Sleepwalking and Sleeptalking

On November 23, 1998, Fox 13 news in Tampa FL aired a news segment about an elderly man who sleepwalked in the middle of the night, only to wake up and find himself in a pond near his backyard...surrounded by alligators. His calls for help woke up a little neighbor girl who was only 6 1/2 years old at the time, and she alerted her family to his calls for help and luckily he was rescued before any harm came to him. Now, that's what I call a rude awakening! (I know--but it was begging to be said)

Sleepwalking and Sleeptalking most often occur in children before they reach puberty. There are adults who have this disorder, also. It can be difficult to wake up the person who is sleeping during this phase of sleep which tends to occur in the first third of the night, during stage 3 or 4 of the sleep cycle. The frequency of occurences vary much the same as with people who experience night terrors, which you'll find on another link in this site. It can be VERY DANGEROUS and if any injuries have already occured or the likelihood of injuries is high, this person is STRONGLY urged to seek medical assistance from a sleep clinic. People can and do open doors, unlock doors, and navigate around furniture and other obstacles, but are not actually awake. They are acting out a dream, and the brain has a way of inserting or converting real objects (like a sofa) into a dream object/image that needs to be avoided, so they walk around it. BUT if their dream turns menacing and they perceive a burglar/monster/etc, they can & do attack or think they are defending themselves, and they are quite strong because by this time they have that adrenaline surge activated, also. In other words, they can unintentionally hurt someone else, or themselves. By all means, if you or someone you are close to has reached this point, CONTACT a sleep specialist PRONTO. You can research the link below, or contact me and I'll help you get started...but I urge you not to let this go to a point that can be dangerous for yourself or others.

Since I sleepwalked as a child, I naturally assumed there was a real possibilty that my child would too, one day. I prepared ahead of time by getting keyed deadbolt locks and keeping them put away where my child couldn't see it, so he wouldn't get up in the middle of the night and simply find the key in his sleep. That's been done by others. If they know it while awake, they know it while asleep. That's how people maneuver outside of a locked door quickly--while all the time they are sleepwalking. I used to work as a teletype operator at a law enforcement agency, and I remember cases where children wandered out in their sleep and almost drowned in nearby lakes. It doesn't hurt to be prepared if sleepwalking is hereditary.

Here's a link to a huge resource on sleep disorders put together by NASA:

SLEEP DISORDER RESOURCES

Here is an A-Z by State listing of Sleep Disorder Clinics:

American Academy of Sleep Medicine