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Subscribe to RSSThis, finally, may explain our cultural obsession with zombies: Long after dark, millions of Americans basically become one.
Without warning, they suddenly rise from their silent, supine states then roam aimlessly, eyes open and mouths sputtering gibberish.
About 8.5 million U.S. adults -- or 3.6 percent of the grownup population -- have taken at least one sleepwalking jaunt during the past year, according to research released today by the Stanford University School of Medicine. That figure, calculated via a survey of nearly 20,000 people, means there are far more nocturnal wanderers than scientists previously suspected.
“It’s something, we were thinking, that was not frequent among the general population. And here, big surprise, it is,” said Dr. Maurice Ohayon, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford and lead author of the paper. A previous report done a decade ago in European adults showed that 2 percent of that population were sleepwalkers. “It’s astonishing.”
The finding offers American doctors their first, solid sleepwalking benchmark, Ohayon said. Earlier speculation on how often the phenomenon occurred were based on anecdotal clinical reports as well as court cases and media tales of people who had gone sleep-driving, sleep-shopping or sleep-eating. Typically, those more sensational examples were linked to Ambien use.
But Ohayon and his colleagues found no significant link between prescription sleeping pills and increased sleepwalking. What they did discover: Folks who take certain anti-depressants (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs) are three times more likely to also take a snoozy stroll than the general population, and people who swallow over-the-counter sleeping pills have a higher likelihood of experiencing sleepwalking episodes at least twice a month month.
Brand names for anti-depressants in the SSRI category include Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Lexapro and Celexa. Non-prescription sleep aids linked to increased sleepwalking by the Stanford team contained diphenhydramine. Products laced with that chemical include 40 Winks, Simply Sleep, Sleep-Eze, Sominex, Unisom Sleep, Advil PM, and Tylenol PM, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Chronic sleepwalking also runs (rambles?) within certain families, Ohayon learned: Nearly one-third of individuals who often do it can point to parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts or siblings who have a history of shuffling while slumbering.
To assess the sleepwalking rate in America, Ohayon and his Stanford colleagues used phone interviews conducted with 19,136 randomly selected individuals from 15 states. The participants offered baseline information on their mental health, medical histories and use of medications. They were quizzed on the frequency of any sleepwalking episodes as well as whether they had ever suffered any inappropriate or possibly perilous behaviors while asleep.
What's more, participants were asked if they'd sleepwalked when they were kids and if any family members were known to take unintended, nighttime strolls. In addition to the more more than 3 percent of the U.S. population who sleepwalk chronically, the researchers found that 29.2 percent of the test sample had gone sleepwalking at least once during their lives.
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Robert Budd, a personal trainer from Southern California, takes sleeping strolls about once a month, as do almost all the men in his family.
Personal trainer Robert Budd figures he sleepwalks about once a month. When he gathers with his kin, sleepwalking lore is a common topic: while seemingly in dreamland, his grandfather once urinated in a friend’s drawer, his uncle often meandered the decks of navy boats, and his dad dismantled tents and ceiling fans.
“All the boys in the family do it,” said Budd, who operates a gym called PHYZYKS in Encinitas, Calif. “I've done it since I was a kid. I would walk out the door and my parents had to grab me and get be back inside. The commonality with my family and myself is it seems to happen when we’re really tired, really drained. When you really need sleep, that’s when you get up and sleepwalk.”
Budd has sleepwalked out of a tent at the Grand Canyon (on the floor, not near the rim). His friends spotted him heading off alone -- apparently wide awake -- but he remembered nothing the next day. While dozing, he once packed for a vacation, even remembering his toothbrush. And there was the night he tried to climb out a second-floor window only to be stopped by the woman who is now his ex-wife.
Was that intended exit possibly symbolic, even for a sleeping man? “It might have been,” Budd said with a laugh.
“It drives my girlfriend drives nuts because sometimes we have conversations and she doesn’t know if I’m awake. Like, I can’t be accountable in the middle of the night.”
Sleepwalkers typically have their eyes open and may speak, making detection tricky. But Ohayon isn’t certain, he said, if they are actually seeing what’s in front of them or if sleepwalkers’ brains have simply mapped out their homes in their minds, allowing them not to bump into walls or furniture. He is sure they’re not dreaming, though, because sleepwalking coincides with a period of “slow-wave sleep” or SWS when brain activity is diminished.
