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Activities Performed While Sleep Walking

Usually, when people sleep, their bodies secrete chemicals that inhibit motion. Yet 1 to 2 percent of people suffer from parasomnia, a phenomenon which involves performing actions while sleeping, and which medical professionals are still attempting to understand. Actions that take place during the sleepwalking state may vary from harmless to life-threatening.

  1. Dream Actions Misconception

    • People often misinterpret the actions of sleepwalkers as acting out their dreams. Yet sleepers only dream during REM (Rapid Eye Movement), the fifth stage of the sleep cycle -- and sleepwalking typically takes place within the first hour or two of dozing off, before sleepers achieve REM sleep. Thus, there are other mental processes aside from dreams that manifest themselves as the actions sleepwalkers carry out.

    Routine Activities

    • Usually, sleepwalkers' actions are associated with routine activities, which they conduct with their eyes open in a blank, glassy state. The activities are typically harmless ones such as doing chores, eating, writing checks, dressing, undressing, or using the restroom -- but there have also been instances of climbing from windows or driving cars while sleeping. Even when the behaviors themselves are harmless, however, there is inherent risk of injury due to stumbling, falling, or other mishaps. Eventually, sleepwalkers either awaken abruptly, startled and confused, or return to bed and awaken later with either no knowledge of having performed the activities, or with some vague sense of merely having dreamt the actions they actually performed. If sleepers wander too far from home, they may even return to sleep someplace else.

    Non-Routine Activities

    • In extremely rare instances, sleepwalkers perform actions that are drastically out of the ordinary. The most perplexing cases have involved sleepwalkers committing crimes and other offenses in their sleep. In 2010, a Swedish man was arrested for drunk driving in his sleepwalking state, with a blood alcohol level of 1.85 per mille (almost ten times Sweden's legal limit). In 1998, a man in Florida endangered his own life in his sleep and woke up waist-deep in a pond ridden with alligators. In 1997, neighbors witnessed as Scott Falater stabbed his wife 44 times and then drowned her in their swimming pool. When questioned by police, he claimed to have no memory of having done so. Defense experts testified that he had a history of sleepwalking as a child, had been suffering from business-related stress and had been in the middle of repairing a faulty pump in the swimming pool before going to sleep that night. They theorized that if he had been trying to resume the task and been interrupted in his sleepwalking state, he might have unconsciously reacted violently. According to research by the American Academy of Neurology, about 19 percent of sleepwalkers report injuries and 32 percent report violent occurrences.

    Actions When Awakened

    • Waking sleepwalkers while they're in the midst of actions can be dangerous, as they can become irrational and aggressive enough to lash out unconsciously rather than awakening fully. Instead of attempting to wake them, they should be gently guided safely back to bed.

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