Level of Consciousness

An acquaintance called me this morning and relayed the following story:

A friend and her husband have not been getting along and are sleeping in seperate bedrooms. Last night, the husband woke up in the middle of the night, walked downstairs to where the wife was sleeping and proceeded to phsyically attack her. After a good minute or two of this going on, she was screaming for help and attempting to get to a phone to call the police. The husband suddenly stopped and said "Oh wow, I don't know how this happened, I was having a bad dream and now suddenly here I am."

When morning came, she asked if he remembered what happened, he said yes, and then left for work.

My question is directed to anyone here with a good familiarity with psychiatric issues and the levels of consciousness associated with dreaming and even sleepwalking. The question is: Is it possible that he was having a nightmare that caused him to do this, similar to someone who walks somewhere during their sleep? If in fact it is possible, would he recall what happened?

He was not sleep walking, sleep walking under REM conditions do not build recallable memories. He was quite conscience of what he was doing.

Stress, under conditions of repressed emotional disfunction clouded his rational mind and under a moment of duress his emotional anger at the situation over ruled his rational mind and thus he acted out his emotional anger through the use of physical force against the item or object causing the stress. In this case his wife sleeping in another part of the house.

This type of stress induced physical outlash needs to checked by a competent Psychiactric professional since this type of behaviour can lead to severe injury and possible death to parties involved whether him or his wife.

I once read a story of a man who killed he wife in his sleep.

He was American funny enough

And got away with it.

So i'd say yes it's possible

I'm no expert on this, of course, but there have been cases where war vets attack their wives next to them in bed (while having nightmares).

When I was young (jr. high young) I used to hallucinate in my sleep (if that makes any sense). I remember sitting up in bed, seeing a room full of spiders ( for example) and just staring myself awake.

It depends what that guy means by remembering. If he remembers the actual attack, I'd say he was aware of what he was doing. If by remembering he means that he remembers standing in front of his wife wondering what the heck he was doing there, then he might have been sleepwalking or something, although I find that extremely unlikely.

I had a friend of mine who once tried to choke his wife in his sleep. He doesn't remember doing it, but he remembers having his hands around his wife's neck when she woke him up. He does have a vivid memory of a dream he had at the exact same time. He was fighting three guys, and had just taken down two of them, and he had the third in a chokehold, when his wife woke him from the dream.

Dunno if that helps, but I was just reminded of my friend's experience, which is similar to your friend, except that your friend got out of bed and walked around first, and had memory of the incident.

The two things that disturb me are

1) His ability to leave his room, go down the stairs, locate her (she wasn't next to him in the bed as is the case in most other stories) and attack her.

2) Wouldn't the fighting and noise and all that have woken him up immediately?

The whole thing smells like a cover up to me. It sounds to me like he realized she was serious about wanting to call the police and he came up with an idea to convince her it wasn't his fault.

I told the person who relayed the story to me to tell his friend to call the police and file a report. Domestic abuse is no joke. If he really does have this sleepwalking and sleepbeating problem maybe he should wear shackles to bed.

The case most people remember is Steve Steinberg. He stabbed his wife 26 times, saying he had done it while sleepwalking. He used the "twinkie" defense of not guilty due to temporary insanity which an Arizona jury bought lock, stock and barrel. However, curious thing about old Steinberg is that when police originally arrived at his house he blamed burglars - it wasn't until police showed his complicity that the sleepwalking issue came up.

Worse case - this guy is setting a future legal defense for himself. Best case - he's just a jerk who's trying to prevent police involvement. Either way she needs to get away from him.

Bleys

Originally posted by Bleys
Worse case - this guy is setting a future legal defense for himself. Best case - he's just a jerk who's trying to prevent police involvement. Either way she needs to get away from him.

Whoa......hold the phone on that assessment. Keep it in mind.....but let's show some some collaborative reasoning......

The unconscious mind is very powerful in terms of perception and retention of sensory data. The dream state, debatable(but not by me), is where the transition of recently acquired experience into long-term memory takes place. The dream state is also a form of dissociation....dissociation is commonlyassociated with multiple personality disorder but is manifested in milder forms throughout life. The title of this thread is what drew me and the concept of 'more than one level to consciousness' almost has dissociation as an inherent quality.....think of the last time you stubbed your toe.....the pain forces your mind to 'focus' on another point.....that is dissociation in it's simplicity. The mind doesn't want to experience the pain and thusly tries to immediately switch to something else, which only comes with the passage of time......which is why there is a pleasurable feeling upon the cessation of pain....time caught up to the mind's anticipation.

What has this to do with a potentially psychopathic domestic abuser? Well, the dream state being a form of dissociation(sleepers/dreamers do not readily respond to external stimulii), then our log sawing assailant may have a dream disorder.....my suggestion djarums......
have your acqaintence seek medical advice. A thorough look at his lifestyle will be necassary to determine habits and possible motivators for this particular action, but well worth it for them. If that proves to yield nothing...then maybe he is a sociopath who prefers to attack defensless woman....in which case.....

Research Somnambulism and Dissociation

You'll have to wade through plenty of literature that doesn't apply to your situation.....but it's a subject that needs learning any way....too few people understand the complexities of the mind that they use to interprete and respond to their lives......

Here's a good one to get you started....

REM Link

Sure, it could definately have happened. I've known people who have done all kinds of things while sleep walking. In fact, calling it sleep walking really doesn't make a good word for it IMO.

Find out:
Has this ever happened before, even just one other sleep walking event?

This is My first thought as well:

It depends what that guy means by remembering. If he remembers the actual attack, I'd say he was aware of what he was doing. If by remembering he means that he remembers standing in front of his wife wondering what the heck he was doing there, then he might have been sleepwalking or something, although I find that extremely unlikely.