During another sleep phase called REM (rapid eye movement), brain neurons are firing as if a person is awake. This is when you dream. A mechanism within the brain blocks stirring and shifting when you’re in REM sleep, Ohayon said.
“During slow wave sleep, you can move,” he added. “This is an old function of our brain, (possibly a evolutionary leftover). You know, when birds fly, they can sleep with one half of their brain, while the other half is analyzing the flight.
“That is why you see the bird going for thousand of kilometers without any problem. They sleep when they fly.”
Related:
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- Why do we drool in our sleep?
- Don't make me laugh! I might collapse
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My six year old is a sleepwalker and a sleep talker lol. I was always scared that he would make it out of the house so I put a gate up and it worked for us. He doesn't do it as much as he use to but I still find him roaming between his room and mine at times.
"They sleep when they fly"
You can find that at Northwest.
When I was a child, I would sleepwalk when I needed to use the bathroom. Somehow, several other family members would get up and try to direct me to the toilet. At least once, apparently, I sat on the edge of the tub and pooped into it. Now, I have dreams when I need to use the bathroom and I am sleeping. I dream I am about to urinate into an appropriate receptacle, in private, and suddenly I am out in the open, with lots of people around, urinating on something totally inappropriate. Then I awake and go to the bathroom. Never wet the bed, that I know of.
My kids both sleep talk occasionally. My 5 year old once headed for the kitchen, and when asked, said he was going to the bathroom (which he walked right past), so I guided him in the right direction, helped him out, and got him back in bed without waking him up all the way. Apparently I did the same thing one time as a kid- luckily my mom woke up and helped me out before I made a mess in their bedroom!
I wonder how much of kids doing it is when their body starts to recongize that it needs to wake up to go to the bathroom, but the brain isn't quite caught up yet?
I found my son walking around the house holding the cat with his @ss forward, the cats head facing backwards, trying to find someplace to "Plug" his tail into! Funny stuff
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A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefits of sleep, and do the effects of watching!
How about sleep eating? My late father tried one of the new prescription sleeping pills as an alternative to Ambien which after many years was no longer effective. As soon as the new meds hit the market my dad picked up an RX. He told me they were working fine until he began finding things amiss in the small kitchen. Then for two nights in a row he awoke in the morning to find a cereal bowl in the sink with the remains of yogurt in it. After my mother denied having mid-night snacks my dad realized that he had developed a nocturnal eating habit and would snack in his sleep, rinse the bowl, and leave it in the sink. At first I thought he was imagining things or joking. But when he returned to Ambien there were no more dishes in the sink.
I was wondering how come I was waking up so tierd finding a half a tank of gas gone and Taco Bell wrappers all over the seat. I don't even like Taco Bell. But this must be true the other morning my wife told me I had chalupa breath.
I know a guy who used to dream about work (tree-related manual labor), and would often wake up with his bed a mess, leading him to believe that he had actually been physically trying to clear brush from his bed. He also woke partly dressed for work once or twice, complete with one boot.
My wife is an avid sleep walker> I use to worry about her but since she hasn't tried to drive or do anything but eat,I just leave her alone.If I check on her and ask if she's alright,she will just carry on about me interupting her late night snack.The next morning she remembers nothing! It's funny if it wasn't so dangerous.All I know is i try to help,she gets really pissed and refuses to cooperate!I got of being bitch out so I go back to sleeep.If I hear a splash,I know she made to the pool and will go out and see how she's doing!
Somedude.. *
I not only sleep walk, sleep talk, but I sleep EAT.
Apparently I sleepwalk. My husband has a few tales of how I'll get up, giggle and laugh at the end of our bed for a few minutes, then go use the bathroom (in the proper place, thank goodness!), and come right back to bed. I've also gotten up, gone to the living room where my husband was watching TV, and just stared at him.
Hahaha, creepy!
Parasomniac myself. Walk, talk, eat and occasionally uh, well, have sex during my sleep.
All four of my boys have inherited it. They all talk and walk in their sleep so far.
Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) is also a major medication for allergies. The article says nothing about sleepwalking while taking benadryl for allergies. When used for allergies it is not just laced, it is 25-50 mg of nothing but benadryl. I would think that would have an even more acute affect on sleepwalkers. I find it odd the author of this article fail to mention this.
I use to sleep walk when I was younger but it ended when I was about 10 or so, it was so bad that no matter where we lived I was never allowed to have to bedroom closet to the stairs for my parents fear I would fall down to stairs. My husband use to talk in his sleep up til a couple of years ago ( he is 34 now) and it was always worse if he was stressed at work (one night he was counting numbers in his sleep, here he was working at a furniture store and they had done inventory and the numbers weren't adding up right). I wonder why people like us have it then suddenly stop, they should do a study on that.
It is very common for children to sleepwalk, but most people grow out of it when they get older. Some don't.
Inbreed much?
I wonder though if people are really awake, but somehow, their brain just doesn't record the nocturnal activity?
Strange stuff.
Good point. It kind of begs the question, what constitutes sleep versus consciousness? A lot of the things people allegedly do while "sleepwalking" involve higher-order thinking or at least awareness of one's environment. Is a person who wanders out of bed as a child experiencing the same phenomenon as a person who gets out of bed, prepares a snack and sends e-mails they don't remember? The latter sounds a lot more like what people do when they are technically awake but going on little sleep. What counts as what?
Not only is sleepwalking a problem, but also is working on the internet while asleep (and sending emails), as well as making phone calls in one's sleep. I often find that I have sent emails to people I rarely think about in my sleep, as well as making phone calls, that I do not remember. I have been chastised for this for years, but if I can't remember I do not know I can be held responsible!!
My family naturally talks in their sleep. But when I was put on Ambien drastic things started happening. I went driving and caused an accident. I pulled the entire vertical blind assembly down on myself badly injuring myself. I gained a horrible amount of weight because I would sleep eat. One morning I found I had eaten salmon jerky with some strawberry jam. Ick! I went outside in a babydoll nightie and potted up a bunch of plants. When I caused the accident I was taken to jail, strip searched and blood taken. I was later bailed out and dropped at home and when I woke up knew nothing about it.
Holy crap! That seems almost impossible without knowing about it happneing. Glad you are still alive after all that craziness! Whooow!
I am really not surprised that the lead author of the above noted research paper, Dr. Maurice Ohayon, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford, would make the following comments, to wit:
Why of course they are “actually seeing what’s in front of them”. Not consciously “seeing” with their conscious mind because it is in a state of sleep or sleeping. But their subconscious mind is “seeing” what’s in front of them, just like it does at any other time the eyes are open and transmitting optical data and because the subconscious mind never sleeps. Sleepwalking is one (1) literal proof that the conscious mind is subservient to the subconscious mind. Dr. Ohayon should recognize that fact before executing any more such studies.
Dr. Ohayon did get that one right. If they had been dreaming and awoken during said dream, then they would have consciously remembered a part of the dream.
Now that was a silly claim by Dr. Ohayon because there are many, many spouses and bed partners who can testify to the bumps, punches, kicks and bruises they are the recipient of when their bed-partner is having a confrontational dream and lashing out at some imaginary villain. And whether dreaming or not dreaming, tickle a sleeping person’s nose and he/she will “itch it”.
Cheers
My wife has asked me in the morning, "What got into you last night?" She said it was definitely different, a bit rougher. It's sorta like cheating, but with the same person. Damm, I wish I remembered it!!
hahahaha
Many years ago there was a mystery in my home. The heat was turned down at bedtime, but then the house became uncomfortably warm, because the furnace thermostat was racked up to the max. This happened several times. As it turns out I was the culprit, it was then discovered I was a sleepwalker.
Not only do I sleep walk, talk and eat, but I snore from time to time, especially when my allergies are bad. As a result I'll sometimes sleep on the couch and, on several occasions, my wife has come down stairs to find me sitting up in the dark. She'll talk to me and we'll carry on conversations, sometimes several minutes, that I'll have zero recollection of in the morning. At first she would get frustrated because we would frequently talk about important topics, now she's grown to understand that I'm not really there in those moments.
As far as the sleep eating, I once ate an entire container of cottage cheese... I love cottage cheese, but not that much...