Why do people sleepwalk?

Experiments are still going on to know the exact reasons of sleepwalk but there are some of the possibilities which are known to us. Professionals say that it is a kind of disorder in which a person is between a state of sleeping and walking because there must be something that triggers the brain during sleep. They further say that it may be due to epilepsy, dissociative disorders or hysteria or may be their secret wishes.


Sleepwalking is more common among the children nearly in the age six to 12 as compare to the adults. As the children grow up they drop off this habit and only four percent of them continues with it. In children sleepwalk is may be due to anxiety, fatigue, immaturity of brain, less sleep or a child can inherit this from his parents. In adults it may be because of alcohol, drugs or disorder of brain.

Another reason for sleepwalk is REM (rapid eye movement) behavior disorder. During the phase of REM body is paralyzed by self released chemical. The people having sleepwalk cannot create this chemical in their body, hence exposed to this problem. In adults sleepwalk is mainly due to psychological causes. Some people say that sleepwalk is an act of dreaming but dreams occur during REM sleep when only our mind is active not the body but it is not very active during NREM sleep because during this time we change sides on bed. So it can be said that sleepwalk is not an act of dream.

It is difficult to wake a person in sleepwalk and if he wakes he appears as confused and for few minutes lost his memory of what had happened. A person in sleepwalk mostly have blank expression and appears awake and always acts in a clumsy manner.