Questions about sleep walking...

[Irreantum]

I am not sure what thread this should go under and I am quite new here, but I was wondering what it means when you sleep walk???

When I was younger my siblings and parents saw me a few times. They said in one instance that I had raised up on my knees (from laying down) and started crying. Then they said I got up off my knees with my eyes wide open and started walking around. They said I even walked up to my brother and started talking to him and then went right back to bed. Another instance is when I had walked into the kitchen in the middle of the night and I got on my knees and started crying. After this my parents came out of their room to see what was wrong and then I got up and walked back into my room to go back to bed. In both of these cases I do not remember anything, except I remember telling my brother I loved him and goodnight, but I thought is was a dream…

Other times I remember waking up while sleep walking in weird places. I would wake up outside and even end up walking into furniture and I would be very frightened and end up falling back into some kind of trance, while without my knowledge my body would walk right back to bed. What would this be considered and what happened??? Some of these experiences were very frightening for me, was this considered some kind of neg experience?

[CFTraveler]

In a normal dream situation your brain shuts off the gross motor functions of your limbs, so you don't hurt yourself when you dream. When you're young and the brain isn't fully formed, and at certain developmental stages, like in rapid growth times, that system doesn't work well and your limbs are 'on', hence sleepwalking (and sometimes sleep-making a sandwich). It's known to be hereditary (or at least it runs in families- my brother used to wake up in the bathroom trying to pee against the door- my dad got to handle that. So it's an entirely physical phenomenon. Usually at a certain stage it stops happening, and it could be triggered by nightmares, where the escape impulse is high. So the question is not 'can it be caused by negs', but 'what is causing the nightmares in the first place'?

[casp911]

I have had several episodes of sleepwalking, especially when I was a teenager (but still do sometimes). That kind of trance is very weird, it's as if you're between reality and sleep mode.

Contrary to most people, I am always fully councious when sleepwalking (once it was extra scary - I had a nightmare and was hallucinating, as my mother was trying to talk me out of it).

In my Psychology classes we studied dreaming a bit and sleepwalking was apparently always during a phase where no dreams occur. Those people studying dreams sure are mistaking : wild dreams occur when I'm dreaming like crazy when I sleepwalk!

Once I was dreaming I had to escape my house -silently not to wake up my parents- to meet a stranger outside and sure enough I ended up in pyjamas outside my house in the middle of the night. The wet grass woke me up.

It is supposedly hereditary. My grandfather had a dream once he was skiing downhill, but he was on top of the stairs and that had a nice result as you can imagine! My mother was "fishing" in the fireplace when she was a kid.

[cainam_nazier]

I would have to agree. Sleepwalking is a physical condition but as far as it being a side effect of, say, a neg causeing certain dreams and which trigger sleep walking. I dunno. There are plenty of people though who do not suffer from any kind of neg attacks and sleep walk all the time.

I find the whole subject interesting and there are several things a person can do to help prevent themselves from getting into dangerous situations while sleep walking. The most common solution is to do some thing like locking the door to your room. Most people who sleep walk can't or don't even bother to try and open a door that is locked. Even when on the side with the latch.

I think that telling people that you live with, now and in the future, that you "could" sleep walk is important. That way when it happens there is no big surprise. It is generally considered not a good idea to try and wake some one who is sleep walking because of the trama of them suddenly being ripped from thier dream into reality can cause problems. It is usually best to just give the person suggestions, like going back to bed. Most are pretty sugestive when in that state. For the average sleep walker these things are usually suffincient to prevent them from harming themselves.

I have a friend who is an extream case. He is 37 and still sleep walks. He is capable of doing complex actions while in this state too. Although unaware of his surroundings most of the time he can do a veriety of things. Like the affor mentioned making a sandwich, or driving a car, and he doesn't have the subdued motor functions either. He wakes up to having his room re-arranged durring the night. He broke his collar bone a couple of years ago while apparently trying to jump from his bed to his desk. His room mate still had to wake him up after he fell, and not because he smacked his head or anything. He did not remember donig any of it, jumping or falling. He just knew he was lying on the floor and was in a lot of pain when he woke up. Luckily he didn't crack is skull or any other potentially fatal injuries. But the collar bone was enough.

Sad thing is he still does stuff like that.

[Greatoutdoors]

Cainam,


Most people who sleep walk can't or don't even bother to try and open a door that is locked.
This has worked for me. I have come awake several times to find myself rattling a doorknob, but have never (that I know of) gone through a locked door.

I used to be a world class sleepwalker but don't do it so much anymore, thank goodness!

Once I took all the bedcovers off the bed, separated each of them from the others, and threw them each into a different corner of the bedroom. When I woke up I was sitting on the side of a bath tub with a sheet around me. That incident was really irritating because I had to go to work the next day and lost significant sleep putting the sheets and blankets back together! :)

I am dreaming when I sleepwalk, because as I wake up I become very confused at the transition from dream to physical reality. It can really be strange when you are interacting with others while asleep.