Eventually she stopped at someone’s house and knocked on their door. I guess whoever lived there called this place that drives people home if their car breaks down in the middle of the night, or any situation where you’d need a ride in the middle of the night(?).. I don’t know. honestly I don’t remember the details of the story all that well. But anyway, it was that ‘drivey-home’ place that the check was written out to. If she hadn’t written that check and seen it the next day, the memory might not have been triggered, and she probably would have kept taking the drug, until something else, maybe worse, happened.
She stopped taking it, because she’d never ever sleepwalked before, so she figured she’d had some unusual reaction to the drug. Then she saw something on the news. It was about some actor (she couldn’t remember who) that had been arrested (?) for wreckless driving. Turns out he’s been sleep-driving, after taking a sleep drug called ‘Ambien’. And looking further into it, it looks like this nifty little drug has a reputation for this kind of thing.
Scary stuff. I think it’s still on the market too. So hey Tim, you’re all about the firsthand experience these days… Come on, I dare ya.
Just kidding of course.