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Subscribe to RSSWake up, folks: There is no health risk in rousing a sleepwalker from their somnambulistic stroll. Well, no risk to them, anyway. You, on the other hand, might suffer a swift, roundhouse kick to the dome.
Long-repeated medical myths have held that if you forcibly snap a sleepwalker back to a wakeful state it will A) induce a state of shock or possibly even insanity, B) give them “lockjaw,” and, C), our personal favorite, cause their soul to become trapped outside their body. The truth matters now more than ever: On Monday, the Stanford University School of Medicine released new research estimating that 8.5 million U.S. adults (3.6 percent of the grownup population) went sleepwalking during the past year -- a far higher rate of nocturnal wanderers than previously thought by doctors.
“It’s not dangerous for the sleepwalker to wake him up,” said Dr. Mark R. Pressman, a psychologist and sleep specialist at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, Pa. “You’re not going to do them any harm.”
But there are two potential pitfalls in attempting to yank them back to the conscious world. First, sleepwalkers take their short journeys with eyes open yet without turning on a key part of their brain -- the frontal lobe, a portion that controls social interaction. They are momentarily trapped in an altered, gray state that falls between alertness and full sleep, making them quite difficult to bring back to the real world, Pressman said.
“You just can’t talk to them and say ‘Hey!” and have them wake up,” Pressman said. “I’m not even sure where that myth began that you shouldn’t wake them. But the more you dig back (to try research that legend), the more you’ll find that sleepwalking once was thought to be mixed in with spirits and demonic possessions.”
Most sleepwalking episodes last only seconds or a few minutes, ending with the person either sitting or lying on the floor and returning sleep or eventually trudging back to bed.
“It’s very likely to go away on its own while the family is watching,” Pressman said.
You can try to verbally redirect a sleepwalker -- especially a child -- by standing a short distance away and speaking to them in short, easy commands: “Stop, turn around, go back to bed.” But don’t expect them to answer or even to recognize you, Pressman said. Those particular neurons are still snoozing. “Hopefully they turn around and go the other way.
“There’s really no reason to dive in and stop it unless the sleepwalker is about to climb out a window or fall down some stairs. If that’s the case, the family member doesn’t really have much choice,” he added.
If you do approach a sleepwalker -- especially if you physically block or grab one -- they may flash some "defensive aggressiveness,” Pressman said. “This is a very primitive response to what they see as a potential attacker. They may become violent.
“The first thing, obviously, is you have to protect them anyway you can. That’s the bottom line: safety. So you may have to be prepared to take a punch or kick.”
Just don’t expect your zombified loved one or housemate to offer an apology.
Related:
- Sleepwalking more rampant than thought, study shows
- Suicide while sleepwalking is a real nightmare
- Why do our eyelids get heavy when we're sleepy?
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In my experience, telling them to turn around and go back to bed works quite well.
'specially if it's Chuck Norris
The only time I have ever gone sleepwalking was when I was taking some medication to help me sleep. Apparently I got up about 3 in the morning and went in the kitchen and made myself some breakfast before going back to bed. I found out that this was a possible side effect of the medication so I stopped taking it, worried that I might decide to go for a drive one night while I was asleep.
When I was in college I had friends tell me more than once that they came in my room late and that I sat up in bed and answered a question they had on some class subject but I did not remember it. They would see me the next morning and thank me for the help and I would not have a clue what they were talking about. I do not know if this qualifies as sleep walking but it is a little strange, particularly since they say that sleepwalkers do not respond to people talking to them.
A sleepwalking Chuck Norris is at 50% of his usual power. That's still enough to send you into the stratosphere.
I've been known to carry on perfectly normal conversations in my sleep. My sister used to tell me I said this and that but I would never remember saying it. I woke myself up snoring one time. One time I woke up with my own hand around my throat trying to choke myself. Other times in the past when I have had swimming dreams I would wake up holding my breathe. I think my subconscious must have realized how dangerous that was because now when I have underwater swimming dreams I can miraculously breathe underwater. Speaking of dreams I had this real awesome alien invasion dream, kind of like war of the worlds except they froze everything solid. I dreamt that I got in a car and they were searching for me too bad I woke up and had to go to the bathroom I would have loved to have finished that one. I can't decide which dream is more exciting the zombie dream or alien invader dream. Oh well I love dreaming.
