Do we all suffer from Somnambulism?

Somnambulism or better known as sleepwalking is a highly misunderstood subject when it comes to humans, and our minds. I was watching a TV show the other night that had a couple cases about people who commit murder while sleepwalking!

I didn't know that a person can do complex actions while in this sleeping sense. They almost seem to be fully awake and aware, and can complete complex tasks, such as driving, walking, having a conversation.. Ect.

With this knowledge at hand, it made me think of something..
Could we all be suffering from Sleepwalking in a much deeper sense? Let me explain.

People toss around the term.. "sleeping people." That most people in this world that are fully awake, are in truth in a mental state of sleep. We could go about our days, go to our jobs, and do everything we do, yet do it all in a sleeping state..

Could many of us be in this state most our lives, and not even realize this?

Could a person go through most of their life in a sleeping state.. I think this is possible. After looking at so many things about this world, and how people can be so unaware of all the things that happen around us all the time..

If a man can get away with murder, and its proven science that they don't remember what they did.. Or when they did it..

It reminds me of our lives in general... We don't know where we came from.. We don't know how we got on this planet either..
Its like we are in this sleeping state.. And those in the know, realize this and have known about this for a long time.. And keep its population in this waking sleep state.

There is alot of research that goes into this kind of subject.. As its going to be hard for many people to understand what I am saying here.. Or how it would be possible.
Many people tend to think.. If my eyes are open, and I am driving a car I am awake.
But are we fully awake to this world?
Or are we all suffering from a form of Somnambulism?

No one seems to know exactly what the cause of somnambulism is, but there are theories that have been suggested. Once asleep, it is thought that the part of the brain that controls muscle function is aroused and the "sleepwalker" begins to move even though he or she is still asleep (2). In children, it may be related to fatigue, prior sleep loss, or anxiety. In adults, sleep walking is usually associated with a disorder of the mind but may also be seen with reactions to drugs and/or medications and alcohol, and medical conditions such as partial complex seizures (3). It is also interesting to note that in 10-20% of cases there is a familial history of sleep walking (5), so there is a possibility that it is genetically inheritable.

Source 1

Sleep walkers tend to do things they normally do, even very complex things like drive a car or wash dishes.

If a person can do such complex things in this state.. Who would make that leap to say, maybe most of us go through such a state most of our lives?
Its been a saying around here.. That we are trying to wake up..
Could it be this literal?

Could many of us being literally sleeping yet in a waking state?

Could this explain why so many people are pleased with the way things are in this day and age... They are in a sleeping/waking state of mind..
That allows them to seem like they are fully awake.. They are able to work a job, drive cars, and do everything we see as doing while fully awake...

I sometimes think that I am just going through life, and I am just dreaming the whole thing.. I use to sleepwalk ALOT when I was younger..

So much that my Mom and dad had to make a special lock on my door at night, or I would walk out of the house!
For many years they thought I was being bad, and naughty as a kid.. So I would get a beating.. Only to find out many years later I was sleepwalking while I did so many odd things.. Such as, I would pour sugar all over the floor leading into my room..
I would take things out of the fridge, and line them up to my room..
I would talk, and through temper tantrums as a young child.. My mom didn't find out I was sleepwalking until I was 11 years old.. It started when I was 3...

I still to this day.. Have events that I do not remember.. I have sleep terrors, and crazy wild dreams!

Yet just the other day I thought to myself... Could we all be suffering from a form of sleepwalking, that allows us to get up.. Do our daily things.. And be in a state of mind where we are awake.. Yet not fully aware of what is going on around us?

Prehaps this is a fail safe for our minds.. As we only see 1% of all light, and what really is around us.. We are honestly blind when it comes to this reality.. We see so little.. Yet most of us don't even think that we could all be literally asleep, while we are in our waking minds..

Homicidal somnambulism, literally homicidal sleepwalking and colloquially known as sleepwalking murder, is the act of killing someone during an episode of sleepwalking. Occasionally, sleepwalkers kill people, usually a family member, during their sleepwalking act. There have been several rare cases in which an alleged act of homicide has occurred, and the prime suspect may have committed the act while sleepwalking. About 68 cases to date have been known.[1] These cases have fared in various ways in the judicial system.

Source 2

I think it would be great if I could get a couple other members here to help me out with my research here.. At first this whole idea seems silly.. But once you start to research, and find more out.. You will see this is not as far fetched as it seems at first!


[edit on 28-1-2010 by zysin5]

To sum up what my OP was saying is this...

