Sleepwalking ( Somnambulism): Deadlier Than You Have Imagined

Introduction

I have known about sleepwalking since I was a kid. But then I believed it to be a kind of behavior disorders found in little children and teenagers and sometimes may be some adults at their early twenties. Until recently, I learnt that even grown ups, single and married suffer from this behavior disorder. Well you could say I was being ignorant all these while, I would say say to me. I mean you may be right. Because how I got to understand this behavior disorder pretty much is through a movie I saw some weeks back. That movie is an eye opener and I request you try and watch it when you are less busy.

I have to mention this movie of a thing because I got interested in researching about sleepwalking after I saw it. The inspiration actually came from there.

I am not the greatest fan of indigenous movies. I do complain about their highly obvious mistakes which really affect their works. Like sometimes in a typical Nigerian movie, someone would be shot and we would not even see a drop of blood from his body. You know how horrible that looks. Like wait, that dude that was shot does not have blood in his body system or what!? There are other related scenarios that really affect their reputations. But then there was this particular movie I saw that changed my thinking and ideology towards Nigerian movies entirely. Goodnight, if I still remember the title is a must watch for health minded people.

I am not here to talk about movies actually, but since that was the source of inspiration that for studying and making researches on sleepwalking, I am believing that it is worth mentioning.

There are countless ailments out there threatening the survival of living organisms. Not just the human race but all living creatures have these diseases, known and unknown, battling with them. Some are given less attention due to our lack of understanding regarding them but one thing we should take note of is that such ailments could hardly be treated.

But then, what exactly is sleepwalking and how is it deadly like I said earlier? Let us take a look.

Sleepwalking/Somnambulism/Noctambulism

Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulism and noctambulism is a behavioural disorder that occurs during deep sleep and results in walking. Not just walking alone, but other series of complex behaviors. It involves engaging in activities that are normally done when one is awaken but at this time, while one is in fact, deep asleep. It is a mixture of sleeping and walking or engaging in activities more complex than just walking. These activities may include walking around in the room, doing some house chores, leaving the house or even driving a long distance. Sleepwalkers sometimes urinate, vomit, trip, and fall during their sleepwalking episodes. There have been cases of sleepwalkers having sex with strangers and this has received fancy amount of credits to some relationship and marriage problems.

Sleepwalking activities could get to the point of being hazardous. Starting from grabbing dangerous objects to instigating troubles and fights and eventually causing homicides. What is more, sleepwalkers are unconscious of the activities they do and have no memory of them when they wake up.

![sleep-2644444_1280.jpg]() An image of a model performing sleepwalk. Image from [Pixabay](https://pixabay.com) -- (CCO Licensed)

Being more common with children who also experience night terrors, and thereby disruptive and frightening for parents in the short-term, this has lead some researchers to believe that the two (sleepwalking and night terrors) are connected. Sleep terrors are episodes of screaming, intense fear and flailing while still asleep while sleepwalking is one hell of a thing. Something far more mysterious. Something that may be dangerous and hazardous.

There are also cases of persistence of sleepwalking in adulthood. However, it usually has nothing to do with having psychiatric or psychological problems.

Researches have proved it that sleepwalking occurs during slow-wave sleep (N3) of non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM sleep) cycles. It typically occurs within the first third of the night when slow-wave sleep is most prominent. Usually, it will occur once in a night, if at all. -- Wikipedia

Types or subtypes of sleepwalking

Studying it closely, we have come to realise that sleepwalking has two subtypes or better still, subcategories.
These subcategories are:

• Sleepwalking with sleep-related eating.

• Sleepwalking with sleep-related sexual.

• Sleepwalking with sleep-related eating:
  In this subcategory, the sleepwalker engages in activities that have to do with eating. In a nutshell, he eats while sleeping. Stress and sleep aid medications are known to be the major cause of these eating disorders. Injuries such as burns and cut are often sustained by people who sleep and eat as they go to the extent of cooking or preparing what they consume while they are sleepwalking.

• Sleepwalking with sleep-related sexual:
  Just as the name implies, this means sleeping and having sex. This sounds kind of unbelievable as one cannot but wonder how a person could be sleeping and having sex at the same time when he/she was not being forced or rape to be precise. Even a race victim would wake up from her sleep when he is been sexed. What is more, the sleepwalker here make advances to the person that is being sexed. What one needs to understand about this is that, okay we know that sex could be traditionally had while one of the parties lays on his or her back. But the normal sex is different as it is done while the two parties are awaken. However, Sleepwalking with sleep-related sexual is done while the sleepwalker is asleep. The sleepwalker does not enjoy this for anything neither does he even remember all that happened once he is awaken. No memory of the episodes whatsoever.

