Just for the record folks, the precautions mentioned for parents to follow are very very real. I was a habitual sleepwalker from the age of 5 or so until I was around 8. I still had episodes up through Jr High, but they were a much more rare occurence. I was, in fact, a violent sleepwalker. Examples of things I would do are bang on walls for several minutes, kick things, and just generally scare the bejeebers out of my folks. Once I actually did get a knife from the kitchen and just carried it around the house. Not surprisingly, my parents consulted with a child psychologist about this behavior. The resource cites stated that sleepwalkers had no recollection of the episode upon waking up, but with me this was not the case. I could not remember specifics about what I had done. But I was usually aware the next morning that I had an “episode”. It was just a very vague recollection of it. And I do not know about other sleepwalkers, but my episodes were almost always the result of one of 2 recurring dreams I had as a child. There is one reminder of my sleepwalking stage at my house. During a pinochle party my parents were having I had one of my episodes, and walked into the dining room, and literally pulled the thermostat out of the wall. (who knows, maybe I was hot) It was never fixed quite properly, and if you tug on it, to this day, the thing will pull right out from the wall. I think my parents were never more grateful than when my little escapades finally tapered off and stopped.
First of all, I too have had at least one quasi-sleepwalking experience. It was at a party my mother was having, I was maybe eleven or twelve - I got out of bed at about 11pm, completely convinced that it was morning and time for me to get ready for school. I walked blithely through a roomful of slightly startled guests (I do have a vague memory of this…), went to the stove and put on water for oatmeal. At some point, I realized what time it was, shut the stove off, and shuffled back to bed, mumbling apologies to the (now laughing) guests. Embarrassing, yes. Sleepwalking as defined by SDSAB? Perhaps not - but certainly in the ballpark.
Anyway, here’s why I heard you shouldn’t wake sleepwalkers - it used to be thought that your soul left you when you slept, and if you woke a sleepwalker, the soul wouldn’t be able to find it’s way back to the body. Perhaps this is as untrue as the similarly-historied sneeze/“bless you” connection, but it is what I heard…
I didn’t want to begin a thread on this for such a trivial thing, but there was one sentence in the Report that I didn’t quite understand. Maybe someone can enlighten me?
If “sleepwalker” is a typo for “sleepwalking”, then it makes a little more sense.
“The sleepwalking will usually end when the child as the child returns to sleep.”
If this is how the sentence should have looked, then my question is with the “child as the child” part - as opposed to the child as what?
I’m missing something here, and it’s not just because of the lobotomy I had in '78…
Clearly the “the sleepwalker will end…” sentence is ONT a typo - in fact, it directly supports my notion about the soul leaving the body!
“The sleepwalker will end” means that the person dies; and the “child as the child” means that it is ONLY THE CHILD’S BODY - and not it’s infinite soul - that returns to bed.
I’ve had my share of sleepwalking as well… one of the more memorable ones was when I woke up (Or got out of bed at least), and walked down the stairs. This was the point where my parents heard me, and decided to let me go on on whatever journey I was on… I went to the front door of the house, opened it, and then peed against the door of our neighbors…Much to my parents amusement I might add, even though they had a good relationship with them…
This surprised me a bit. I never walked in my sleep in this age range. Both my sleepwalking episodes happened when I was in high school, about age 16. I had assumed this was the peak sleepwalking age.
I have to wonder what he means by “unseeing”. I could see well enough to get myself an extra blanket in the second episode. (Unfortunately, someone else was already using it).
I don’t remember the second episode at all, but the first episode is still clear in my mind. When I first woke up, I assumed it was just a dream, but when I got up I saw the evidence (the foot locker I ransacked was still in disarray).
Oddly, both episodes happened when I went to sleep dog tired, and both times I was sleeping in an unfamiliar place, not my own bed. I wonder if anyone else has had similar experience.
According to various sites I found, the peak ages are 4-8, 5-7, or 6-12, so I guess I’m just strange. I found one site, UT Medical Center Cole Neuroscience Center that confirms that being fatigued can contribute to sleepwalking. Several site say that sleepwalkers usually don’t remember the episodes, which is also what Dr. Epstein’s article says (but which the Staff Report doesn’t make clear).
I’m not usually one to criticize, but I can’t remember a Staff Report that relies (or seems to rely) so heavily on a single source, even if it is a good one. Why not just give a link to Dr. Epstein’s article and leave it at that? Or invite Dr. Epstein to write the Staff Report.
Back in my sleepwalking days–I would have been seven or eight–I apparently peed under the table that held the television several times…and my father caught me one night just before I was about to water down a chair. And, no, I never remembered any of it.
Ed must really have been having a bad day, to let so many typos through. The same report also includes the phrase “after the children has gone to sleep”. Noun-verb agreement, anyone?
My four-year-old son is going through a phase now where he has “night terrors,” which supposedly are common in three- to five-year-olds. He wakes up an hour or two after he goes to sleep, sits up abruptly in bed, and cries. If we try to talk to him, he answers in mumbled grunts, and might try to hit us, especially if we try to hold him. They typically last five to fifteen minutes, and he has no memory of it the next morning.
This sounds very much like the description of sleepwalking, except for the walking part.
From what I’ve read, these are very distinct from nightmares, which are just scary dreams. Nighmares happen in the REM phase of sleep, the child wakes up scared but mostly coherent, and they have a vivid memory of it. Night terrors happen in a deep-sleep phase, not where dreams occur, and have the sleepwalking-type characteristics.
Hmm, wonder if there is a tie between the need to urinate and sleepwalking. My sister once woke up to see my then 5 year old nephew standing at the foot of the bed. She asked him if he needed to go to the bathroom, after which he pulled down his pjs and peed on her bed.
I once sleepwalked (sleptwalk whatever) naked from my bedroom, into my parents bedroom where both were asleep, and peed over my mother. Both parents woke up, dad was about to belt me, but mum knew better than to wake me and just led me back to my bedroom.
I wonder if they call them “night terrors” because the child sounds so terrified, or because they’re so terrifying for the parents until they figure out what’s going on. Flodjunior had sporadic night terrors for about a year, starting a bit before his first birthday. The most unsettling thing was that his eyes were open and he seemed to be looking straight through us. Not just not recognizing us, but as though he could see what was behind us, just not us! It would have fit right into The Exorcist; fortunately he didn’t swear, vomit strange colors or attempt to turn his head 360 degrees.
The typos and grammatic goofs will be repaired asap. Some of those errors were in cited material, so we need to check whether they need a “sic” or whether they were paraphrased.
Our apologies.
[Edited by C K Dexter Haven on 05-31-2001 at 08:57 AM]
The way the Staff Report article described the sleepwalkers ineracting with their environment, in a state of pseudo-awareness, sounds eerily similar to the episodes some epileptics have. Some epileptics will, after a seizure, go through the motions of “normal” activities without being aware of what they’re doing – sometimes making some dangerous mistakes in the process, such as turning on the hot water and scalding themselves in the tub, or putting their baby in the microwave instead of a bottle of milk.
Also, sleepwalking has been used as a defense in cases of murder. Of the two cases I know about, one in Canada (a double murder of a man’s inlaws) was sucessful and one in Arizona (a man murdered his wife) was not.
The Canadian apparently had a grandfather that would periodically sleepwalk into the kitchen and cook meals. But he would get violent if they tried to wake him.
Also (does this scare you?) the Canadian man had to drive (sleep drive) across town to get to the inlaws. He then drove away, and woke up while driving home.
