A person spends a significant part of his life in a dream. We need sleep to rest, restore immunity and correct metabolism. As a result of chemical processes occurring in the body during sleep, some organic compounds in cells and tissues are destroyed (catabolism), and some, on the contrary, arise (anabolism). Accordingly, our entire body simultaneously grows and loses something, and the speed of such processes depends on the person's age.
Why sleep?
All this is done under the control of our brain, which processes the information received during the day and gives commands to our body. By the way, something like this happens in the body of animals and in plants. True, the sleep of animals is different from the sleep of man. For example, bears go into a long hibernation, whales and dolphins move even in their sleep, sheep and horses prefer to doze while standing, and giraffes, although they take a horizontal position, constantly wake up, while their total sleep per night is about 20 minutes. Birds can fly on the fly, and fish sleep with their eyes open, because they have no eyelids. As for plants, our "green fellows" periodically develop a state of dormancy, during which all life processes slow down.
Human sleep consists of slow and REM sleep phases. Cycles are formed from them, including five stages, which last one and a half to two hours. During the night, our brain goes through several such cycles, and the proportion of REM sleep gradually increases. It is not very useful when the sleeping person is awakened during this phase, because it is during REM sleep that the brain actively processes the information received during the day. If you interrupt such a dream often enough, you can even “organize a mental disorder for a person.
What is sleepwalking
All people sleep in different ways - someone deep sleep, someone wakes up many times a night. Someone goes to bed early and gets up a little light, someone is awake until late at night and wakes up closer to dinner.
Someone is sleeping soundly and does not remember their dreams, but, for example, Dmitry Mendeleev and Charles Dickens had such vivid dreams that they later used them in their work. However, there are serious pathologies (scientists also call them deviations), expressed in a violation of normal sleep - insomnia (insomnia) or, conversely, irresistible drowsiness (hypersomnia).
Science has long known such a phenomenon as somnambulism. It is also called sleepwalking, since there is an opinion, though not supported by scientific evidence, that this pathology is associated with the influence of the moon on the human psyche. According to various sources, sleepwalking suffers from two to two and a half percent of all adults. Sleepwalking is more common among children, but this nervous disorder usually goes away with age.
Sleepwalking usually occurs during incomplete awakening from a deep phase of slow wave sleep at the level of the third and fourth stages, collectively called the "delta stage". The sleepwalker seems to be asleep, but at the same time performs actions that are uncharacteristic for a sleeping person, for example, he gets up and goes somewhere, talks loudly or even drives a car. A person's eyes are open, his movements are slow and smooth. And all because the brain of the somnambulist is in a state of half-sleep-half-wakefulness. Moreover, it is quite difficult to wake him up, and this does not need to be done, since the lunatic can be frightened or show aggression. The best thing is to just take him back to bed and put him to bed.
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Wandering girls
Cases of somnambulism have been described in the medical literature as early as the 19th century. Here are some of them. An American girl of ten woke up every night, got up, and slowly walked around her room and living room. Then she returned to her sleeping place and carefully looked around at him. There was usually a large basket of linens next to the bed. The girl carefully examined her, and then lay down there, curled up like a cat. So she slept for about an hour, and then returned to her bed. All this happened every night in front of my sister. After a while, the night wanderings ceased as suddenly as they began.
A 12-year-old schoolgirl, who lived in a prestigious closed boarding house, suddenly began to get up at night and wander through the rooms and corridors. The management of the educational institution decided not to publicize what was happening, so as not to spoil the reputation of the boarding house. Two maids were put in with the girl, who were supposed to look after her. Every night, the sleepwalker got up and walked around the building, and then, under the supervision of her roommates, she went out into the street.
Once the workers who were repairing the roof forgot to remove the ladder for the night, leaving it leaning against the wall. The somnambulist quickly found herself at the stairs and instantly climbed up to the roof. The maids were afraid to raise a cry so as not to scare the girl, because a sudden awakening would inevitably lead to a fall from a height. The sleepwalker slowly moved along the edge of the roof along the stone drain and, in the end, found herself at its destroyed site. To the horror of the women watching her, the girl continued to move, as if not noticing that she was about to fall. When the roof ran out, the somnambulist stood for a second, as if deciding what to do next, then turned around, slowly walked to the stairs and went down it. Then, accompanied by the frightened maids, she returned to her room and went to bed. In the morning, the girl did not remember what happened to her at night.
The boarding school doctor pondered for a long time how to protect the pupil from an accident. Finally, a special nightgown was sewn for her, the hem of which was sewn over to make the bag come out. Walking in such a shirt would hardly work. The sleeves were cut so long that they could be tied at the chest. At night, the somnambulist, as always, got out of bed, but, taking a step, fell and woke up. The next night, getting up and standing a little, the lunatic suddenly jumped forward. She jumped around the room until she was exhausted and went to bed. And after a while the girl stopped walking at night altogether. However, not long after lunch, her body suddenly began to spasm, and she muttered some nonsense. Only two days later did the boarder come to her senses. Unfortunately, over time, these seizures became more frequent, and her parents were forced to isolate her from society.
Unlucky somnambulists
One 28-year-old man was convicted of killing his own 18-month-old son by hitting his head against a wall. The unfortunate man suffered from sleepwalking for a long time, but he did not even suspect that he was capable of committing such a crime. At the trial, the killer stated that he was simply protecting his family - it seemed to him that a wild animal had climbed into the house. Knowing about the defendant's illness, the court acquitted him.
Today the fate of somnambulists is as unenviable as in the old days. Recently Donald Clegg. the English doctor, after a party at which he had a decent drink, came home and went to bed. However, he soon got up, put on a robe and slippers, got into his car and pressed the gas pedal. A couple of minutes later Clegg crashed into the cars parked nearby and … woke up. It turned out that the man did it in a dream. At the trial, the unlucky sleepwalker lamented that he had to abandon the car earlier, since he had already once crashed into a tree in the same way, without waking up. The violator's wife, who was present in the hall, promised the judge that she would now hide the keys to the car. Nevertheless, the court sentenced Clegg to a decent fine and revoked his driver's license for 12 months, citing his decision that the doctor got behind the wheel drunk.
In 2001, in Gloucester, tool rental manager Michael Cox, who had long been diagnosed with somnambulism, hanged himself in his sleep. The night before, Cox had watched Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. It contains a scene where one of the characters is hanged. Apparently, she made such a strong impression on the poor fellow that she became the main theme of his dream, embodied in reality. However, psychologists still believe that this was not suicide in the full sense of the word, it was just that Cox's brain was unable to develop the usual inhibition response that is characteristic of waking consciousness. In sleepwalkers, in a dream, the instinct of self-preservation is turned off, so at night they often do things that they would never have dared to do during the day.
In 2008, sleepwalker Brian Thomas decided to spend the weekend traveling by car with his wife Christina. During one of the stops, the spouses had a quarrel with a group of unfamiliar young people. The night after his return, Brian got out of bed and strangled his wife, who was peacefully sleeping next to him. When the police arrived, Thomas said that he dreamed that some young guy in jeans and a black jacket burst into the bedroom and rushed at Christina. The husband shouted at the stranger, and then grabbed him by the throat to drag him away from his wife. But when the somnambulist suddenly woke up, his fingers squeezed the throat of poor Christina, who no longer showed signs of life. The court took into account Thomas's illness and released him from custody.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №4. Author: Sergey Sukhanov
