Need Some Information RE: Sleepwalking, please.

I'm not certain if this is the right forum for this post or not, if it isn't, please feel free to move it where it belongs, moderators.

Needless to say I'm very perturbed today. Something happened over the night that's left me scratching my head and feeling quite nervous. I don't think (At least I hope it isn't) it's related to the weird occurance I had around New Years with the flash of light in my bedroom...

At any rate, I live near Chicago and needless to say I'm fairly snowed in here! Last night we had a long series of brownouts and I spent my waking hours paranoid that I would loose power and wake up (or maybe not wake up) freezing. Finally got to sleep at around 4AM and woke at around 10 AM. I have no recollection of waking up during that time or anything of the like.

Indeed, once I woke up, it felt more than a little chilly in the house... however, I'm always cold when I awake and tend to wrap myself up in a blanket whilst I check ATS and email etc. first thing anyway. It took me about an hour before I realized, wow I am still really freezing and not warming up... and huh, why is my heat not kicking on and off like it usually does?

A trip to my thermostat (which is the very old 70's style box with the little lever beneath it that you move back and forth to increase/decrease temperature) had been turned down to the lowest minimum of about 50 degrees. I certainly didn't touch it last night when I was awake. There's been no break in, nothing's missing, nor were there any piles of snow or puddles laying around to suggest someone had intruded into my house.

Does this sound like I could somehow be sleepwalking and moving around my own house turning things on and off? I'm really disturbed by this on so many levels. If I am somnanbulant... how can I prove/disprove it, and what can I do to prevent it? Any advice/information would be greatly appreciated!

Don't know if this will help or not, but when I was a kid I sleptwalked until one night when I walked into a full-length mirror and woke up from the bump and met myself. It was a pretty freaky few moments before I got oriented properly, and resulted in never sleepwalking again.

If you have anything you can safely place in your potential path to provide the bump, you might find out if you are or not.

I wouldn't recommend a mirror, though....

reply to post by ProvehitoInAltum


You could prove it with a video camera!

Freaky to say the least. Probably even freakier to see yourself on tape wandering the house when you think you are sleeping. Like the movie Paranormal Activity :shudder:

I had a friend who was a sleepwalker when he was little. One time he walked out his house, over to the neighbors house, knocked on the door and peed on the doorstep.

reply to post by ProvehitoInAltum


I have those in my house too. When I walk by, my clothes kind of tap it sometimes. The little lever is really easy to move, you can almost breathe on it and it'll move Maybe you subconciously knew that you snaged it that's why you had that feeling

reply to post by sixswornsermon


The video camera idea came to mind, but I don't have the equiptment for it. I only have a tiny digital camera that runs on batteries, so I'd have to look into either purchasing/borrowing something capable of running for a solid 8 hour block of time. I'm definitely not ruling the idea out though, I want to get to the bottom of this! I don't want to be doing something in my sleep that could be a danger to myself or others!

The video is an excellent idea, but you have to run it all night.

Sllepwalking is a reason to dismiss a military member, since a sleepwalker in combat could be a bunch of people killed. One simple test I had people do way back in the 1980s was to place a simple string across the room, with a low grade tape holding it up. The placement was important, since it should not be in a place you could accidentally knock down while sleeping, but an area you would likely walk through while sleepwalking. Do it for a couple of weeks if necessary. However, only one "positive" finding of the string being carried by your body while sleepwalking could answer the question for sure.

For what it's worth.

reply to post by XLR8R


I thought about that possibility as well. That's where I started to wonder if I was sleepwalking, because the heat was running full blast as I was laying in bed, falling asleep. If I knocked into it, I had to have been up and out of the bed at some point, and I don't remember being up at all. :/

I'm trying to shake it off, but still, it's unsettling to say the least!

reply to post by Truth1000


Oh that is a GREAT idea, and far more cost effective than having to go out and purchase a camera capable of running all night. If I put it across the bedroom door I wouldn't be in danger of touching it while asleep, and since the bedroom is pretty much a postage stamp, if I was wandering around, I would have to go through the door to get anywhere. I may well have to set this up and test it.

Cheap is good!

I hope it works for you, either way. You just need to know.

reply to post by ProvehitoInAltum


My daughter is a sleep walker and when shesleep walks sheout of it. She has bright blue eyes and if you suprise her when she sleep walks she gest non-responsive with eyes wide open...it's friggin freaky But I digress. I would go with the string thing. That sounds like the most sensible thing to do. It's inexpensive and you don't have to borrow anything. I know that my daughter sleep walk when a test is comming up or something stressfull is coming. Could it be that you stress yourself out with the heat thing so much that you force yourself to go check out the thermostat when your half asleep and put down the heat by mistake?

Sporting goods stores sell a camera that can be set to take still photos (likely with time/date information) when an creature moves past the sensor area (and I've seen them sold at Fry's Electronics as well). Hunters and naturalists sometimes use these to get an idea of what type of animals frequent a certain locale. They're not too expensive, and can be set up in a place in your home where you think you're likely to go by if you happen to be sleepwalking.

Another possibility is that your local power company might have some sort of control over your thermostat. I seem to recall California talking about installing something like this to make sure everyone there was properly conserving energy.