The bizarre sleeping habits of Brits revealed: From sleep-walking to sleep-drawing

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anxiety, drawing, dreams, families, painting, sleep, sleep deprivation, sleep-talking, sleepwalking, somnambulists, stress, writing

The bizarre sleeping habits of Brits revealed: From sleep-walking to sleep-drawing

A new study of sleeping habits in the UK has shown Brits are a restless bunch, with over 40 per cent talking in their sleep, and more surprisingly almost 10 per cent getting creative by drawing, painting or writing while in the land of nod.

In a survey of 2,000 UK adults, overall 42 per cent spoke in their sleep, with almost half of 25 to 34-year-olds continuing to natter away. It also revealed that women are more prone to sleep-talking than men, as 46 per cent admitted to the behaviour, in comparison to 35 per cent of men.

The study also showed that one in 10 people are somnambulists, or sleep-walkers. Sleepwalking usually occurs in a period of deep sleep during the first few hours after falling asleep.

While the exact cause is unknown, it seems to run in families, according to the NHS. Sleep deprivation, stress and anxiety, and drinking too much alcohol, taking recreational are among the factors that can trigger sleep walking.

The research commissioned by Ibis Hotels also gave in an insight into the mysterious world of dreams, with some 16 per cent of adults convinced that they had dreamt something that they claim later came true. Meanwhile, a quarter of those surveyed reported having a recurring dream for six months.

The peculiarities of sleepers across the UK were also revealed, as people in the North East were more likely to have recurring dreams, while a quarter of people in the same region admitted to dream cheating on their partners. But the Scottish appear to be the most self-conscious about their behaviour, as a fifth have had a sexual dream about someone and felt embarrassed to see them the next day.

Meanwhile, Londoners were more prone to having the same dreams as their friends and families on the same night. Residents of the capital were also more likely to be able to get back into a dream after waking up.

Sleepy brains neglect half the world

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alertness, attentional deficits, bodily sensations, damage, drowsiness, frontal lobes, hemispatial neglect, parietal lobes, right hemisphere, sights, sleep, sounds, space, spatial awareness, stroke, visual field, visual neglect

Sleepy brains neglect half the world

Damage to certain parts of the brain can lead to a bizarre syndrome called hemispatial neglect, in which one loses awareness of one side of their body and the space around it. In extreme cases, a patient with hemispatial neglect might eat food from only one side of their plate, dress on only one side of their body, or shave or apply make-up to half of their face, apparently because they cannot pay attention to anything on that the other side.

Research published last week now suggests that something like this happens to all of us when we drift off to sleep each night. The work could help researchers to understand the causes of hemispatial neglect, and why it affects one side far more often than the other. It also begins to reveal the profound changes in conscious experience that take place while we fall asleep, and the brain changes that accompany them.

Hemispatial neglect is a debilitating condition that occurs often in people who suffer a stroke, where damage to the left hemisphere of the brain results in neglect of the right half of space, and vice versa. It can occur as a result of damage to certain parts of the frontal lobes, which are involved in alertness and attention, and the parietal lobes, which process information about the body and its surrounding space.

In clinical tests, patients with hemispatial neglect are typically unaware of all kinds of stimuli in one half of space – they fail to acknowledge objects placed in the affected half of their visual field, for example and cannot state the location of touch sensations on the affected side of their body. Some may stop using the limbs on the affected side, or even deny that the limbs belong to them. Patients with neglect can usually see perfectly well, but information from the affected side just does not reach their conscious awareness.

In 2005, researchers at the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge reported that reduced alertness dramatically alters spatial awareness in healthy people by shifting attention to the right so that they neglect visual stimuli to the left. To investigate further, they recruited 26 more healthy participants and tested their spatial awareness while they fell asleep.

To do so, they took the participants one by one into a dark room and told them to sit back in a comfortable reclining chair and relax. They recorded the participants’ brain wave patterns using electrodes attached to the scalp, and measured their reaction times, to determine exactly when they started getting drowsy, then played sounds to either their left or right, and asked them to indicate which side each one came from by pressing one of two buttons.

