Parasomnias: Sleepwalking Can Be Murder.

💤Sleepwalking💤

💤It's more common for children to suffer from sleepwalking than adults. A child will usually grow out of sleepwalking by their teenage years. 30 percent of kids between ages 5 and 12 have experienced at least one sleepwalking episode. While 2 to 3 percent of adults having at least one sleepwalking episode per week.

💤Sleepwalking usually occurs one to two hours after falling asleep at night and usually in a sleep deprived individual. Usually all the sleepwalker does is walk, but sometimes they can do complicated movements. 

💤Often, sleepwalking is a random, harmless event. Treatment may be needed if it occurs often or causes injury. Medications and hypnosis may help.

💤Me and one of my sisters would sleep walk. She used to fill up the bathroom sink and try to drown herself and I would walk to the kitchen and take food back to bed. "Laugh" We both grew out of it, but then i started back up again for awhile in high school. I wouldn't take food to bed this time, I'd rearrange the furniture in my room or clean. Then I graduated to talking in my sleep, which I haven't done in a while. "Catburger." Oh how I wish that I still sleep cleaned. 

💤Let's talk about what happens a person's brain while they are sleeping. 

💤When a person is asleep their brain usually powers down to recharge. When a person falls asleep their body is supposed to shut down and rest, but for some people that doesn't always happen. A person's body with the sleepwalking disorder doesn't fully shut down all the time. They can move their bodies around and sometimes do extremely complicated things.

💤Some of the behaviors of sleepwalkers include; walking, sexual activities, sitting up in bed, opening the eyes and staring with a blank expression, talking, urinating in closets, shouting or screaming, even driving.

💤I forgot I used to scream and fall out of my bed onto who ever was sleeping over. "Laugh."

💤Night terrors are episodes of screaming, intense fear, and flailing while still asleep, often paired with sleepwalking. 

I hate night terrors.

💤People with certain mental health conditions such as, dementia, substance abuse disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression and anxiety disorders are at greater risk of sleepwalking.

💤Certain medications can increase a person's chances of sleep walking such as anti-depressants and over the counter sleep medications.

💤It's not too common, but some people have had terrible things happen to them and have done terrible things while sleep walking.

The Man And The Alligators

💤In 1998, James Currens was a 77 year-old retired maintenance worker and had a habit of sleepwalking. He had wandered behind his home and awoke in several feet of water in a muddy pond with his legs stuck in the mud. Several alligators, some longer than 3 feet, came around and he had to use his cane to fend them off by poking at them. A neighbor heard him yelling and called police, who used lights to scare off the gators and freed Currens. Currens suffered only minor cuts on his legs and arms from the fall.

A Sleepwalker Gets High

💤In 2005, a 15 year old girl was sleepwalking when she apparently walked out of her home in London, climbed 130 feet up a crane and walked 40 feet across a narrow beam. A passer-by spotted the sleepwalker curled up on top of a concrete counterweight and called emergency services. 

💤Police and fire crews originally thought the girl was going to throw herself off the crane, but when a firefighter crawled out across the arm towards her, he discovered she was asleep. Scared to wake her in case she panicked and fell off the arm, the firefighter then called her parents from her mobile phone at the top of the crane, who then phoned to wake her up. The whole ordeal took two and a half hours and she was finally brought down on a hydraulic lift. She was taken to hospital for a check-up, but was sent home without any sign of injuries.

I See The Food That You Eat, When You're Walking In Your Sleep.

💤In 2013, 55 year old Leslie Cusack from England said that she had to put alarms on her doors in hopes that she would wake up before getting to the kitchen. She was consuming up to 2,500 calories in one night while sleep walking.

💤It just wasn't just her calorie intake that worried Leslie. She occasionally would eat non-food substances that could be potentially poisonous, including Vaseline, paint, cough syrup and soap powder.

💤Leslie was also known to cook with her gas stove while sleeping.

My Name Is Sherlock D'oh

💤Robert LeDrew was a brilliant detective of the 19th century living in France. One night he was called to solve a very strange murder. The local police were having a lot of trouble trying to figure out exactly what happened. 

