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Sleepwalking Disorder
Sleepwalking Disorder affects people of any age. This condition happens when the person
moves around while he is a state of SWS or slow sleep wave sleep. While sleepwalking, the person has this blank
face; unresponsive to the efforts of others when they communicate with him. Waking him up would be quite
difficult to do. Within several minutes after waking him up, there’s no impairment of mental activity or
behavior although there may be a short period of confusion or disorientation.
Sleepwalking Disorder is categorized under Parasomnia - the involvement of abnormal
movements, behaviors and dreams that happen while in the process of falling asleep, while at sleep and in
between the sleep stages until waking up.
The stages of sleep are as follows: Stage 1 is called light sleeping. This is when you’re in and
out of sleep that a slight movement or sound can eventually wake you up. The eye movements are very slow. During
this stage, people often experience the feeling of falling.
Stage 2 happens when eye movement comes to a halt because the brain waves slow down. Stage 3
occurs when slow brain waves, which are called Delta Waves, have some bouts of small and fast waves. Stage 4
begins when the brain produces only the Delta Waves or the brain really moves slower. Stage 3 and 4 are also
called in layman’s terms, as the deep sleep stage. During this stage, it would be impossible to wake someone up.
It’s practically looking at a dead person who is actually alive and breathing since there are no eye movements
nor muscle activity. According to psychiatrists, this is the stage when most kids experience bedwetting – since
they just let go of their muscles.
Remember that sleepwalking happens earlier than the REM or rapid eye movement stage.
Sleepwalkers are actually not acting out their dreams; rather, they are experiencing a disorder called
Sleepwalking Disorder.
Questions regarding this disorder often boils down to one question – is this sleepwalking
disorder genetic? The answer is yes. It doesn’t matter if a person is under so much stress for him to engage in
sleepwalking. 15% of people whose family members or relatives experience walking while sleeping, chances are
they will be sleepwalkers too. If they still don’t believe that they do, they should just listen to the funny or
scary stories that people tell them about what happened several nights ago.
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