Parasomnia – When Nightmares Become Real
I’ve been studying odd sleep disorders the last few days, and I’ve come across this word Parasomnia. Parasomnia is defined as abnormal behaviors and experiences that accompany sleep; it’s mixed states of sleep and wakefulness. This includes sleepwalking, sleep eating and sleep drawing.
It’s been reported that up to thirty percent of children in North America sleepwalk. I was one of those sleepwalkers. Growing up I slept walked a lot. My mom reports hearing our front door open in the middle of the night. She ran out to see who was breaking into the house and saw me walking out to the car in my pajamas. I opened the car door, closed the car door, returned to the house and went back to bed.
Another time, I remember waking up and finding myself standing in the middle of the neighbor’s living room. It took me a minute to realize where I was, and when I did I went back home and got into my own bed. Fortunately, I’d spent the night at the neighbor’s house and didn’t add breaking and entering to my sleepwalking experiences.
A woman in England who was watching her weight closely couldn’t figure out why she was gaining weight and not losing it after following a strict diet. Then she found out she’d been sleepwalking to the kitchen, cooking spaghetti dinners and eating them in her sleep. She eats up to one hundred and fifty extra meals a year while asleep.
Then there’s Lee Hadwin who’s the sleeping artist. Meet him and his art in the link below.
But what if you wake up from a nightmare and find that it’s real. I’m not talking about a literal dream here. I’m talking about people who have slept walked their way into a literal nightmare.
A fifteen-year-old girl in Dulwich, London was spotted sleeping atop a one hundred and thirty-foot crane at one thirty in the morning. She’d left her home, which was near a construction site, and climbed up onto the crane in her sleep. The police called her parents to come to the sight and wake her with familiar voices.
A seventy-seven-year-old man in Florida who was a habitual sleepwalker awoke to find himself stuck in several feet of water in an alligator pond. Fortunately, he had his cane with him and could hold the alligators at bay until someone heard his cries and called the police. He was rescued without injury.
Then there was the man who was awakened as he strangled his wife. She turned out to be alright. When asked why he’d done such a thing, the man said he was dreaming of killing a deer with his bare hands.
Another man got into his car, drove across town killed his mother-in-law and nearly killed his father in law before getting back in his car and driving back home. His defense was that he’d slept walked through the whole thing.
These strange and terrifying accounts of the results of a sleeping disorder named Parasomnia is just one of the ways our dreams can go very wrong. I’m a big proponent of seeking peace as you’re falling asleep, and this is just one of the reasons why. Stress can be a factor in Parasomnia, and peace is an often forgotten antidote to violent sleep episodes.
EB