It is widely believed that people suffering from somnambulism should not be awakened during night attacks. We checked whether this is actually true.

Many have heard stories that if you wake up a sleepwalker in the middle of the night, it will not only shock him, but also lead to mental problems or even a heart attack. In the media you can find many articles confirming this point of view, for example: “Scientists have explained why sleepwalkers should not be woken up during their night walks” or “Somnologist, professor, doctor of medical sciences Roman Buzunov told Moscow 24 that under no circumstances should you wake up a person during an attack of sleepwalking.”. However, even among the media there is no consensus: BBC, RIA Novosti, "Theories and Practices" they say that it is sometimes necessary to interfere with sleepwalkers' nighttime movements to prevent them from harming themselves and others.

Somnambulism (from the Latin somnus - “sleep” and ambolus - “to walk”) is disorder sleep disorder, which belongs to the parasomnia family. It manifests itself in the form of wandering in a dream or performing habitual actions, followed by amnesia. According to the International Classification of Diseases, somnambulism is classified as a mental disorder (coded as class F).

To understand how awakening will affect sleepwalkers, you need to understand the structure of the condition itself. As is known, exists several phases of sleep (they are clearly visible on the hypnogram).

*Screenshot.* *Source* *(N3, N2, N1 and R are different stages of sleep, and W is wakefulness)*

Sleepwalking attacks only occur during deep sleep (R in the graph above). During this state, the brain is active enough for the person to move, but not enough to wake up. For awakening to be successful, the cycle must be completed. If deep sleep is abruptly interrupted, a person experiences unpleasant sensations after waking up. This condition is familiar to almost everyone: remember when, after an unsuccessful rise, you could not get out of bed for a long time? All because the cycle was not completed. In the scientific community this phenomenon called sleep inertia. It happens because the brain has not had time to restructure itself and is not yet active enough for a state of wakefulness.

By words somnologists, in the deep sleep phase the brain is engaged in the restoration of the body, all its activities are aimed at regenerating the body, and not at analyzing the external environment. Proof of this is the results of sleep electroencephalography. The lowest line in the figure shows large and slow waves - delta waves, characteristic of deep sleep.

As we have already said, attacks of sleepwalking occur precisely at this stage. By waking up a sleepwalker during his night walk, we interrupt the cycle and introduce him into a state of sleep inertia. Such a sudden awakening may not only scare person, but also disorientate it or even cause a panic attack. However, not a single case of a heart attack caused by the violent awakening of a sleepwalker has been recorded. not documented. But the news, where sleepwalkers who were not awakened in time by chance are thrown away from the windows, are being climbed on a crane boom or even unknowingly kill your loved ones are enough. That is why somnologists recommend interfering with sleepwalkers at night and preventing possible disasters. Main advice experts - to persuade a sleepwalker to go to bed. Usually sleepwalkers are very malleable, and this may work. However, if you can’t put a night traveler to bed, you still have to carefully wake him up so that he doesn’t unknowingly harm himself and others.

In addition to reports of heart attacks in suddenly awakened sleepwalkers, which, as we found out, have not been recorded by science, you can find on the Internet opinion: shower during sleep leaves the body of a person, and if he is forced to wake up during this period, he will die. In the “Dictionary of Russian dialects of Karelia and adjacent regions” said, that the expression “soul out” means to fall asleep (for example: “I washed her, put her to bed, immediately get out”). Previously, people considered sleep as temporary death, and dreams as pictures that the soul sees in its wanderings. However, in the 21st century proventhat, of course, there is no “flying away of the soul”, but such sensations received scientific basis and name "out-of-body experience".

Thus, based on scientific research, we can conclude that waking up people suffering from somnambulism is acceptable and will not cause them heart attacks or mental illness. However, according to somnologists, this should be done only if it is impossible to convince them to return to bed, since interrupting the deep sleep phase can frighten and disorient them.