Again, the researchers saw that reduced alertness caused a rightward shift in spatial attention. During the few moments of drowsiness just before falling asleep, the participants consistently mislocated sounds played to their left, and said that they had been played to the right.

“This is an exciting development,” says Masud Husain, a clinical neurologist at the University of Oxford who studies neglect in stroke patients. “It suggests that while falling asleep the healthy brain behaves in a similar way to stroke patients who have difficulty keeping alert.”

The findings further suggest that the attentional deficits associated with hemispatial neglect apply to sounds as well as to sights and bodily sensations, and also provide clues about why, in the vast majority of cases, neglect only persists after damage to the right hemisphere of the brain. “Both groups appear to have particular difficulty attending to information to their left, consistent with the view that frontal and parietal regions of the right hemisphere play a key role in maintaining alertness.”

The study also provides clues about the brain mechanisms underlying neglect. “People don’t necessarily miss items on the left as they become more drowsy, but instead respond as if they had come from the right,” says Husain, “as if their perception of space becomes skewed to the right as their alertness declines.”

“The implication is that right hemisphere brain mechanisms that are crucial to representing space around our bodies also interact with processes that keep us vigilant and alert,” he adds. “The results are intriguing but need to be confirmed, perhaps with a more precise method than pressing buttons.”

Reference: Bareham, C. A., et al. (2014). Losing the left side of the world: Rightward shift in human spatial attention with sleep onset.Scientific Reports 4, doi: 10.1038/srep05092

Night terrors: In my wildest dreams

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adults, Children, night terror, nightmares, panic, reassurance, scream, shout, sleep, stress, terror

Night terrors: In my wildest dreams

The walls are closing in on me. The air is sucked out of my lungs and everything turns black. One thought pulses through my mind – to get out of the room, no matter how. I push open my window and start climbing out. Only when the fresh air hits me do I realise something’s not right. I fall backwards and crawl back into bed, confused and disorientated by my surroundings.

This was the most dangerous night terror I suffered during my final year at university. I initially forgot what had happened, until I saw the chaos the next morning – my desk and chair were overturned, my books had been knocked off my bedside table and my laptop’s screen had smashed. The window was still wide open.

Deep bruises came up a day after, with the right-hand side of my body turning black and blue. My GP practically laughed me out of the surgery when I went in for a consultation. “There’s nothing I can do about it, it happens in your sleep,” he said, smiling. It was only once I had moved to London and suffered a similar attack that left me bleeding that I decided I’d had enough. After a three-month wait, I finally managed to get a space in one of the UK’s busiest sleep clinics for an overnight study.

The technicians wired me up at the clinic at London Bridge. There were 10 sensors attached to my head alone, with countless cables running down my body. Lying on the bed, monitored by two cameras, I knew that I wouldn’t be having a night terror that night. But I was hopeful that the results might shed some light on my condition.

When someone suffers from a night terror, they can scream, shout and thrash around in extreme panic, sometimes jumping out of bed. It’s an unnerving experience for anyone to watch – the sufferer’s eyes will be open, but they’re not fully awake or aware of what they’re doing. Once the panic subsides, the person will fall back asleep, oblivious to the chaos.

Most people experience nightmares or night terrors growing up. Figures show that between 20 and 30 per cent of children between the ages of five and 12 have frequent nightmares, while night terrors affect 17 per cent of children. Once children reach adulthood, incidence rates are much lower, with only one in 20 of that 17 per cent still reporting night terrors in later life. But recent research has linked recurring night-time problems to more ominous long-term consequences. A study conducted by the University of Warwick followed nearly 6,800 children up to the age of 12. The results suggest that long-term sufferers of nightmares and night terrors have a higher risk of mental health problems as they enter adolescence. Those having nightmares aged 12 were three-and-a-half times more likely to have problems and the risk was nearly doubled by regular night terrors.

Psychology professor Dieter Wolke led the research at Warwick. He says that while children often experience night-time problems, in adults, it’s only around 1 to 2 per cent who still have night terrors. When they persist into adulthood, the physical risks also increase. “Night terrors become more dangerous, as you’re larger and more mobile. People are known to have fallen off balconies or thrown themselves out of windows,” says Professor Wolke.

