My Sleep Disorder Theory

Lately we have been reading Shakespeare in English, which I rather enjoy doing. Last year we read the Merchant of Venice, and this time around we are studying Macbeth. Anyway, the teacher thought showing us a video might give us a feel of what we were reading in the text in context of real life, so we watched Macbeth, the movie version. It was alright and all, but it was a bit boring and dated. I felt as though I’d rather read the script instead. Halfway through the video though, it caught more of my attention.

Lady Macbeth, one of the main characters of the play and wife of Macbeth, was acting strange. Trying to figure out why she was acting out of character and not in flow with what had happened in the first half of the video, I suddenly realised she was sleepwalking.

“Abnormal” behaviours have always struck interest in me and I wondered why she was speaking and sleepwalking at the same time. Lady Macbeth had just helped Macbeth murder the king of Scotland, so it was plausible that stress caused her to sleepwalk, but talking in long, descriptive Shakespearean sentences didn’t seem all that plausible…

So, that still in my mind, I went home and researched sleepwalking on the Internet. Apparently people can talk or “converse” quite easily when sleepwalking. The thing that caught my interest though is the website mentioning that people when sleepwalking are “highly suggestible”. I knew I heard that before and I remembered it had been mentioned loads of times during descriptions of hypnosis. It is widespread and almost everyone knows that when you are in a hypnotic trance, you are more willing to do things that you would not normally do.

This leads me to examine the possibility that sleepwalking and a hypnotic trance are the same thing. You may wonder how that could be so? I’ll explain my theory further…

Lets take a typical person being put into hypnosis and call him Tim.

Tim is fully awake and aware of his surroundings as he enters the room. He is asked to sit down by the hypnotist and slowly he is asked to close his eyes and relax his body, and/or focus on something in his mind or something that the hypnotist is saying to him. Tim calms down, becomes more relaxed, and as he does so the hypnotist ask Tim a few questions, testing how aware he is. After around ten or so minutes, Tim becomes under a trance and the hypnotist continues on until Tim is fully hypnotised, and so on, performing tasks he would not usually and more open about his emotions and personal information. Tim wakes after around twenty minutes and feels relaxed, a fair bit dazed and hardly any recollection of the actual hypnosis.

Now I’ll liken that situation to another; involving Bianca who sleepwalks quite often.

Bianca has yet another stressful day at the office. She doesn’t like her work but she has to remain there because the income is satisfactory and supports her family’s lifestyle. Her boss is extremely strict and has threatened her job on Bianca being repeatedly late on several occasions. Bianca works six days a week and hardly gets to see her husband or two children and she feels guilty for not being around enough. She finishes her shift and drives home, exhausted and ready for bed, knowing that she has to wake up early again the next morning. She goes to bed and within around fifteen minutes is asleep. Bianca’s sleep cycle starts and as she reaches the SSW stage or “Deep Sleep”, Bianca awakens and walks out of her bedroom while talking nonsense. Her husband, used to this kind of thing by now, follows her to make sure she does not harm herself. Bianca walks out of her house and opens her car, sitting in the driver’s seat and trying to turn keys that aren’t there. After about a minute her husband notices that she is steering the car as if it is moving and tries to get her to go back to bed. Her husband guides her back and she stays in bed and has no recollection of the events that occurred when morning breaks.

In both these situations the patients were both engaged with the physical environment. Tim wasn’t as aware as Bianca was though prior to the trance stage, and because of Bianca’s stress, her brain was stimulated as she was falling asleep. This makes up for the time that Bianca was asleep, but remember, “deep sleep” occurs fairly early on in the night, before the REM or “dream” stage begins, so Bianca’s mind still hadn’t had much chance to unwind, so to speak. In both cases they were put into a trance, Bianca’s involving constantly thinking of one subject; almost the same as Tim entered his trance.

Please note that traumatic stress may not be present prior to going to sleep or during the day, but still effects the patient. This is also linked as to how patients can overcome fears and fearful experiences – hypnosis is used for this somewhat effectively – as it tackles the main area of where subconscious stress and anxiety is expressed.

Now here comes the hard part… why did Bianca get up in the first place? It was obvious that suggestibility was the cause for Tim to do his actions, but Bianca had no external stimuli. My theory is that Bianca’s brain, which is proven to lack in some areas as with all sleepwalkers, became suggestible to her own subconscious through an abnormal malfunction – which is always like this but only interprets her subconscious when she is under heavy stress or excessive negative stimulation. This might explain why sleepwalkers mostly do actions related somewhat to their stress. In this case, Bianca was stressed about having to drive to work and fulfilled these actions, while a sleepwalker might excessively clean or other such “day-to-day” actions. Now this might raise the question, “Can all people sleepwalk then?” And the simple answer that I would think correct is no. It’s roughly about 15% of people who have experienced sleepwalking, and most of them generally have a family history. So I think, unless you carry the necessary gene or trait, no matter how much stress you are under, you will not be susceptible to sleepwalk. Assessing my theory on how Bianca’s brain and subconscious were “internally” suggestible might raise the another question. “Can I hypnotise someone in the deep sleep phase?” And the simple answer to that again is probably not. The only reason that Bianca was susceptible to sleepwalking was because of the trait which allowed her subconscious to fulfill those actions. While you are asleep external stimuli and the likes are toned down. And although you might be able to suggest things to a sleepwalker, you would be unable to do the same to someone who couldn’t sleepwalk or similarly, someone who could sleepwalk and wasn’t stressed.

But there’s still one thing that might be flawed with my argument. How can hypnosis and sleepwalking be the same sort of “trance”. To explain this, I’ll draw up a comparison. Lets say something like… writing an essay. Some people write for enjoyment and their own free will, often calm, experimental and emotional when doing so. And sometimes we have to write essays for work, which often are direct, straight to the point, and impersonal – often when the topic doesn’t interest them. This is exactly like hypnosis and sleepwalking. Hypnosis done under a calm situation, relaxing, “light” trance rather than deep, a free-choice exercise and is not normally demanding, while sleepwalking is undertaken under stressful, goal-orientated situations, often “having” to complete a task for no apparent reason. So, essentially, hypnosis is a “light” trance compared to sleepwalking, just as is writing an essay for free will and being forced to do one for work or school. Both examples differ in the situations and ways in which they occur, but are essentially one and the same as each other.

Also, you may be wondering about why people may be able to commit to hypnosis but may not be a susceptible sleepwalker. But I don’t think that is the case at all – it’s possible that everyone who can be hypnotised can sleepwalk and vice versa, but not one without the other. Statistics show around 15% of people respond well to hypnosis, the exact same percentage of those who are known to or suspected to sleepwalk at some time in their life. Coincidence? I think not…

Please note all statistics and information concerning the genes and traits are information taken from reputable websites, but all the theories linking those situations together with hypnosis and sleepwalking are my own, gained from my research and general knowledge. Also, please note that the patients in the situations are an average and relatively normal situation a sleepwalker and hypnosis patient might experience with these trances.