Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, If you're like me, you crave knowledge, right,
Speaker 1: I would assume that's why you're listening to the podcast,
Speaker 1: and that's why I'm excited to tell you about the
Speaker 1: new the Great Courses Plus video learning service. You can
Speaker 1: learn about anything that interests you with up to unlimited
Speaker 1: access to over seven thousand video lectures on fascinating topics,
Speaker 1: including science, history, or even how to cook, all taught
Speaker 1: by top professors. Now, I really want you to try
Speaker 1: the Great Courses Plus out, So they're giving brain Stuff
Speaker 1: listeners a special chance to watch hundreds of their courses
Speaker 1: for free, and that includes a course that I just
Speaker 1: watched on the Fundamentals of photography. Now. This is taught
Speaker 1: by professional photographer and National Geographic Fellow Joel Sartore, and
Speaker 1: he gives you techniques to take better pictures. He's got
Speaker 1: valuable advice on lighting, framing perspectives. I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: like it a lot, and I'm a big fan of
Speaker 1: this service, so I want you to try it out
Speaker 1: too as one of brain Stuff's listeners. When you sign up,
Speaker 1: you'll immediately get a free month of unlimited access to
Speaker 1: all of their lectures. Start your free trial today, by
Speaker 1: going to the Great Courses plus dot Com slash brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: That's the Great Courses plus dot com slash brain Stuff.
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: Christian Seger and this is brain stuff. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen someone sleepwalking? It's creepy, right. They're just sort of
Speaker 1: shambling around like a zombie, and not one of those
Speaker 1: super fast World War Z type zombies, but more of
Speaker 1: the slow, clumsy, walking dead type. They might even have
Speaker 1: glassy eyes or a bland, blank expression, and when they
Speaker 1: wake up they won't remember what happened. So what the
Speaker 1: heck is going on with sleepwalking? How does it work,
Speaker 1: who does it affect? And what are the common misconceptions
Speaker 1: about it? Well, first, let's define sleepwalking. If you want
Speaker 1: to get fancy, you can call it somnambulism. It's a
Speaker 1: type of parasomnia or abnormal disruptive behavior that occurs during sleep.
Speaker 1: This category also includes stuff like bedwedding and teeth grinding.
Speaker 1: Sleepwalkers may also act out a number of activities during
Speaker 1: this process. These could be simple things like eating to
Speaker 1: more complex processes like driving a car. Yeah, driving. For centuries,
Speaker 1: people have been trying to figure out what's going on
Speaker 1: with sleepwalking, and while scientists haven't fully cracked the case,
Speaker 1: we do know more and more about this phenomenon and
Speaker 1: it's helping us bust some myths. One, sleepwalkers probably aren't
Speaker 1: acting out their dreams. We know this because most sleepwalking
Speaker 1: occurs during the first third of the night, when your
Speaker 1: body is in n rem or non rem sleep. This
Speaker 1: is the deepest part of your sleep cycle. It's a
Speaker 1: time when your body repairs itself and releases hormones. You're
Speaker 1: not dreaming while this goes on, and because your brain
Speaker 1: will resist awakening in this state, it may be difficult
Speaker 1: to snap a sleepwalker out of it. But don't be
Speaker 1: afraid to try, because here's another fact. You can safely
Speaker 1: wake sleepwalkers. Don't do it violently, of course, but you're
Speaker 1: not going to kill them either. Now that we know
Speaker 1: some of the facts, it's time to figure out who's
Speaker 1: taking these midnight rambles. Weirdly enough, children tend to have
Speaker 1: a higher likelihood of sleepwalking. This parasomnia appears to run
Speaker 1: in families, and it occurs more often in boys than
Speaker 1: in girls, and sleepwalking in general is more common than
Speaker 1: you might think. A study at The Stanford University School
Speaker 1: of Medicine found that one in twenty u S adults
Speaker 1: are prone to sleepwalking and that twenty two percent reports
Speaker 1: some form of it Since childhood. Parasomnias have been called
Speaker 1: errors in timing and balance in the brain. More technically,
Speaker 1: it could be called a disorder of arousal, meaning that
Speaker 1: something triggers the brain into awakening from deep n REM
Speaker 1: sleep stage, so the person is in a transition state
Speaker 1: between sleeping and waking. So why do kids experience it
Speaker 1: more often and why do they grow out of it?
Speaker 1: Some researchers argue that kids brains aren't mature enough to
Speaker 1: fully comprehend sleep cycles, or that areas of their brains
Speaker 1: don't develop at the same pace, And since n REM
Speaker 1: sleep is a period of hormone release, it's possible that
Speaker 1: hormonal releases may have something to do with sleepwalking. Most
Speaker 1: adults who walk in their sleep did the same as children. Exhaustion, stress,
Speaker 1: some medicines, illnesses, and alcohol can all contribute to sleep walking.
Speaker 1: And there's one last myth to bust here. Sleepwalking really
Speaker 1: can be dangerous. It's been linked to seizures as well
Speaker 1: as disorders like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Some people throughout history
Speaker 1: have even argued success Philip that they killed someone while
Speaker 1: they were sleepwalking. Check out the Brainstuff channel on YouTube,
Speaker 1: and for more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com