A large percent of us here on planet Earth are in a sleeping state. Even when we have our eyes open, and doing complex actions.
We are sleeping while we are asleep. And many of us can not come out of this mental state.
Would we know if we where in this sleeping waking state?

We think we understand so much about this world. Yet when it comes down to it. Many people this world over, go about their lives in a sleeping state.

We could be a world of sleeping people.. Who live out their whole lives in this state of sleep.. Never being fully awake and aware of this reality we live in.

Its a long stretch I understand.. As even typing this, from my research, I could very well, read a book, write this whole thread out and still be sleeping..

How would we know if we are fully awake.. Or live out our lives in a state of mind that is like being awake while sleeping..

I will have to do some more research about this subject.. Feel free to join me in my quest for knowledge about the state of mind we live within..

Think about this... When you are having a very vivid dream, there are times in our dreams that we do not realize we are having a dream.
Our dreams can seem so real, that until we wake up.. We didn't know we where dreaming at all.
Could there be a higher state of mental awareness that we have not reached?
We could all be sleeping right now, and not even realize it.
Good for a sci-fi theory, or far fetched thought.. But then again this is how I think..

[edit on 28-1-2010 by zysin5]

reply to post by zysin5


I would think that if so many people were in a sleeping state constantly, this would be picked up by the EEGs performed regularly in hospitals. There are very distinct "sleeping" and "waking" electrical patterns that are picked up by these machines.

Originally posted by VneZonyDostupa
reply to post by zysin5

 

I would think that if so many people were in a sleeping state constantly, this would be picked up by the EEGs performed regularly in hospitals. There are very distinct "sleeping" and "waking" electrical patterns that are picked up by these machines.

Hi VneZonyDostupa!
I thank you for stopping by here and adding your thoughts! I would like to know more about EEG's that are performed.. If you have some time later.. Could you post me a link that shows and talks about the electrical patterns that are shown between states?

There is so much we don't know about such things.. Yet there are ways of figuring this all out in our lifetime.
I think this type of study could shed alot of light on our current living standards..

reply to post by zysin5


Not a problem, I'd love to help!

Here is sort of a primer on EEGs. It even includes a little information on sleep stages and EEGs:

EEG Basics

After you get that down, a good way to find current studies would be to go to PubMed.gov and search for "eeg sleep stages" or some variation of keywords involving EEG and sleep. Once you've searched for your key words, look over to the right-hand margin of the page and there is a link that says "Free Full Text". Click that, and it will present you with scientific journal articles that are free to view and require no journal subscription.

Good luck, and let me know if I can be of further help!

reply to post by VneZonyDostupa


Great stuff! Thanks for the link and source information about Electroencephalography! That is really one long and confusing word!! heh

This will take me a couple hours or so to do some more research about this, and see what conclusion I come too about this method of testing our beta and alpha brain waves!

My question is this... If non of us are truely awake and fully aware, how would we know what to look for? Such as in what wave lengths, and types of brain activity goes on in a mind that is fully awake?

We wouldn't know unless the test subject was fully awake and not in some state that we consider normal...

Prehaps we may learn someday, that the tests that show who is awake, and who is asleep may differ from someone who is fully aware and awake in this so called reality.

All we have right now is a standard.. And that standard will not change until we find out what is going on within these minds of ours..

This is a great step, and a good way to show the standard..

Yet if we all suffer Somnambulism to some degree in our everyday state..
Then these tests will not show us what we want to know..
The Electroencephalography has a set standard, and is very important when speaking about this subject..

I will sit and think about this for the evening, and see what I can or can not come up with...

Everyone must understand, that we are looking at this through our eyes, and our minds..
If only we had something to compare too!

Such as compare our minds to other humans that live outside of Earth.. That would be very helpful..
Yet as of right now.. We are the only known humans..

But this can get very deep.. And maybe its just all a dream of mine to understand who I am, and where I come from...

And to understand that everything we do.. Is done through a lens...

We can only see and understand this from where we stand...

Hmmmm finding humans else where in this universe would open up so much about who we are as humans...

Being asleep and slumbering our way through our lives... To finally open our eyes in our minds. To awaken to a new universe!

Thanks for your help buddy!
Zy5

reply to post by zysin5


Well, my interpretation of it is this: if everyone were "asleep", that is, their brain was in the same "sleep mode", every EEG would detect delta and theta brainwaves for the most part.

