Sleepwalking Doesn't Just Affect The Sleepwalker

I live with my boyfriend, who is about to turn 28 years old. From the first time I stayed at his house until now, almost 2 years later, he sleepwalks at least 3-4 times per week and sometimes nightly. It's been going on since his childhood. He usually remembers at least a little of what he does and is pretty foggy about it, but he's aware it happens and swears he's sometimes aware as it's happening. He says sometimes he knows it's happening, but it's really hard for him to snap out of it because what he's seeing is so real. He almost always speaks very clearly, although incoherent at times.

It seems to go in phases. At first it was only instances involving moving things around the room. Or we'd go to a friend's house and stay on their couch; he'd move shoes around or pick up a blanket and move it to the other side of the room. He even tried moving the couch we were on. I could usually tell him just to come back to bed and he would just say, "ok," and that was that for the night.

Then I noticed stress made the instances change into things a little scarier for him. He would think glass was falling from the ceiling or there was a fire under the computer desk. Sometimes it was just him springing up from bed frantically looking around, but not quite awake. He never gets violent or even seems to notice I'm there until I talk. Once the stressor moved on, so did he.

Usually it's off the wall things he does. One time he was hiding next to his dresser. I asked him what he was doing and he yelled, "DID YOU SEE THAT?" And then said something about a ninja kick and mumbled for the rest. Another night I woke up to him standing next to the bed patting around me. I asked what he was looking for and he said there was a squirrel in the bed. That was a funny phase, everything was like that.

Then he got started turning on lights. Somehow he trained himself that if the lights came on, he would wake up and stop sleepwalking. All is great until 3am and all the lights are on. I begged him to stop doing that and eventually he did for the most part. But then he would get argumentative while sleepwalking. I woke up to him taking pictures off the wall one night and told him to stop and come back to bed because he was sleeping. He screamed, "DO I LOOK LIKE I'M SLEEPING TO YOU!?" and then stormed and turn on the living room lights out only to come back a few minutes later apologizing. He did a similar thing the next night a little angrier, but nothing angry since those two times.

It really slowed down for a little while. Maybe one episode a week. The last few months or so have been really quiet up until the last two nights. He's more active than I've ever seen him. The night before last he got up probably a dozen times. He thought his remote control glider was carrying a GoPro. I got him back to bed, but he kept getting up and looking around in the hallway. Last night I woke up twice to him taking all of the blankets and sheets off the bed. He woke up a few more times looking for something. I asked him to come bed every time and he did. I can't find a trigger for the sudden increase in activity.

Most of the time I'm able to go back to sleep without a problem, and it doesn't affect me too much. But when I'm being woken up 10 times a night, it definitely does start to take its toll. He's a happy, brilliant, successful man - I can't, for the life of me, figure out what is going on in that brain of his to make this happen so frequently.