But not a bad one. “Parasomnia” is actually a fancy term for sleepwalking or doing other crazy things in your sleep. When I was in college, I took Ambien, and that really brought out my parasomnias- I would sleepwalk through my apartment, usually gaining many large and mysterious bruises in the process, and sometimes I would take showers in my sleep.
Obviously I don’t take Ambien anymore. Once my doctor and I figured out what was causing the problem, I was weaned off of sleeping pills. In the process, though, I learned a lot about parasomnias. There are a lot of strange but documented parasomnias- most commonly, sleepwalking, but people have also been documented to eat, take medicine, have sex, even drive (scary!) in their sleep.
Here’s a new one: sleep e-mailing. A woman has been documented sending emails in her sleep.
It’s almost scary, when you think about it… your subconscious really doesn’t need your conscious to accomplish most of the tasks in your daily life!