From a young age, I have been a restless sleeper, but the night terrors only started happening when I entered my teens. It wasn’t until university that they became more severe. The more extreme ones saw me running around the house or frantically trying to open my bedroom window.

So why do night terrors occur? According to Dr Nicholas Oscroft, a respiratory physician at Papworth Hospital, genetics and not getting enough sleep could be to blame. “It does seem to run in families… From previous research it has become clear that night terrors happen more often if people don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis. Work or family-related stress also increases the risk.”

Another sufferer is 24-year-old Kevin Stone. He started having night terrors from the age of seven. He believes it’s because of having lived in South Africa, where his family experienced regular break-ins. His night terrors follow a repeated theme – someone is always trying to chase or kill him. “I once dreamt that people had broken into the house and were in my room. They made me get out of bed and kneel on the floor while I tried to convince them not to kill me. When I have a night terror, I act out everything. I can hear their voices, I can see them, I can even feel the gun against my head.”

Stone’s night terrors took a gruesome turn when he was 18. One night, he woke up and was convinced someone had broken into the house. As a result, he jumped out of his bedroom window and fractured his spine and broke both his ankles. “I realised what I was doing just before I hit the ground.” Terrified by what his sleeping mind was capable of, he sought treatment to stop his night terrors from happening. But he believes that his problems can’t be solved, because it’s all in his mind. “Doctors have said to keep a bedtime journal to clear my mind, but that hasn’t worked.” He also wasn’t happy with the option of being prescribed antidepressants.

So can night terrors be solved? Dr Oscroft seems unsure. “Adult patients who suffer from them need to try and reduce how often it happens. The best way to achieve this is by getting enough sleep. People should also optimise their sleeping environment, so that they won’t be woken up during the first two hours of sleep, which is when night terrors are most likely to occur.”

Night terrors can put a strain on relationships. Dr Oscroft says the best thing to do when someone is suffering from a night terror is to reassure them. “People who are having a night terror will be agitated, so the best thing to do is to calmly talk to them until they wake up. Don’t try to restrain them unless they are in danger of hurting themselves.”

My results from the sleep clinic proved surprising. I had woken up four times during the night – flustered and disorientated. Even though there was no physical cause, I do suffer from slow wave arousal disorder, which is usually associated with sleepwalking and other sleeping disorders. Aside from the advice to sleep more or to take sleeping pills, my diagnosis remains unchanged. I suspect that it will be something I’ll have to deal with on a regular basis throughout my life. Until they stop completely, I’ll be keeping my bedroom window firmly locked.

Sleeping beauty: the teenager who sleeps for days

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Kleine-Levin syndrome, sleep

Sleeping beauty: the teenager who sleeps for days

Some say it’s the condition that locked Sleeping Beauty into her long slumber: but Kleine-Levin syndrome hasn’t been in any way a fairytale for Gemma Garfirth and her family. She has had the condition, which is characterised by long periods of sleep followed by strange behaviour, for two years. Gemma, 17, has snoozed through lessons, parties and even a week-long camping holiday. “When she’s in what we call an episode, she tends to sleep solidly for three days and nights,” says her mother, Mandy, 42.

“I can wake her up for maybe 10 minutes to have some food, but it has to be absolutely ready or she falls asleep before I can get it to her.

“Then follows another four days or so when she’s really odd. One time she woke up and insisted she could only speak French; another time, she kept playing DVDs back to back.”

Gemma’s first experience of KLS was frightening for her mother. She was recovering from a chest infection and suddenly seemed confused. “She was adamant that she’d sent text messages she hadn’t sent, and then she started being hyperactive and silly,” says Mandy.

She phoned NHS Direct and was told to call an ambulance. By the time it arrived, Gemma was lying on the floor saying her arms and legs didn’t move any more.

At A&E, staff were sure that Gemma was on drugs, says Mandy. “I knew she wasn’t, but they were certain. They took her away on her own to question her, expecting her to admit to having taken illegal substances. But, of course, she didn’t. And I said, why not test her for drugs? In the end they did, and the tests were negative.”

