In his sleep

June 10, 2016

Somnambulism is a sleep disorder that affects many people in our country. Syed Tashfin Chowdhury writes about the experiences of a few sleepwalkers and how their families coped with it

The hard shove forced Masud (not his real name) to wake up and discover himself standing right by the pond. His father was standing by him and had pushed him a few minutes after Masud had walked out of his house, crossed the street and was walking by the pond. Fortunately, his father had heard the movement and had followed Masud till the pond, before any other accidents occurred.
This incident had occurred when he was 12 years old and it was one of the rarest moments when he had walked out of his house in his sleep.
‘Earlier and afterwards, I walked inside my own house in my sleep,’ says Masud (30), currently a private service-holder in Dhaka, to New Age Xtra. Masud no longer faces these problems.
‘As a result, I used to be very afraid to go to sleep. Besides sleepwalking, I regularly had nightmares of someone chasing me with a sword. I ran as fast as I could in my sleep but the person continued to chase me,’ recalls Masud.
At the time, Masud was living with his parents in his village home in Rajshahi.
He also remembers having hallucinations of spotting snakes inside his house, while wide awake. ‘I often saw snakes, green in colour, by the door’s edge in our room. When I screamed for my parents and they rushed in, the snake was gone, like it was never there,’ says Masud.
Masud is still confused whether he used to hallucinate about the snakes. ‘If it happened to me once or twice, I could have waived these off as hallucinations. But I saw them so often that I cannot even say for sure what those incidents were!’ says Masud.
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Masud was suffering from somnambulism or sleep-walking, a behavioural disorder that affects mostly children.
According to US-based National Sleep Foundation, somnambulism originates ‘during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep’. It is much more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived, the website says.
More than usual, the episodes happen during deep sleep. It is difficult to awaken these sleepwalkers and usually they cannot remember the episode, seconds after being awakened.
‘Such was my case after my father woke me up near the pond. I did not know how I got there,’ says Masud.
Farhan (15) has been facing fewer episodes of sleepwalking over the last few years. ‘Three to four years back, he regularly got out of bed in his sleep, walked out of his room, often drank a glass of water and returned to bed,’ says Yash Hossain, a cousin of Farhan, to New Age Xtra.
‘But after waking up, if we asked him, he could not remember anything about these incidents,’ adds Hossain.
The National Sleep Foundation states that ‘symptoms of sleepwalking disorder range from simply sitting up in bed and looking around, to walking around the room or house, to leaving the house and even driving long distances.’
The site states that there is a misconception that a sleepwalker should not be awakened. ‘In fact, it can be quite dangerous not to wake a sleepwalker’, it says.
While most sleepwalkers will gradually lose this habit with maturity, others may have it even in their adulthood although there may be no underlying psychiatric or psychological problems.
Common triggers for sleepwalking include sleep deprivation, sedative agents, febrile illnesses, and certain medications.
Medical experts have recommended that family members can try to ensure that the sleep-walker does not incur any injuries to himself or herself, during such episodes.