How Do You Walk In Your Sleep?

              It is true that a few people have the habit of walking in their sleep. Some actually engage in some activity without being conscious of it themselves. There are some theories which attempt to explain why people walk in their sleep. An event in a person's life or an accident that is unpleasant may be deeply etched in his mind. He may try to bury it in his mind or may not even be aware of it.

              During sleep, he may get up from bed and engage in an activity that fulfils a hidden wish or gives expression to suppressed anger against someone. When you crave for something just before going to bed but control yourself and the same thing comes in your dreams, it might get converted to fulfil that wish in your sleep itself so the brain which controls the dreams, controls the walking as well. For example, a child whose parents have separated may walk in his sleep to his mother's house.

There are very few cases of people walking in their sleep. But while sleepwalking is a peculiar form of behavior, there is nothing mysterious about it.

To understand it, let us start with sleep itself. We need to sleep so that our tired organs and tissues of the body will rest and be restored. We still do not have an exact scientific explanation of how and why we sleep, but it is believed that there is a "sleep center" in
the brain which regulates the sleeping and waking of the body.

What regulates this sleep center? The blood. The activity of our body all day releases certain substances into the blood. One of these is calcium. It passes into the blood and stimulates the sleep center. And the sleep center has been "sensitized"' before by special substances so that it will react to the calcium.

When the sleep center goes to work, it does two things. The first is it blocks off part of the brain so that we no longer have the will to do anything, and we no longer have consciousness. We might call this "brain sleep".

The second thing it does is to block off certain nerves in the brain stem so that internal organs and our limbs fall asleep. Let us call this 'body sleep'. And normally these two reactions or kinds of sleep are connected. Built under certain conditions they may be separated! The brain may sleep while the body is awake. This might happen to a person whose nervous system does not react normally. So such people might get out of bed while their brain is asleep and walk about! The brain and body sleep have become disassociated, and they are sleep walkers.

Sleep walking is not something that you simply decide to do.  It is an actual medical condition not a decision.  It can also be dangerous to the walker and others that may get in the way.  Count your blessings if you can get a good nights sleep, many people can't.