Dan: Hello. Welcome to Head Shrink
Inc. My name is Dan Bates. I am a therapist. What’s your name?
David: My name is David Simonsen. I
am a licensed psycho-therapist, and I see families and couples and teenagers. I
work with them and help them with their lives.
Dan: Great. I’m also a Therapist and
I do everything that David said but I’m not arrogant about it, so
self-absorbed. I help people, people love what I do with them but it’s not
arrogant. I’m not going to make a big deal about it on the podcast or anything.
It’s not like I’m going to draw attention to myself about how many people...
David: That’s good. That’s what I
love about you, you don’t draw attention to yourself.
Dan: It’s not about me, it’s
about the thousands of people that I have helped.
David: So, you’ve caught another, if
you’re listening, so far, still, you’ve caught another episode of Headshrink
Inc. So, today, we wanted to talk about the disturbing phenomena of
sleepwalking. So, Dan, have you ever sleepwalked?
David: I have
sleepwalked? That I’m aware of, I have never sleepwalked.
Dan: I’m a notorious sleepwalker. One
time when I was chilling, several times actually, one time when I was fully
asleep and I was getting into the medicine cabinet and opening medications, and
my dad had to stop me. He had to put the clamp down. Son, you’re going to kill
yourself and then one time, fully clothed, I was getting into the shower, so I
started the shower. I was getting ready, fully clothed, asleep and then another
time I was trying to get outside the house. I was fiddling with the lock. The
best one, the classic one among my family, is when I fully asleep, middle of
the night, walked out to the living room and I just started screaming
“Superman.”
David: Wow, that’s disturbing.
Dan: Why do you have to take it from
me? Listen to another funny story from comedian Mike Burbiglia.
Comedian Mike Birbiglia:
About seven years ago, I started
walking in my sleep, and I would have these recurring dreams that there was a
hovering insect-like jackal in our bedroom. I was living with my girlfriend at
the time, and I would jump on the bed, and I would strike a karate pose. I’d
never taken karate, but I had the books from Book Fair, and I would say,
“Abby”, that was my girlfriend. “There’s a jackal in the room,” and she got so
used to it she could talk me down while remaining asleep.
She’d say, “There’s no jackal in
the room, go to bed,” and I would say, “Are you sure?” She’d say “Yes, Michael,
go to bed. There’s no jackal.” I would say “Okay.” I would go to bed knowing
that there was a jackal and that’s trust. It was around that time that I had a
dream that I was in the Olympics for some arbitrary event like dust bustering,
and they told me I got third place. I stood up on the third place podium and
I’m feeling good about myself, I’m new to the sport. They say, “You know, we
actually reconsidered it and you got first place.” I said, that’s a marvelous
promotion.” I moved over to the first place podium, and it starts wobbling and
it’s wobbling and wobbling, and I wake up and was falling off the top of our
bookcase in our living room. I land on the floor hard on top of our TiVo, and
it broke into pieces. I’m disoriented on the floor.
It’s like one of those stories where people
black out drinking and they wake up in Idaho and they don’t know where they are
and they’re like “Oh no!” Hardy’s or whatever’s there but it was in my own
living room. I was like “Oh no, TiVo pieces.” I went to bed and Abby woke me up
in the morning and she said, “Michael, what happened to the TiVo?” I said, “I
got first place and it’s a long story.”
David: Dr. Klein is an internationally recognized
expert and an author of articles that target psychological issues, more
specifically sleep disorders and impulse control problems. We wanted to talk
with Dr. Klein about the phenomena of sleepwalking. Now, we were a little bit
confused, Dr. Klein, because when you talk about it in the past tense, is it slept
walked? We were talking about Dan here, my co-host, and he had said that he
slept walked?
Dr. Klein: I think the truth is that I had
more read on my English papers than I did in my own writing. So, sleepwalking
is generally how it is, but that’s not the Queen’s English, slept walked is.
David: Slept walked. Okay. So there is
the official answer. Well, for the sake of this podcast we’ll go with
sleepwalk.
Dr.
Klein: It rolls off your tongue very
nicely.
David: Okay. Well, thanks for coming on.
So, what is this sleepwalking phenomenon? Where does this come from? What’s
going on with people when they’re sleepwalking?
Dr. Klein: It’s really kind of a brain
issue. It can be induced by other means such as drugs and alcohol but generally,
this is a biochemical reaction in the brain, where the brain is not going into
a very deep sleep cycle. So one thing you have to realize is when we go to
sleep, there is a part of our brain that paralyzes our bodies a little bit so
we don’t get up, and that’s the part that’s not functioning very well.
So, when we’re sleepwalking,
we’re actually in a dream state and your body kind of does it. In fact, I
remember when I was a kid, to this day, I remember sleepwalking, trying to open
the front door of my house in the middle of the night and my mother saying how
weird I was, what was I doing?