Jennifer Cheuvont, my wife also sleepwalks and we talk when she does. She answers questions I ask and I usually have to tell her to go back to bed, which she does. I always ask what she's doing. One time she was pushing on the bedroom window and told me she was trying to open the door. Another time a few days earlier she said she was feeding the dog -wierd because we don't have one dog, we have two. The next day she said she dreamed one of our dogs died. Happens quite a bit and makes me wonder how many times I missed it because I was still asleep.
My husband is a bad sleep walker. Several times a week is normal. It usually happens within the first hour or two after he goes to sleep. Since I normally go to bed after him, I am usually still awake or at least not in a deep sleep yet. I just let him go about his "business", listening to make sure he doesn't go out the front door or side door. I don't care if he goes into the backyard b/c it is fenced and the gate can't be opened from that side. After about 5 minutes he gets back into bed on his own.
My husband does talk to me while he is asleep. I can ask him questions and he will respond, though it usually doesn't make sense. It is weird. If I tell him he needs to go back to bed he'll ask "why?". When I say it is because he is asleep, he will argue with me that he is not asleep. The next day when I tell him what he did, he doesn't remember, but he can relate the activity back to something that is going on in his daily life.
Most of the time when he sleep walks, he is "working". He is in construction. We own a remodeling/repair company. So, he is usually going through the motions of building something. He will be barking out orders to his employees while he is at it. One time he got up and went in our bathroom. I heard him rummaging through the cabinets and drawers. Then I heard him take the cover off the toilet tank. Like I said, this is not that unusual in our life and since it was cold, I didn't want to get out of bed, so I just let it be. I listened to him fiddle around for a little bit and then he came and got back into bed. A little voice in my head said go check. I went into the bathroom. I found all of the cabinets and drawers open. As I was closing them, I noticed the roll of paper towels I usually keep under the sink wasn't there. I didn't see it anywhere. "No, he didn't," I thought to myself as I lifted off the toilet tank lid. Sure enough! There was a whole role of paper towels, mostly un-round, stuffed down in the toilet tank. (I wasn't so amused over having to clean up that!) When I told him about it the next day, he said he had been working on a toilet tank that day that would not quit dripping no matter what he tried. I guess he found a solution!
Another time, I was still up, washing dishes. He walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator; stared into it for a minute and then opened the oven door. I asked him what he was looking for to which he responded, "the doughnuts". I realized at that point he was asleep and told him we don't have any doughnuts. He screamed at me "Read the blue prints M%^&* F#$^&*! You laid it out wrong! You're costing me money!" I collapsed in laughter. He said "Quit laughing at me!" and went back to bed. Of course the next day he didn't remember any of it. But, he told me one of his guys had framed a closet wrong that day and they had a box of doughnuts that they were using to hold down the blue prints from the wind.
I did have to chase him down the street once. This was before we were in our house and living in an apartment. I had just climbed into bed when he jumped out of the bed like it was on fire and started walking very fast out of the bedroom. I asked him where he was going he replied, “HOME!". By the time I got something pulled on he was out the front door and heading down the sidewalk. I was recovering from knee surgery at the time and couldn't go that fast so it took about a block for me to catch him. I am sure we were a sight. Him in just his underwear, me in not much more, out on a city street in below freezing weather. Luckily, he followed me back inside without any argument. I told him I was there to take him home. Of course he didn't remember it the next day, but he told me he had been at a buddy's house that afternoon and they got into an argument over something and he had stormed off. After that, I made sure the chain was on the door and the storm door was locked at night. It wouldn't have stopped him, but it would have slowed him down giving me time to catch him.
On top of the sleepwalking, he also talks in his sleep all night. I've told him and he knows that he had better think twice before ever deciding to have an affair. He will tell on himself.
@peechyrose,
HAHA! Never a dull day (or night for that matter) in your house!
As a child I used to sleepwalk. Many mornings greeted my parents with most of the lights in the house turned on.
Being woken up DID trap my soul.
Oops, maybe Rock and Roll did that....
I am told that when directed to go somewhere while sleepwalking that I go towards the voice instead of where I'm told to go -- I will follow them- or they have to be where they are telling me to go. If awakened suddenly family says I may ball up my fist but have never hit anyone, of course they stay out of range just in case.
I guess i ran up and down my stairs asleep one time but obviously don't remember it...only my dad and brother do
My uncle used to sleep jog which was a huge time saver.
This is hilarious.
I think I ransacked my car once trying to find god knows what. I thought someone had broken in the next day, but all the doors were locked, nothing was missing, and there was no forced entry. My keys were on my night stand. That was weird.
