Talk:Sleepwalking

School Project
As a project for school, I am required to edit this article, and I see that a lot of editing has been done already!

As an important subject in my sleeping and dreaming class, I think it would be very important to see more information about the reasons as to why not wake a sleep walker and maybe throw more rare cases in. For example, I personally know my mother eats cotton balls when she sleep walks when she is stressed. Nothing else, no food, just cotton balls! How strange is that? (She doesn't swallow them though) If waking the sleep walker is

I also noticed the statistics comments, and noticed that was basically fixed, so that is perfect!

Cannot wait to do more research on this topic

76.84.119.31 (talk) 03:28, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Sam.kazda04 (talk) 01:40, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Hello y'all! I'm editing this article as a project for school as well. You all have made such great contributions to the article and I enjoyed reading it. Hopefully my edits continue to improve its greatness. Happy editing! CleanBean (talk) 18:08, 30 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Hey y'all! I just made some more edits to the article under the "Associated disorders" and "Consequences" subsections!CleanBean (talk) 05:00, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

My Sleepwalking theory

 * -A Sleep Disorder Theory

Half-sleep
I'm not sure if this belongs here, fix if necessary. I have experienced a sort of half-sleep on many occasions over the last 10 years or so. I remain aware during this state. My body movement is locked down, presumably because of a part of the brain that evolved to stop our ancestors and other animals becoming easy food when sleepwalking. I remember reading of an experiment where researches destroyed that particular part of a cat's brain (cruel bastards), and when the cat went to sleep and entered REM, it moved around, 'chasing imaginary prey'.

Anyway, I find in that state I am able to retain some degree of control. I have been able to open my eyes and look around, and can make limited movements of limbs. When I enter that state, I can hear odd sounds, either rapid high pitched pulsing, or, as happened a few days ago, ultra-rapid 'noise' (for lack of a better term). I can always wake up properly by concentrating. I am seriously not making this up. I would love to learn more about this. Is there a sleep doctor in the house?

DooMDrat 01:48, Dec 5, 2004 (AEST)


 * I experience that state from time to time. It is called sleep paralysis.  Some people prefer to call it awareness during sleep paralysis, but it's the same thing.  Check out the links I just provided to read up on it.  Regards. :-)   &mdash; Frecklefoot | Talk 23:34, Dec 4, 2004 (UTC)

Still no citations
Hi guys. I'm DrowningInRoyalty here, again. I'm still waiting on those citations. I really don't have the time to do so, so I'd appreciate if someone could go out and get them. If not, well, I'll try and gather up some of my time to gather reasonable sources and add the citations and remove what is false. Thanks. DrowningInRoyalty

Wiki Education assignment: Psychology Capstone
— Assignment last updated by Rahneli (talk) 13:54, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Earlier history
It seems odd that there is seemingly no history of the subject prior to the 18th century. Sleepwalking, along with sleep-talking, famously features in Macbeth (we even have a separate article dedicated to the sleepwalking scene), strangely not mentioned in this article, but aren't there any earlier mentions of the phenomenon? I find that difficult to believe, given that the phenomenon should have occurred in antiquity, as well. (Unless human psychology has somehow radically changed since then.)

It seems possible to me that the Latin adjective lunaticus 'moonstruck' (whence lunatic) can also refer to somnambulism, given that the German word mondsüchtig typically refers to sleepwalking, and is sometimes used to translate moonstruck. Although lunaticus is usually considered to refer only to epilepsy or insanity, this may be doubted, also given that the ancient term epilepsia does not always refer to the modern concept of epilepsy, either. But I haven't been able to find anything specific about this. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 07:03, 17 July 2024 (UTC)