Dan: So, as I’ve heard people tell
stories about sleepwalking because I’m a therapist, I think “Oh, it’s the
deeper meaning of that,” but I think what you’re saying is there is not
necessarily always a deeper meaning. It’s just a brain chemical thing.
Dr. Klein: Yes. There are associations a
little bit more with stress sometimes just like everything else just about, but
it’s not exactly coming from stressful trauma events necessarily, to answer
your question.
David: Oh bummer. That’s disappointing.
Dan: So, is it that the people can’t
go into the REM cycle or people, when they are in the REM cycle, they don’t
have that neurochemical that’s stopping them from moving.
Dr. Klein: That’s right, that’s exactly
right. It’s the safeguard that, animals have this too or you’d see your dog
running around the house. Of course, he does REM around the house any. I look
at it very simply is, it’s a safety mechanism and kids do this. Now, here’s
something very interesting in children. Being in the middle of Missouri, people
go to the Rockies and they’ll go up in the Rockies, and then their kids will
come back and their kids sleepwalk. They’ll say, “I’ve never done this before.
Oh, it’s random,” but I’ve heard it 20 times in the past several years.
So some researchers say it’s a
little less oxygen in your brain that tends to trigger it, like in a higher
altitude, then some people say sleep apnea’s connected with sleep apnea and
we’re trying to figure that out, maybe, maybe not. Generally, we have this
issue of the safety mechanism, and the opposite side of this is called
narcolepsy, where you’re talking again to your dog and your dog just falls
asleep right in front of you and that also occurs too.
Dan: That’s interesting because I was
thinking when you’re saying the less oxygen, maybe there’s like a survival
mechanism in your body. You somehow, unbeknownst to you, when you’re asleep in
an environment where there’s not enough oxygen so your brain triggers “Get up
and go to a place where there’s more oxygen.”
David: It wouldn’t make sense in the
reverse with the narcolepsy because there is really no advantage to that.
Dr. Klein: No, there isn’t. It’s funny for
narcolepsy, you generally prescribe stimulants or things that are like
stimulants that are also used for ADHD. It energizes the brain and it stops
that but in sleepwalking, sometimes you’re prescribed [Inaudible 0:11:24] it’s like a sedative because you can hurt
yourself but you generally don’t. Here’s a really interesting one; this has
been argued in court. Have you guys ever heard that?
David: The court case that I’ve heard
of that had to do with sleepwalking was like a sleep sex thing. Is that what
you’re referring to?
Dr.
Klein: Actually what I remember is, it
was murder.
Dan: Yes. When a husband strangled
his wife, I don’t know if he killed her, but he attempted it.
Dr. Klein: It was attempted murder or
something, that’s right. So, there is this argument about when you’re
sleepwalking, what can you really do and not do. What I’ve learned it’s
generally not a very complex thing. It’s like opening a door, it’s walking
around the house. I remember one case study years ago, a guy went into the
kitchen and he would make eggs, but he would put dog food in his eggs but the
wife would come in and try to stop him, and he got rageful. Again, we have
night terrors,
that’s more or less a child thing, but it
happens in adults too.
A night terror is not in REM
sleep like you were referring to before, which is the early morning dreaming. It’s
a different dream state that’s usually about a couple of hours after you go to bed
and guess where sleepwalking is? It’s in that zone. It’s not necessarily in the
early morning although it can be. So you’re in this kind of funny state again where
your body should be put to sleep and you’re not walking but that mechanism is
not working.
Dan: I’ve always heard the myth, at
least I’ve seen it on TV when someone’s sleepwalking, you shouldn’t wake them
because they’ll become or turn into an
animal or psychological damage or they’ll freak out. They’ll go into a rage or
something. Is that true or is that a myth?
Dr. Klein: Well, No. I think you can be
hit, pushed, because, again, you’re in this funny dream state, and you’re not
processing the external environment. Now, I haven’t heard of anybody getting
severely hurt, but back to the dog food and egg scenario, that lady said that
her husband would hit her. So, again with little kids, you generally, first of
all, they can be screaming, they could be walking around the house or whatever.
You just generally take them
back to their room and then they go back to sleep. You don’t engage them, you
don’t talk to them. You might hold their hand, so to speak or you might gently
kind of bring them back to your room or whatever, and that’s true with adults
too.
David: I have to confess something. I’m
a bad parent because my oldest daughter…
Dan: We all knew that.
David: Oh, did you? Okay. So, my oldest
daughter sleepwalks occasionally, and I don’t lead her back to her bedroom by
her hand. I engage her in conversation.
Dan: You should record them.
David: I should. My wife and I
definitely start engaging her in conversations when we realize because it’s
more entertaining. I don’t feel bad for her, it just entertains me.
