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Iwake up in the middle of the night drive a car Walking around town, preparing a platter of dog food, eat it–And though his eyes are wide open, he is fast asleep. While these experiences may sound fictional, they are an example of a strange condition that occurs near the edges of sleep known as “sleepwalking.” Sleepwalking is a type of so-called “wakefulness disorder” in which you are partially awakened during sleep, affecting your surroundings. 2.5% of adults and as much 14% of children. And this strange phenomenon not only provides insight into how the dissociation mechanisms during sleep arise and how they break down, but also provides clues about the nature of consciousness itself.
Each night, a person goes through a unique phase through a 90-minute sleep cycle. During “light sleep” (known as stages 1 and 2), your heart rate and body temperature decrease. This is a kind of transitional stage between wakefulness and sleep. But it’s during “deep sleep” (Stage 3) that the brain does important housework for the body. These include releasing hormones to repair the skin, replenishing the cardiovascular and immune systems, and creating new memories. During this period, neurons literally shrink, allowing cerebrospinal fluid to enter the brain and remove harmful toxins. Deep sleep is a form of restorative sleep and is often difficult to wake the sleeping person. The fourth stage, the so-called rapid eye movement sleep, or ‘REM’ sleep for short, is called ‘paradoxical sleep’. And for good reason. Your blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing speed up, and your brain waves speed up. Eavesdropping on the activity of neurons in REM Similar to waking up. It is during REM sleep that we have our most vivid, vivid and emotional dreams. To prevent yourself from harming yourself by acting out these Rem dreams, your brain temporarily paralyzes your entire body. This transition is tightly controlled by chemicals released from the lower parts of your brain that tilt you between sleep and wakefulness.
read more: Why Sleep Paralysis Makes You See Ghosts
Sleepwalking does not occur during REM sleep, but rather during deep sleep. This dispels the commonly held myth that sleepwalkers are confused dreamers who wander around the house and act out strange dreams. This is virtually never the case. Not surprisingly, sleepwalking often occurs early in the night when deep sleep is abundant.
Unlike REM sleep, activity in the cortex (the cortex located in the outer layers of the brain in much the same way as a motorcycle helmet) slows down significantly during deep sleep. However, this structure of deep sleep can sometimes be inadvertently disrupted. Arousal from the brain’s emotional headquarters, the so-called “limbic system,” can become overactive and tickle the overlying cortex, leaving a person partially awake. deep sleep. In fact, this excitement causes the brain to be awake and asleep at the same time, as if the worlds of sleep and waking are colliding.
Neural neighborhoods important for reasoning and self-awareness, such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (strips of tissue at the front of both hemispheres), remain dormant, while areas involved in movement are largely awake. The former explains why the sleeping person is uncontrollable, confused, and lacking complete insight. The latter is why people can move around freely. Emotional brain centers and the lower part of the brain, which is essential for balance, are also activated. Interestingly, the memory area of the brain, the seahorse-like structure behind the ear, is blocked. This is why sleepers don’t remember sleepwalking expeditions.
It’s unclear exactly what triggers the brain to transition into this bizarre state of sleep and wakefulness at the same time, but genes play an important role.In fact, people can experience sleepwalking 10 times more often If a close relative (a so-called first-degree relative) has also experienced it. Identical twins (who share 100% of their genes) are more than 5% more likely to experience it than non-identical twins (who share 50% of their genes). .
Stress can also trigger sleepwalking, making sleepwalking more frequent and severe, at least in people with these genes. Emotional distress is a major cause of brain awakenings that are difficult to switch off at night, known as nighttime awakenings. A prominent example is a person who has experienced trauma.Recent study Patients with PTSD were more awake than healthy people, indicating that they were more awake, or simply unable to maintain sleep.
People who have experienced trauma are more likely to wake up during deep sleep because their overall sleep structure is fragmented. People who have experienced trauma tend to fall asleep or fall asleep suddenly because their “emotional brain”, especially the almond-like structure embedded behind the ear called the amygdala, is aroused. The amygdala, which makes us feel anxious and fearful, is pulsing with activity in traumatized people, and surprisingly, it is often larger and swollen in size compared to non-traumatized people. .
Additionally, a traumatized person has fewer and thinner nerve fibers from the front of the cortex and the emotional brain that restrains it, much like the brakes on a car. Their emotional brains are virtually free to rule, making it easier for them to wake up during their deepest sleep.
Uncontrollable agitation and inability to sleep deeply also explain why this phenomenon is especially prevalent in children.about 80% of the case. Sleepwalking disappears by the time children reach their teenage years. This is because the child’s frontal lobe is not fully mature. You may simply not be able to keep yourself from waking up during the night, and the depth of your sleep may be compromised.
The human brain is more mysterious than you can imagine, and sleepwalking (and its research) offers sharp insights into consciousness. It shows that what we call consciousness is not a single one-dimensional thing. Alternatively, they may represent different states, each with their own flavor. In yet other cases, as this phenomenon brilliantly demonstrates, they merge into mixed brain states that blur the sharp boundaries between sleep and wakefulness. There is also
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