Okay, how about we check for some history or probably background of sleepwalking.

History

Sleepwalking is mysterious, but it has been one of the illness suffered by mankind since the ancient times. Many would call it dreaming out. Sleepwalkers had been taught to be dreamers who are acting out the dreams. You could say it actually looks like that in reality but at least you remember what you dream about, don't you? Sleepwalkers have no knowledge of what they are doing when they are sleepwalking and have no memory of the activities they engage in when they awaken.

Sleepwalking was not given the needed investigation and diagnosis until the 19th century when a German chemist and parapsychologist, Baron Karl Ludwig von Reichenbach (1788–1869) made extensive studies of sleepwalkers and used his discoveries to formulate a theory he called the Odic force.

Despite being found abnormal, people had not given sleepwalking much concentration. The belief back then was that sleepwalkers are just trying to tell us what they are dreaming about by acting it out for people to see.

For example, in one study published by the Society for Science & the Public in 1954 was concluded as follows:

Repression of hostile feelings against the father caused the patients to react by acting out in a dream world with sleepwalking, the distorted fantasies they had about all authoritarian figures, such as fathers, officers and stern superiors
--- Wikipedia

Man however started to understand and get accurate data on sleep when technologies such as the electroencephalogram (EEG ) by Hans Berger in 1924 and BEAM by Frank Duffy in the early 1980s were invented.

Causes of sleepwalking

The Real cause of sleepwalking is yet to be known to mankind. That is one of the things that make it mysterious. However, after understanding pretty well that sleepwalking has nothing to do with dreaming out or acting out the dream, scientists have taken their time in studying this complex action behavior and came about with factors that increase its frequency. The thing is the causes of this behavior is hardly understood. The understood part of the causes of sleepwalking have been discovered to be associated with four different factors. These factors are inherited (genetic), environmental, physiologic, and medical factors.

• Genetic factors:
  A study has made it known that sleepwalking is likely to occur if any of the parents or ancestors is/was having it. There are several ailments which can be passed to offsprings through the parents and sleepwalking is just one of them. Researchers have reported that the genetic influence is of high degree and parents who have sleepwalked should prepare for countermeasures as their offsprings (may be few of them) are bound to get this behavior through them.

• Environmental factors:
  Environmental factors such tiredness/fatigue, stress, sleep deprivation, unbalanced sleep schedules, fever, some nutrients deficiency (like that of magnesium), and alcohol intoxication can trigger sleepwalking. Another thing associated with environmental factors are medications, like drugs that promote sleep, drugs used to treat psychosis, drugs that produce a calming effect, drugs that increase activity and drugs used to treat symptoms of allergies. These can also activate and enhance sleepwalking.

• Psychological factors:
  Another critical aspect of the causes of sleepwalking is psychological factors. These factors are listed below:

• Psychiatric disorders, traumatic disorder or panic attack all can activate sleepwalking. People who have suffered from any of these usually sleepwalk.

• Conditions such as menstruation and pregnancy according to researches, also enhance sleepwalking. Pregnant women, more especially sometimes suffer from behavior disorder. You could see them sometimes getting angry easily at little things.

• Also, ailments such as fever, obstructive sleep apnea, arrhythmias, nighttime asthma and nighttime seizures are known to increase sleepwalking.

One thing we need to take note of is these factors listed above do not only trigger sleepwalking. They tend to increase its frequency in people who already have it. Most especially, the children whose parents have reported having this ailment, studies have shown us that over 60% of such children suffer sleepwalking episodes.

After understanding sleepwalking, the history behind it and the factors that could cause it, then we need to study the symptoms of this ailment.

Symptoms

For every ailment, mental or physical, there are certain symptoms that tell us what is really wrong. These symptoms also help us in studying the affected beings and prepare for countermeasures if there be a need to. Let us take a look at the symptoms of sleepwalking.

![model-2373525_1280.jpg]()

A sleepwalker could walk or drive a distance while asleep.
Image from Pixabay -- (CCO Licenced)

• Sleepwalking episodes starts with suddenly waking up as if one has not been sleeping at all, then range from walking around the room quietly to starting to run suddenly and attempting to escape.

• Typically, a sleepwalker has this steadily staring with eyes wide open. The hands do not leave the body while he walks around the room. Obvious to who is looking at the sleepwalker during the time of the episodes, he/she is not conscious of the activities engaged on.

• When a sleepwalker is being asked questions during the episodes, responses are not straight and are kind of slow with mere thoughts that even a small kid could see as being out of senses. Unless he awakens, sleepwalkers do not remember the events as they have no memory of them.