My sister's boyfriend once went sleepwalking - he's a veteran Army Ranger and was apparently very distressed that he and his buddies needed to evacuate to a helicopter. I thought it was best to just lock him in his room. He can kill. It was a little scary. He didn't remember a thing.
Yeah locking him in his room was probably the best option. My father-in-law apparently would sleep walk & talk as well and would talk about evacuating the ship and stuff like that. My mother-in-law would just tell him that no its a false alarm and to go back to bed, and she'll notify him if an evacuation is needed. He would normally just get up & go straight to bed, luckily.
Woke my wife one time, she attacked me. Dr said I was lucky that the scratches on my face were not going to leave scars. One other time I tried to wake her she ran away right into the end of an open door. That did hurt her luckly no permanent damage.
If a sleepwalking man had done that to his wife, he would get a domestic violence conviction.
Hey Mike, don't wake her up. Just suggest she is tired and needs to go back to bed. That usually works with sleepwalkers.
I have blacked my own eye sleep walking.. it's not a myth so I hope your reputation did not suffer as my husbands did for a while. No one wants to believe the truth because it seems so odd.
I have been sleep walking most of my life. From walking around the neighborhood as a kid, to walking through a glass door while in the hospital for something else. My family informed me afterwards that the door scattered, but luckly I didn't get any cuts/injuries. It has decreased over the years and now sometimes happens just before a noctural seizure. I glad my loved one has been available to care for me and inform me what has happened. Thank-you Sandy! I love you!
Godless psychiatry takes yet another stab at belief in the Unseen!
I grew up in a family of sleepwalkers. We learned at an early age what to do when encountering our dad or one of our siblings sleepwalking: Talk to them gently in a constant stream of "prattle" to try and verbally coax them back to their bed. If that didn't work, then we just stood back (still talking) and kept an eye on them until they wandered back to bed then we tucked their blankets in FIRMLY. My son started sleep walking around his crib right after he learned how to walk.
So what would happen if you were all sleeping walking at the same time?
Both my father and my 8 year old daughter sleepwalk, except they have a weird form of sleepwalking...they get violent. My daughter headbutted me and broke my nose once, and my dad punches holes in his walls. My mom had to get a seperate bedroom because he would beat the crap out of her. They have had sleep studies, and yep...totally asleep.
I am sleeping as I type this.
i use to be a sleep walker when I was a kid it happened after my rabbit left our home in the middle of the night so after that I would sleep walk in the middle of the night thinking its nice and sunny outside getting ready for my piano lessons when its really midnight and raining outside. I am writing a book about my life and sleep walking is one of them so buy my book this year when it comes out Ok you will find alot of information espeically about sleep walkers, bullies, friendship, family a real family a mommy and daddy, kids, pets and adoptions. My parents were Methodist Faith, I had to go with them later, I decided I did not want church. I found my faith later in life. i have never slept walk since then. I will not tell you what my faith is becasue you will say something like "We are trying to take everyone to hell which we are not". We are teaching about the savior of the world. Sleep walkers don't have any memories of what take place when my dad asked me what happened the night before I would say "I don't know why do you ask". I had a dream about pretty piano music and music teacher said she was up that same night playing that same song while I was sleep walking to her home thinking its time for my lessons weird hu. My book is going to be good!! Reading. You will not want to put it down.
I've done this twice ( that I KNOW of...) in my 55+ years. Both times, I caught all kinds of hell as an aftermath. While stationed at Camp Pendleton in 1974....I awoke to a couple of officers one morning......telling me I'd gotten up in the middle of the night & urinated all over an adjacent bunk bed. They said 3 or 4 other Marines had to wrestle me away.......as I kept uttering," That's the breaks man..." I ended up being busted from PFC back down to private. Of course my C.O. "ripped" into me, because "There's NO such thing as sleepwalking." And sometime in the 1990s, I woke up to find the bedroom floor sopping wet. I stepped into the adjoining bathroom to find half an inch of water covering the floor....and the bathtub filled to the brim. Apparantly I'd "gotten up" in the middle of the night and decided to take a bath or something....and then wandered back to bed. What finally woke me that next morning was the hammering noises coming from the downstairs apartment. I'd slept thru the fire alarm that I'd set off.....and I think the fire dept. had come out to shut off the water to our complex. The Mormons ( fortuneatly they didn't own any major stereos or TVs, but they weren't too happy about their wet clothes & bicycles...) downstairs were ripping out their ceiling looking for a "burst pipe". All their other furniture was stacked out on the lawn. The only reason I wasn't evicted, was that I could pay the $500 insurance deductable....and had been a great tenant for MANY years. I have seen someone sleepwalking......into a kitchen....where they plucked a steak knife from their dish drainer.....and kept roaming around. There were several of us in the house at the time, and we just stayed clear of him until he finally headed back to bed on his own...
