Somnambulism: Psychophysiological Correlates

Abstract

A great perturbation in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching. In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and her other actual performances, what, at any time, have you heard her say? —<i>W. Shakespeare</i> THE BEHAVIOR of somnambulists has led to a general belief that sleepwalking is the acting out of a dream.^1-3In a previous study⁴we observed the relation of sleepwalking to the sleep-dream cycle directly, by utilizing the rapid eye movement (REM) method of dream detection^*and obtaining electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings throughout the night by means of special cables or a biotelemetry unit which allowed for subject mobility. Nine subjects (seven male and two female) ages 9 to 23 years were studied for a total of 47 subject nights in our laboratory. Six of the subjects were children and three adults, age 16 years being