Most people fall asleep, move through the different stages of sleep, and wake up feeling refreshed, often without any memory of their dreams or what happened during the night. That’s what happens for most people most of the time, but sometimes strange, scary and exciting things can happen while you sleep, especially when the line between sleep and waking gets blurred.
Sleepwalking.
Sleepwalking happens during the deepest parts of NREM sleep (not dreaming). As sleep scientist Matthew Walker explains, it seems that the brain starts to wake up but gets stuck between sleep and wakefulness, neither awake nor asleep. It’s not only walking; sometimes sleepwalkers engage in other complex activities, such as getting dressed or urinating in the wrong place, says the Sleep Foundation. It’s more common among kids than adults, but alcohol, some medications, stress and being sleep deprived might increase the chances of sleepwalking.1
It’s usually not dangerous, but there are some extreme sleepwalking stories. One of these is the case of Kenneth Parks, described in Walker’s book Why We Sleep. Parks had been stressed and suffering from insomnia, and then one night while still asleep, he got out of bed, got into his car, and drove 14 miles to his mother-in-law’s house and killed her. After returning to his car, he woke up, saw the blood on himself and went to the police. He was later found not guilty of murder due to the fact that he was asleep.
Nightmares and sleep paralysis.
Nightmares are bad dreams that cause you to wake up. They happen during REM sleep, when most dreaming occurs, and common themes include being attacked or chased, feeling helpless, having accidents, and even hurting other people.2 It’s not clear why people have nightmares, but, as the Sleep Foundation explains, if dreams are helping us process emotions (as some believe), bad dreams might be part of an emotional response to fear and trauma. Again, sleep deprivation and stress, as well as anxiety and trauma, can increase the likelihood of having nightmares.
Scarier than a nightmare perhaps, how about waking up, realising that you can’t move, and feeling that there is someone or something scary in the room? This is what’s known as sleep paralysis, and again, it’s a mix of being partly asleep and partly awake. During REM sleep the body is partially paralysed, and sometimes people wake from this but not fully; they might believe they’re awake but are unable to move. In addition to this, many people experiencing sleep paralysis have some kind of hallucination,3 such as seeing or feeling that there is scary presence in the room or even something sitting on their chest. Fortunately, sleep paralysis doesn’t happen frequently for most people.
Lucid dreaming.
Imagine this: you’re dreaming, but you know that you’re dreaming and can control what happens in your dream – what would you do? This is what’s known as lucid dreaming. Sometimes it happens by accident, when you become aware that you’re dreaming but you continue dreaming. However, most of us don’t do this naturally, or at least frequently, so some people use techniques to increase the likelihood of having lucid dreams.
A popular one of these is reality testing – repeatedly doing little checks of whether you’re awake or asleep during the day, as these checks will then often appear in your dreams. As Rebecca Turner explains on the World of Lucid Dreaming website, her favourite reality test is trying to push two fingers through the palm of her other hand. You won’t be able to do this in the daytime, but when it appears in your dream, you probably will, and this will help you become aware that you’re dreaming. From there you can control your dream and do whatever you want.
As good as lucid dreaming might sound, the Sleep Foundation warns that there are some potential problems, such as disturbed sleep and a possible blurring of the line between reality and fantasy. Walker is quite hopeful about the potential benefits of lucid dreaming, however: he explains that, as dreams help us with solving problems, we might one day be able to use lucid dreaming to help us solve waking life problems more effectively.
Sleep well. And if you’re not sleeping well, or if you’re worried about anything here, the Sleep Foundation has good suggestions about how to sleep better and reduce or manage sleep problems – see the links below.
IELTS Reading Questions for Strange Things that Happen when You Sleep:
True / False / Not Given & Sentence Completion.
Sources and links from Strange Things that Happen when You Sleep.
– The website for sleep scientist Matthew Walker with information about his book Why We Sleep.
– Here are the links for the relevant pages from the Sleep Foundation:
– sleepwalking (1)
– nightmares
– sleep paralysis (3)
– lucid dreaming
– Article about reality checks on The World of Lucid Dreaming
– A study of nightmares from the Journal of Clincal Sleep Medicine (2).
– Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay
This Post Has 6 Comments
How can the answer of question 2 be not given if in the passage it is mentioned that medication can increase chances of sleepwalking. I mean sleeping pills are also considered as medicines. How can we segregate sleeping pills from medicines?
How can the answer of question 5 be true if the reality testing involves moving fingers? Does the reality test happen after sleeping?
If it is not happening after sleeping, then shouldn’t the answer be false for question 5?
Hi Masroor.
Did you enjoy the article?
Okay, here goes:
– Number 2 is Not Given because the passage says ‘SOME medications’; it doesn’t say which medications – there is no information there about whether sleeping pills increase the chances of sleepwalking.
– Number 5: the reality testing (trying to push your fingers through the palm of your other hand) is done in the daytime. If the reality test then appears in your dream, you dream about pushing your fingers through your palm; you don’t actually move your body.
Hope that helps.
No. 5 dreaming involves moving, Isn’t sleepwalking part of dreaming? Or its true because of the ‘fully’ word?
Hi Abhie.
Number 5 is true – it is a tricky one, though, and you need to think about the different stages of sleep.
Paragraph 5 says that ‘during REM sleep the body is partially paralysed’ – REM sleep is when we dream (see paragpraph 4); partially paralysed means not able to fully move. Therefore question 5 (‘We are not fully able to move when we are dreaming.’) is the same as what is in the text = True.
As for sleepwalking, if you look at paragraph 2, it says about sleepwalking: ‘It happens during the deepest part of NREM sleep (not dreaming)…’; we’re not dreaming when we sleepwalk (we are not acting out our dreams).
(Not in the text but maybe interesting): some people believe that we are paralysed during REM sleep to prevent us from acting out our dreams, but I’m not sure about that.
Hope that helps. Have a look at the ‘vocabulary help’ section if you want more information about the different stages of sleep.
Nick
Hi Nick
Sleeping is always a mystery to human beings. I also really curious about why we need to sleep every day for such a long time. Don’t you feel weird?
Hi Jolie.
Long time. Nice to hear from you.
Yeah, it is a bit strange, and we do it every day without thinking much about it.
Have a look at my article about Sleep (link below) for more information about why, or check out Matthew Walker’s TED talk.