Dr. Klein: You may have a little scientific
study going on but does your daughter remember that event in the morning?
David: No, not usually.
Dr. Klein: That’s the clue and that’s true
with sleepwalking too except why did I remember going to the front door? I
don’t know, to be honest with you, but it’s a little bit unusual because I was
like, I don’t know, seven years old, I do remember that but most people do not
remember the sleepwalking or night terrors, but they remember dreams from the
REM state, which is again earlier in the morning.
Dan: What, in your experience has
been the scariest sleepwalking story you have heard?
Dr.
Kline: People going to edges of balconies.
Dan: Actually going over?
Dr. Kline: Not going over but coming close to
where you would think about could they have gone over. I’ve had a couple people
say “What’s wrong with all these plants, and why are they messed up?” Again,
they blame their dog, but they don’t have a dog this time, it’s their husband
who went out on the porch and kind of roamed around and kicked over some stuff
because again, you’re in a funny situation. Your eyes are open, it’s kind of an
in-between state is what it is.
Dan: I wonder if the mind
would protect a person still, if you did go up to a balcony and you saw that it
was three stories down, because your eyes are open, there is some part of your
brain that processes that, that you’re not going to hurt yourself or kill
yourself.
Dr. Kline: Well, right and I think, because
there is not a lot of strong evidence that there have been people that it has
been proven where they’ve jumped off a balcony, kind of the same argument you
have in hypnosis is what you’re saying too. You don’t do things that are way,
but however, here’s the mystery. There has been speculation where people have
fallen down stairs or tripped because they didn’t see something and landed on a
hard kitchen floor and died and they’ve had a sleepwalking history, but you
can’t prove it because sleepwalking is off and on.
You wonder it so probably there
is an argument for accidents to occur in that state but again, most
sleepwalking is walking out to the living room and back to your bedroom again.
It’s usually not real complicated. You’re not up for hours generally, and this
cooking eggs phenomenon was very, very unusual. It’s usually this little stuff
or talking out loud. The other one is where you just might be talking in bed or
sitting up in bed and talking.
David: Dan does that. His wife has told
me some funny stories about him screaming in bed.
Dan: I have done that but when
I was a kid, I would sleepwalk and I would remember waking up, one time I went
into the living room and I just started screaming “superman.” My sister kind of
guided me back to my bed, and I was very compliant.
David: Fly back to bed.
Dan: I do remember kind of
flashes of memory of waking up as “Why am I standing up out of my bed in the
living room, and my sister’s telling me it’s okay.” Of course, it’s okay, why
is she telling me it’s okay?
Dr. Kline: Right. It’s interesting again
because you’re in that semi-consciousness where you wouldn’t think you would
remember anything, but you are and that’s the difference. Sometimes you do,
sometimes you don’t. It probably depends on maybe where you are in your sleep
cycle also or if you are coming out of a certain stage and for your audience,
you know there are about five sleep cycles that you go through.
One of them is extremely deep
where your body goes into this very, I’m not going to use the word appropriately,
but comatose state and that’s where kids, by the way, do bedwetting is in that
state generally, in that deep, deep cycle. So these things kind of go around,
they kind of connect a little bit.
David: It makes sense to me with our
obsession with technology with texting and things like that but you discuss
that there’s a newer phenomenon of sleep texting.
Dr. Kline: Absolutely. I’m going to say it’s a
little strange. I mean, picture your wife or your partner and you look at her
cell phone and you see this message to some past boyfriend, “Honey, I miss
you.” What do you do with that? You’re a primary therapist, you would go, “We
have a problem here,” but some people are arguing that they don’t know what
they’re doing, and I think that if you could think of it, take your phone,
actually communicate like that, do a complex set of gestures or whatever or
texting with your fingers and get that done, that’s what doesn’t make sense
because sleep texting should be like sleepwalking.
It’s a little too complicated, but people are
reporting this and honestly, I don’t know if it’s trying to get around
something or if it’s actually sleep texting. There are a few case studies where
we’re beginning to see that again, it looks like it could be but there are
other types of sleep texting. One of them is, medications do that, Ambien,
sleep aids, stuff like this. They’ll put you in that in-between state so you
get up and you do a message, but you don’t remember it or I’ve had people order
stuff through the Internet, and they don’t remember it and they get this box in
the mail and they’re going “What?”
David: That’s true. I can vouch for
the Ambien thing. My wife has taken that before, and she had a friend the next
day said “What do you mean with these texts that she’d sent that she didn’t
remember sending. So, I’ve seen that piece of sleep texting firsthand but I
think it’s a misnomer, though, because are you really sleeping or is it that
you were awake but you just don’t remember?
Dr. Kline: Right. I think a lot of that in my opinion,
is because your short-term working memory could be a little fuzzy. It’s like,
what did you eat for breakfast two days ago? In that analogy, you do have those
memory issues so I agree. I think you wake up, and you might order something.
