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Is This Sleepwalking?

by Michelle
(Mexico)

Why is it that when I fell asleep last night, I woke up without realizing it while I was consecutively breathing hard and shaking with my eyes bright red?

Hi Michelle,


I'm not sure entirely what you mean. Were you told by someone else that you had woken up in the middle of the night breathing hard and shaking with red eyes? If that was indeed the case and you had no recollection of the event yourself in the morning, it is possible that that could have been a mild case of sleepwalking. You can learn more about sleepwalking here.

However, it more likely may have just been a case of retrograde amnesia, which basically just refers to the fact that we often forget what happens around us in the 5 minutes or so before we fall asleep. It's because of retrograde amnesia that it is not uncommon for people to wake up briefly in the middle of the night, but the next morning have no idea that they woke up at all during the night. So maybe you woke up briefly from a bad dream and fell back asleep before your brain had time to remember that you woke up. You can learn a bit more about retrograde amnesia here.

Warmly,
Kevin

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Welcome! This site is continuously being created by students of Dr. William C. Dement's Sleep And Dreams course at Stanford University.

We made this site as a call to action for people all over the world to live healthier, happier, safer, and more productive lives by learning about their own sleep. We have faith that reading the information provided on this site will motivate you to be smart about your sleep deprivation and strategic about your alertness in order to live life to your fullest, most energetic potential.

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Sleep Paralysis: A Dreamer's Guide

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