As Gemma fell into a deep sleep, a battery of other tests followed. “It was incredibly worrying – it could have been a brain tumour,” says Mandy. “But everything came back negative.”

Meanwhile, Gemma had woken up and regressed to the behaviour of a pre-schooler. “When she wasn’t asleep, she was calling me Mummy again and wanting to sit on my knee and sing nursery rhymes,” says Mandy.

But to the family’s surprise, Gemma was discharged – staff told Mandy they couldn’t do anything for her. “I was really unhappy at having to take her home in that state,” says Mandy.

“But then a few days later, in the blink of an eye, she came out of it. She just changed, instantly, back into her normal self again.”

Mandy says she felt ecstatic to have her daughter back but was terrified it would happen again. And a month later, it did. After a third episode, Gemma was referred by her local hospital in Wellingborough to the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford for more tests – and for the first time the family heard about KLS.

“There are only about 40 people with it in the UK and only about 1,000 in the world – typically, adolescents are affected,” says Mandy.

She is a single parent who also has a 13-year-old son, Liam. They were all relieved to have a diagnosis but anxious about how far-reaching the condition would be. Though Gemma had only experienced week-long episodes – still the case – doctors said they could last for up to six weeks at a time. There is no known cure for KLS and although Gemma will almost certainly grow out of it eventually, it could take a decade or more.

The effect on Gemma’s life has been enormous. “I never remember anything about being in an episode, but now I’ve had so many – 14 so far – I recognise the signs when I’m going into one. I feel a bit different and I know what’s coming: it’s really upsetting and frightening, and I cry a lot because I know I’m going to be plunged into sleep and I don’t want to be. I’ll be missing lots of things – sometimes a friend’s party or a concert, or something I’m involved in at school.”

When Gemma is on the verge of an episode, says Mandy, the family go into lockdown. “We can’t have anyone else in the house: after three days sleeping, Gemma tends to come out of it slowly and her behaviour at those times is very strange – she is sometimes aggressive and she swears. It’s absolutely not in character and it would be horrid for her for anyone else to see her like that.

‘I also worry that she might get out of the house and on to the street if she woke up in a disorientated state, so I keep all the doors locked. It means life is very difficult for Liam – he can’t have his friends over, and I can’t do anything with him because I have to concentrate all my efforts on looking after Gemma,” says Mandy.

On top of all the other worries, Mandy fears she is facing redundancy because of Gemma’s illness. “I work as a sales co-ordinator and I’ve been called in for a disciplinary hearing because of all the time I’ve had to take off,” she says. “According to Acas, I’m entitled to the time because Gemma is my dependent, but I’m not hopeful about how it’s going to work out in the long term.”

Equally devastating has been the effect it has had on Gemma’s schoolwork. She managed to get 13 GCSEs – three A stars, four As and six Bs – but by the time she took her first AS level exams earlier this year, all the school absences had taken a toll, and she got a U and two Ds. She’s currently resitting the exams, hoping to get better grades.

“It’s really hard to plan things because I don’t know if I’m going to be awake or not,” she says. “At school my friends know and teachers know, but it’s still very hard for them to understand what it’s like. Once I fell asleep during a maths lesson and my mum had to come into school and the teachers helped to carry me to the car.”

The cause of KLS is unknown; some think it’s an auto-immune disorder, others that it’s a malfunction of the part of the brain that regulates sleep. “I had to wear a special watch all the time that monitored my sleep for six weeks,” says Gemma. “What they could tell from the results is that I do have generally disturbed sleep and don’t go into a normal deep sleep as often as I should.”

She now takes sleeping pills in the hope of regulating her sleep pattern but, says Mandy, there’s no guarantee it will change. “The likelihood is that this will be with us for a long time and it’s going to dominate her life through the next few years. Given that these are crucial years, it could really change how her life works out,” says Mandy. “All we can do is cope with it on a day-to-day and week-by-week basis; but it is deeply worrying in terms of what it means for Gemma’s future.”

• More information: kls-support.org.uk