However, when I look at a standard patient's EEG (that is, someone who hasn't had a stroke or other brain trauma), I see mostly alpha waves with occasional beta waves. Granted, I'm not a neurologist so my ability to read EEGs is not very specialized, but he difference in the waves is quite marked typically. As it stands, you can measure someone who is awake versus someone who is asleep (even in different stages of sleep) and see quite a difference in brain waves.

If there is some other level of "awake", then it would have to involve another frequency of brain wave that has never been documented before. I can't say for certain this is impossible, but it has never been documented.

Originally posted by VneZonyDostupa
reply to post by zysin5

 

If there is some other level of "awake", then it would have to involve another frequency of brain wave that has never been documented before. I can't say for certain this is impossible, but it has never been documented.

Now we are getting to the base root! This is what I am looking to find out. I would like to see if there is any chance that we could find a new frequency pattern that would break this topic wide open...

Its just at this point.. Nothing has been documented to prove any of this.. As it stands.. its just a theory. But its the kinds of things I happen to think about from time to time when I read about such things..

I would like to think that there is a higher state that we all still have to exp.
That higher level of being awaken, could teach us so much about our minds, and so much about how we see everything here..

Yet in the meantime.. I will work with the tools I have been given.. And go from there! I will see where this leads me.. And what kinds of dreams this line of thought will take me too!

reply to post by zysin5


Well, it makes for great science fiction (and trust me, I'm a huge fan of sci-fi), but there is just nothing in vitro or in vivo that would hint at another frequency of brain wave.

Of course, new discoveries are made all the time, so someday I may have to eat my words. As it stands now, though, I would bet a good deal of money on there not being another frequency, but rather just small variations between the known frequencies.

Originally posted by VneZonyDostupa
reply to post by zysin5

 

Well, it makes for great science fiction (and trust me, I'm a huge fan of sci-fi), but there is just nothing in vitro or in vivo that would hint at another frequency of brain wave.
Of course, new discoveries are made all the time, so someday I may have to eat my words. As it stands now, though, I would bet a good deal of money on there not being another frequency, but rather just small variations between the known frequencies.

I am with you on being a sci-fi fan! And the wonders this topic could bring up if a new discovery was ever made on a higher, or different brain wave frequency!
However I must agree with you 100% that right now as it stands its pretty far fetched to think that we have yet to truely wake up from our current highest waking state.
That prehaps when mankind reaches a point in our cycle of life that we would reach that state of mind, and we could then measure that state.


So I will back up a little bit here, and back track a bit on some of the lighter more provable topics on this thread.

That would be the complex actions taken while in these sleeping states.

Such as, Do you personally feel that a person can do something like murder, and not be aware of what they are doing?
Or is that a clever way of twisting justice?

Many cases have been won in a court of Law, that leans twords sleepwalking being something that takes our control away from us..

Thus if we as humans can get into states of minds where we are not held accountable for our actions... What does that tell us about this world?

I guess in one sense its cut and dry.

But in another sense.. It leads me down a deep road..
A slippery slope if you will. If a man can murder his wife, and get away with it. What does that tell us about sleepwalking?
That tells us many things.. Its a personal idea too, mixed with science.

Yet this tells me something that goes back into sci-fi deep thoughts..
This tells me that there could be much manipulation at hand, and people in general could be put into states that make them much more willing to preform programed tasks... Such as manchurian candidates..
If we are not all asleep, then prehaps manchurian candidates are the types of folks who are awake, yet asleep in other parts of their minds until triggered.
This whole topic could go in many directions!!
We can go and talk about the very profound, To the very everyday mondain type things we do in our sleep...

Like I explained in my OP.. I was a heavy sleepwalker as a child..
And to this day I have night terrors, and talk in my sleep every night...

I strive to work this out, and learn more about what is going on..
Non of us like it when we feel like we are out of control of our own bodies..

Yet its an illusion really to think we have control over anything in this world.
Or is it the otherway around? hehe One can not say for sure! If they want to be fully honest...

Thanks again! I have enjoyed speaking with you about this topic!

reply to post by zysin5


Hmm, it's difficult to say if someone could technically murder an individual while sleepwalking. Obviously, it's been proven that people can perform relatively complex tasks in this state, but from what I recall (it may have been disproven by now) the emotional center(s) of the brain are shut down during delta and theta sleep patterns. I would imagine this would make it hard to commit any act of aggression against any individual, as it would take emotional processing to determine how you feel about that person and what actions you should take.

Granted, all of this is conjecture at this point, as you can't be IN someone's mind as they kill another person. I would hedge my bets, though, and say there no one has ever killed while sleepwalking, but I could always be proven wrong in the future.