What is sleep walking? Sleep walking is a behaviour that's in a group of behaviours called parasomnias. Sleep walking is a behaviour that's in a group of behaviours called parasomnias. Sleep walking is closely...
Sleep walking is a behaviour that's in a group of behaviours called parasomnias. Sleep walking is closely related to sleep talking, night terrors, those kinds of behaviors. And sleep walking tends to come out of deep sleep, out of slow wave sleep. So people who do that kind of behaviour, they tend to do it within an hour or two of falling sleep. That's the tendency. Not that it has to be that way but that's the overwhelming tendency. If this is going to occur early in the night these individual will be in the state that they want to stay and usually you don't want to stay there. Your brains are not going to keep you there for long periods of time if they can and something will happen internally or externally. You can generate this kind of behaviour if you ever had a child again at a social gathering and they fall asleep on the couch in somebody's house or in their bed. You try and wake them up and watch what you get. You get this combative child.
And then they are biting and snatching and snarling, argumentative and kicking and no, no, no, no and not really making any sense....
And then you tell them about it the next day and they tell you that they don't know what you are talking about. Again it comes out of the deep sleep and you are not going to have memory of this sleep walking or sleep talking and these night terrors. Usually there are not much memories of sleep walking. You have the brain kind of caught between the wake and sleep. Their eyes are open, pupils may be dilated, may be a little sweaty or panicky look and you are going to hear some body talk but usually that doesn't make any sense. There is no story behind it. It tends to be words repeated over and over again. No, no, no, don't, don't, don't, please no, please no and they really make no sense. Again they are mostly asleep so touching them and trying to comfort them is not good. They are not perceptive of what's going on around them. They don't perceive being there any way. So it may help you but it doesn't help them.
Some circumstances with sleep walking or night terrors you put a cold cloth on their head, try to shake them and it makes things worse.
It's kind of like slipping the clutch. You are stuck in the gear and can't get anywhere.
