I remember reading somewhere that you never want to wake up a sleep walker. What’s the deal? Will they have a heart attack or something? And how do sleep walkers avoid bumping into things? Are they dreaming that they are walking around the house when they are walking around the house in their sleep? I thought your muscles were suppose to be frozen when you slept?
I’m not comfortable naming this person,since he is a television personality. So, I beg that readers take this on faith- this man sleepwalks. He walked off of the 2nd floor balcony of his home. With the luck of whatever gods he prays to, he fell…what? 10-15 feet at least, and yet landed on his FEET. He was unaware of walking towards the balcony, and yet flipped over it.
Did substantial damage to his feet, ankles and knees. He’s still working, and is still facing quite a bit of surgery.
Somehow, he negotiated his way TO the balcony…
Cartooniverse
If you see someone sleepwalking, you will notice they have their eyes open or half open. I reckon the brain is getting at least some information about the persons surroundings.
My sister used to sleep walk all the time up until she was in her late teens. Her eyes were wide open every time I saw her doing it. Actually, she didn’t sleep walk, she sleep RAN…usually around my mother’s bed in the middle of the night! It was unnerving, to say the least.
We at last discovered, after years of this, that it never happened unless she ate bananas late in the day, that is, usually after 2PM. I have no idea why this was the cause, but it never happened unless she ate bananas, later in the day.
Anyway, she never hurt herself (thankfully) or anyone else, but did a great job of getting me in trouble. Yes, ME. One of the last times she sleep-walked (slept-walked ??) she began running (again) in my mother’s room, and mother thought she was awake, and asked her what was going on. She responded, “SilkyThreat and I have been outside playing!!!” at the top of her lungs. My mother chose not to notice I was about 21 years old, and certainly would NOT be out playing at 5:00 on a work morning, and it took about 10 minutes to convince her my sister was still asleep. After we finished arguing, we looked in on her, and she was curled up, sound asleep at the foot of my mother’s bed.
I stalked off to get ready for work…really tired.
When we figured out bananas were the cause of all this, she never ate them again, at any time of the day, and has never done any more sleep walking since. Sounds screwy, but it’s true-y. (I have no idea why I did that!)
Silky “Gimme back my pillows” Threat
My understanding is that waking the person up will cause them to become disoriented, possibly scared. Not likely to cause a heart attack, but still could lead to them falling down (say, if they’re near a staircase) or bumping into something.
Best thing to do is to try to lead them back to a bed, by gentle contact and soft speech.