On our honeymoon, I awoke one night to see my husband pacing the room and muttering something unintelligible. Unaware that he was sleepwalking, I approached him and touched his arm to ask what his problem was and he swung aroung, smacking me in the nose with his elbow. While I was in the bathroom trying to stop the nosebleed, he went back to bed. I woke up in the morning with two black eyes and he had no memory of the event. To this day he doesn't believe that it happened and insists that I must have walked into a door. He still sleepwalks, and I just watch from a safe distance.
Unless their ''sleepwalking'' is an Ambien zone out.
You may not ever actually wake them, they're still under the Ambien for several more hours.
What you do then is re-direct their focus like telling them they are finished doing whatever and it's time to go back to bed.
I don't sleep walk (that I know of) but I will talk in my sleep quite often. My husband works 24hr shifts so he sometimes calls me at night well if I'm already asleep I'll pick up the phone and start talking to him. Sometimes I can have a complete conversation with him where I remember nothing of it or he tells me later how I was babbling in that case he just tells me to go back to sleep. My husband will sleep walk though but he usually doesn't it extremely late at night when I'm completely out so I never catch him. The best one was though was on our honeymoon. He crawls into bed and tells me that he woke up in another room, well I think he just had a wierd dream so I tell him to go back to bed. Well it turns out that (at our hotel) he had got out of bed, went out of the room and started wandering around. He ends up pounding on some random people's door yelling at "me" to let him in. Well the next thing he knows he waking up in another hotel room on a completely different floor (we're assuming security got called & just lead him to that room and left him there figuring he was drunk), well he wakes up and has to go down to the lobbby to request someone to give him another key so that he can get into our room. Oh did I forget to mention that he was in boxer shorts the entire time? The look from the receptionist in the morning was priceless, lol!!
Had a guy I went to ITB (Infantry Training Brigade, similar to Basic Training) in the Army with who was a sleepwalker. He slept on the top bunk adjacent to my own. One night while on fire duty, he slipped out of his bed and approached a painted line we were made to toe on a frequent basis by the Drill Instructors. He proceeded to raise his right arm to a right angle with his hand held high and as though he was holding his ID card. He then belted out his ID number and what we were told to say everytime we entered the DFAC (the cafeteria) then turned around and climbed back into his bunk. My bunk-mate (who was also on fire duty) and I nearly died laughing that night. He had no memory of it ever occurring but was really amused when we told him because that was the first time anyone had brought his sleepwalking to his attention.
My dad was a sleepwalker. It was pretty easy to just suggest he go back to bed and steer him in the right direction. He was like someone hypnotized, so if you suggested it, he would usually just do it.
My daughter sleepwalks whenever she develops an upper respiratory infection. The night before she shows any physical symptoms (Ear ache, sore throat, fever) she wanders around the house in the middle of the night, and can even negotiate stairways and have (odd) conversations with all of us. It's such a dependable indicator I can bring her to the Md next morning fully expecting to come home with a prescription - and we do - every time.
Now that she's older (14), she has begun to sleep-compute on a regular basis. She can boot up her desktop computer and surf the net, even shop online, while fully asleep! We realised something was up when she began finding "thank you for your purchase" notices posted to her e-mail for items she never intended to buy.
Of course the first time we had a hard time believing her explanation for a $100 dollar-plus shopping spree, but when it kept happening and the vendors and items were looking more and more random we realised she really was doing this all in her sleep.
She was so embarassed she gave up her desktop and bought herself a laptop which can be securely locked away every evening. Problem solved.
We fully expect to confiscate her car keys each night once she learns to drive........
I have blacked my eye twice and got dog bit once in the past year all in my own bedroom. Both black eyes involved the corner of the closet and the dog bite involved landing on a sleeping dog after blacking my eye on the closet. I don't take anything for sleep and only do it (I think?0 when I'm stressed about something. People don't believe me when I tell them how it really happened but it is the truth. I laugh about it but at the same time it scares me.