• Question: why do some people sleep walk?

    Asked by scientistlads to Bob, Katie, Nisha, Sallie, Vee on 4 Jul 2012.
    • Photo: Bob Bonwick

      Bob Bonwick answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      When we sleep, our body shuts down your abilty to move around. In some people this doesn’t happen and combined with a dreaming state you end up walking about. My brother does it all the time, I’ve had to stop him jumping out of a window before now.

    • Photo: Sallie Baxendale

      Sallie Baxendale answered on 4 Jul 2012:

      Something goes wrong with the sleep pattern. Normally the body stops you moving when you are dreaming (apart from your eyes which move about a lot) When someone sleepwalks the body has forgotton to shut off movement so they can begin to act out their dreams. Sometimes people can do really complicated things when they are sleepwalking like drive a car – this is really dangerous because they aren’t really paying attention to what is around them. I saw a program on one lady who was trying to diet, but kept eating everynight when she was sleep walking because she was dreaming of food!!

Comments