• Older children easily awaken compared to adults. However, when they do, they perform repeated behaviors such as straightening their night wears or scratching their head.

• Another mysterious part of sleepwalking is that regardless of the distance a sleepwalker walks or drive about, he will return home and go back on bed as if nothing happened. Although not in all scenarios but in most.

Diagnosis

Sleepwalking in children are not so bad. In fact, it is fairly normal and does not really need serious treatment. Parents just need to monitor such child so as to be the guardians that they are. Parents are to help such child in controlling this habit. Children easily awaken from the episodes unlike adults.

In adults, sleepwalking could be dangerous and hazardous. An adult sleepwalker does not easily awaken from the episodes like children do. Doing house chores, cooking, driving a long distance and instigating disputes are all episodes suffered by adults. So an adult sleepwalker is expected to consult board certified sleep medicine physician or specialist.

Usually, a sleepwalker might be asked to run a sleep diary for few weeks. This method is used to help the specialist understand how the episodes occur and probably the cause of the problems. The specialist will need to know the sleepwalker's complete medical history. Drugs and medications that are usually taken by the sleepwalker should be known to the doctor because like I said earlier, some medications can trigger or increase the frequency of sleepwalking.

Among what the sleep specialist will try to understand are:

Another sleep disorder, a medical condition, Mmmedication use, mental health disorder and substance abuse
-- SleepEducation

Understanding these means he is halfway of solving the complex behavior disorder problems.

In case a sleepwalker decides to solve his problems by himself, sleep can then be rated with the Epworth Sleepiness Scale. With this device, he can understand how his sleep affects his daily life and may be lifestyle in general.

Treatment

As the actual cause of sleepwalking is not known to mankind yet, this has effects on treating these complex behavior disorders. There is no record of clinical trials to show that psychological and pharmacological intervention could cure or prevent sleepwalking episodes. In fact, we can say we still have a long way to go about this. Understanding its origin, like how this ailment develops will help us in knowing the right way to treat it for good.

Be that as it may, a wide range of pharmacological treatments have been used in treating sleepwalking and of course, even if these treatments do not stop sleepwalking episodes, they find their way to reduce its frequency.

Among the psychological interventions used in treating sleepwalking episodes are psychoanalysis, hypnosis, scheduled or anticipatory waking (probably use of alarm), assertion training, relaxation training (like yoga), managing aggressive feelings, sleep hygiene, classical conditioning and play therapy.

And looking at the pharmacological interventions used in treating sleepwalking, we have anticholinergic, antiepileptics, antipsychotic, barbiturate (sodium amytal), benzodiazepines, melatonin, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (paroxetine) and herbs.

Conclusion

Sleepwalking remains to be mysterious to mankind as the question of what is guiding an unconscious man in doing activities he normally do while he is awaken when he is in his deep sleep.

Somnambulism is deadlier than I had imagined and may be, than you had imagined. Many people have lost their lives to sleepwalking episodes.

I believe you understand that what is being discussed here is not based on falsehood reports or something that does not have a proof to back the claim. Sleepwalking is real as you already know, but yet I will love to include an extract from the movie I watched that got me interested in these complex behavior disorders of a thing. This was responsible for my researches on sleepwalking.

A lady just woke up, sat on her bed, started walking around the room quietly with her eyes staring at objects she made contact with, with her hands right by her side. Non of the arms moved. She later found her way to the kitchen to prepare some food. She brought out a knife and started slicing some vegetables. She was busy with that, unconscious of what she was doing while her husband came in from behind her. He meant to hold herbehind, calm her and guide her into her room just as he used to do. Unfortunately, a mug fell and as the sleepwalking lady heard the noise, she looked back and started stabbing the object standing right behind her. She would not even realise that she was stabbing her husband.

That could have been a movie, and although the producer claimed that the incident happened to a close relative of hers, researches have made us understand that a sleepwalker could cause homicides. A sleepwalker could end up causing injuries not just to himself but to other people. He could end up killing someone.

There are countless reports of crimes committed by sleepwalkers while they are having the episodes. While criminal activities committed during sleepwalking episodes are given less sentences after evidences have backed the claims, many especially in African countries have been sentenced to death for committing murder while they were asleep.

In a nutshell, sleepwalking is more deadly compared to what you have imagined and thus, a need to understand it pretty well.

References

• Sleepwalking
• Sleep disorder problems and sleepwalking
• Sleepwalking, causes and symptoms
• Sleepwalking is genetics
• Sleepwalking diagnosis and treatment

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