💤A Paris native named Andre Monet's body was found on a local beach and he had been shot. The only clues were a bullet, which technology wasn't advanced enough for that to be any help, and the killer's footprints.

💤When LeDrew saw the footprints he was horrified. He realized that the killer was missing a big toe on his right foot. LeDrew was also missing the big toe on his right foot. This sent his mind racing to a few nights before when he awakened to wet socks. He realized that he was the killer. LeDrew turned himself into police. They didn't believe him at first and decided to hold him in a cell over night to see if he really did sleepwalk. 

💤After LeDrew fell asleep he got out of bed and started walking around. This wasn't enough proof that he could commit murder in his sleep, so they put a gun in his cell the next night. After he was asleep he got up, picked up the gun and shot at the guards. 

💤Prosecutors decided that he could not be held accountable, but he was dangerous, so they exiled him to a farm in the countryside under the care of guards and nurses.

💤Jennifer Aniston has claimed that she would sleepwalk as a child. She would carry on full conversations with her family before going back to bed. She has also stated that when she was married to Brad Pitt she had been sleepwalking got woken up by her alarm. She found herself in her backyard by the pool equipment.

💤Chris Colfer's mom use to find him asleep and eating bowls of cereal on the couch. He started taking sleeping pills in attempts to help with his disorder but that made it worse. This got him shopping online while asleep. One of the things he had sleepordered was a huge framed portrait of Marie Antoinette. Also, once Chris climbed onto his hotel balcony and woke up while he was climbing over the railing. 

The Ambien Defense

💤This is what Roseanne Barr used to explain some of her controversial tweets. The Ambien Defense is the argument that someone charged with a crime—and the crimes have ranged from DWI to child sexual abuse to murder— took Ambien (or generic zolpidem) beforehand and had no memory of the crime. It has helped several defendants get acquitted. After being sued by users in a class action suit, makers of the drug were forced to put a warning on the label.

A Rude Awakening

💤In 2013, in Oregon 29 year old Mandylee Kenney took Ambien and fell asleep. When she woke up in a jail cell barefoot and still wearing her pajamas. While under the influence of Ambien, she got up, ran a bath, took her dog for a walk and got into her car and crashed into another vehicle. Kenney used the "Ambien defense" and was acquitted of driving under the influence and reckless driving.The prosecution couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that  she wasn't sleep driving a possible side effect of Ambien.

It Ain't No Joke

 

💤When stand up comedian Mike Birbiglia get's anxious, he sleepwalks. He wrote a memoir about his sleepwalking adventures called "Spending The Night With Sleepwalker Mike Birbiglia", which was eventually made into a movie. In his book, Birbiglia tells about how when he was on tour in Washington when he had a nightmare. He dreamed that there was a guided missile headed towards his hotel room. As he was dreaming, Mike climbed onto the windowsill and jumped out of the window of his hotel room. He fell two stories and had to get 33 stitches for gashes in his legs, but he survived. This incident made him go to a sleep specialist for overnight observation. They found out that Mike was suffering from a dopamine deficiency.

💤Dopamine is the chemical is a chemical that your brain releases to put your body to sleep so you don't act out your dreams.

WAKE UP

💤It is a myth that it is dangerous to wake up a sleepwalker because it may cause them a heart attack, shock, brain damage, or something else. It can be dangerous to wake them up because they might accidentally hurt themselves or the person trying to wake them up.

💤There are times where the sleepwalker or someone else might get hurt if the sleepwalker isn't woken up. If you can, the best thing to do  is to help the sleepwalker return safely their bed without waking him or her, if possible. Taking care not to touch the sleepwalker too much, gently turn them in the direction of their bed, and walk near the person until they get back into bed.

💤If returning a sleepwalker safely back to bed doesn’t work, from a safe distance use loud, sharp noises to wake up the person instead. This will most likely startle the sleepwalker, but it's better than shaking the person in close range, because that might trigger the sleepwalker to feel attacked and lash out and hurt you.

💤People who wake up from sleepwalking are often confused, disoriented, and scared, so it's nice to tell the person "You've been sleepwalking."