But then you kind of forget because your brain isn’t totally aware and I think
that cut in awareness can occur. And also it occurs with Ambien, alcohol, some
prescription medicines you did that.
I’m struggling with complex
messages, but the people who said “I texted my past girlfriend or boyfriend or
whatever it was,” they’re really saying “I’m not having an affair, I’m not
really interested in him anymore.” So why would I do this? You see what I mean,
that’s a question that they say.
Dan: Well, the thing that pops
up in my mind is, say, the guy who goes out and makes the eggs with the dog
food, he’s acting out something that’s not real. The texting, though, those
messages are meaningful, they’re not like the dog is flying into my soup, stop
the dog. It’s not related to the weird dream state, it’s a meaningful message.
Dr. Kline: Right. And that’s the difference
because if you would text your past boyfriend a jumbled message, oh, that would
make sense like “Get the cat food” or something, that would make sense, but these
are meaningful messages, and that’s where I stop my thought and say that seems
to be something more than meets the eye on that.
David: So potentially that would be,
whereas, the sleepwalking stuff would not necessarily subconscious, it’s just a
jumble of random dream state stuff but the messages would be more subconscious
thoughts coming out.
Dan: I’ve heard different
theories on why do we dream. I’ve heard some people say it’s just like the
residue of your day, the things you didn’t process. I’ve also heard it’s your
subconscious so whatever is in your subconscious, that’s the material for your
dreams. If you took that view, you could say that this person acted out this
subconscious feeling through their sleepwalking or sleep texting.
David: So, dreams I’ve heard are
something that’s happened, something you want to have happen or something that
will happen.
Dan: If you hold to the subconscious.
David: Now that was from an eighth
grade science fair, I’ll always remember that.
Dr. Kline: That’s still science. One of the
thing I do, I do a lot of brain imagery studies for a bunch of things, but some
of my colleagues are saying memory stuff or dreams have to do with memory.
They’re solidifying memory. So, that’s kind of what you were saying a little
bit in that conversation too was it could be with that. The sleep texting is, I
think, it’s a way out for some people. I mean, to be honest with you, they’ve
kind of done something they shouldn’t have, but I’m still open to the
possibility because I don’t really have the hard facts to say no, it’s
absolutely crazy talk, that this isn’t happening.
David: Yeah, I have a feeling my
wife’s not going to buy that if I said “oh, I was sleep texting, honey.”
Dr. Kline: I agree, but there have been a few
case studies that I have seen where I went “Wow, this is just bizarre.” Here is
one of the arguments, let’s say you use a phrase over and over, that phrase
came out in one person. Let’s say you texted something to your wife all the
time, whatever it is, endearment statements, something like that. Well, that
came out in the text message. It wasn’t a six-paragraph text message, it was
this statement that this person used all the time with a lot of people. It just
could be misleading depends on who the person who’s behind the text message is.
Dan: I think this raises a
really interesting question of responsibility or moral culpability because like
with the guy who was strangling his wife. Do you hold him responsible for that?
If it’s true, and these people are actually sleep texting, do you hold them
responsible for what they did or not? It’s kind of like the insanity defense
when someone is hauled into court for doing something criminal. Does the person
have the excuse with the sleepwalking? It sounds like the jury’s still out on
that.
Dr. Kline: The jury’s still out, it’s an
argument. It’s the same with the murder trial, and what they said in that
situation was we don’t believe it. We don’t believe in this sleep texting
phenomenon that you can commit murder because you’re sleepwalking or whatever.
So, I think it’s this funny thing too in mental health versus criminal
insanity, let’s take a child with mental retardation and they push their
brother down the stairs and kill him, God forbid. So it’s that funny kind of
thing, how much control and how much not control. The legal system is they say
we don’t care who did it or why we did it, it happened.
David: That’s an interesting topic,
sleepwalking and sleep texting.
Dan: And sleep murdering, in your
sleep, allegedly.
David: We appreciate you coming out and
kind of giving us some insight into that, Dr. Kline.
Dr.
Kline: It was very enjoyable.
David: How can
people get in touch with you?
Dan: How can people find out more?
Dr. Kline: The easiest thing is just to go to
my Internet site, very simple, Dr. Kline online, drklineonline.com, and then
there are areas to contact me if they have any questions or any ideas and
things like that.
David: And
they can just simply email you with questions and you respond back.
Dr. Kline: On that Site, there is a place for
emails. It sometimes takes me a few days to get back to questions.
David: Okay.
Dan: Awesome.
Dr.
Kline: Very good guys. I really appreciate
it.
Dan: Thanks
for letting us interview you.
Dr.
Kline: Yeah, and turn off your phones when
you go to bed.
