Posted on 10/15/2004 10:57:23 AM PDT by missyme
Sleep medicine experts have successfully treated a rare case of a woman having sex with strangers while sleepwalking.
The behaviour had disrupted the lives of the woman and her partner. At night while asleep, the middle-aged sleepwalker - who lives in Australia and cannot be identified for reasons of confidentiality - left her house and had sexual intercourse with strangers. The behaviour continued for several months and the woman had no memory of her nocturnal activities.
Circumstantial evidence, such as condoms found scattered around the house, alerted the couple to the problem. On one occasion, her partner awoke to find her missing, went searching for her and found her engaged in the sex act.
“Incredulity is the leading player in cases like this,” says Peter Buchanan, the sleep physician at the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, who handled the case. But a combination of factors convinced him that the case was a real sleepwalking phenomenon, including the distress of the couple, and an in-depth clinical evaluation.
During that evaluation, the patient was assessed by psychiatrists, and checked for physical problems such as brain tumours, which may cause unusual behaviour. Neither of those examinations could find a cause.
However, she was found to have a history of talking in her sleep as a teenager and when monitored in the sleep laboratory, she was found to have a higher number of arousals from deep sleep than is usual. Both of these factors might indicate a susceptibility to abnormal sleep behaviour.
However, Roger Allen, a sleep specialist in private practice in Brisbane is sceptical. “Sex is a primal behaviour so it’s not impossible - men have erections in their sleep after all - but this case involved such complex behaviour it seems less likely.” He also points out that eliminating psychiatric conditions as a cause of the behaviour would be difficult.
But there are some extraordinary cases of sleep walkers leaving their homes, driving cars, or engaging in behaviours that they would not usually. In 1987, Ken Parks, drove 23 kilometres from his home in Pickering, Ontario, to his in-laws house, where he strangled his father-in-law unconscious, and stabbed his mother-in-law to death. He was acquitted of murder because he was sleepwalking at the time. Sleepwalking is often triggered by stress, and this may have been the case with the Sydney woman, says Buchanan. She stopped her night-time excursions after psychiatric counselling. Drugs such as benzodiazepines, which are sometimes used to treat sleep walkers, were not necessary.
Any type of sleepwalking is rare. It occurs in around 3% of children and young adolescents, and about 0.5% of adults. Usually it involves little more than walking around in a fairly purposeful way while asleep, although sleepwalkers may lash out if awoken.
The results were presented at a sleep conference in Sydney on Friday.
I wonder how many NOW will use this method for a great excuse...
And by "successfully treated" they mean she now has sex with strangers only while awake?
Dude. she's lying to you. Dump her. What a lame excuse. I was sleep-walking and magically found my way into my ex-boyfriend's bed. ha
Doesn't speak very well to the prowess of her partners if she stayed asleep while having sex...
Yeah, uh huh, sure she's sleep walking.
Why?
Who were the strangers? The Neigbors? she must be popular in her neighborhood
I knew Clinton was innocent.
That would put stress on a marriage!
Lulu?
A train hits a bus load of Catholic school girls and they all perish.
They are all in heaven trying to enter the Pearly Gates.
St. Peter asks the first girl, Tiffany, "Have you ever had any contact with a male organ?"
She giggles and shyly replies, "Well, I once touched the head of one with the tip of my finger."
St. Peter says, "Ok, dip the tip of your finger in the holy water and then you can pass through the gate."
St. Peter asks the next girl the same question, "Jennifer, have you ever had any contact with a male organ?"
The girl is a little reluctant but replies, "Well, once I fondled and stroked one." St Peter says, "OK, then you'll have to dip your whole hand in the holy water before you can pass through the gate."
All of a sudden there is a lot of commotion in the line of girls. One girl is pushing her way to the front of the line.
When she reaches the front of the line. St. Peter says, "Laurie! What seems to be the rush?"
The girl replies, "Hey, I see the way this is going! If I'm going to have to gargle that Holy Water. I want to do it before Samantha sticks her a** in it!"
Australian Woman..
Mail her alimony checks only while sleep walking.
A "bummer it wasn't your neighborhood" ping!
Gee...that's great. Now Bill Clinton has a new defense.
Yeah, sure... sleepwalking is the most obvious explanation for getting caught in the sack with another guy huh? Looks like the husband would be well advised to sleepwalk himself down to the city hall and file for a divorce.
LOL! That's bad.....
Yeah, the old "Woolcock Institute of Medical Research." You can really trust those guys to diagnose a sleepwalking sex fiend.
Yeah, that could indicate a problem. So, on some occasions, she would sleepwalk out and bring a partner home? While her husband was there?
(Perhaps they confused "sleepwalking" with "streetwalking".)
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