Thread: my partner's sleep behavour scares me

Wow, that's kind of scarey. Can you think of anything in your lives that may have acted as a trigger for his change in behavior? Has he been under stress, lost a job or loved one lately?

Often a significant emotional event will trigger such things.

hmmm...

interesting. if this behavior shows no sign of decreasing you may want to take him to a doctor. i saw a tv show once where a guy had to be chained to his bed at night because he had jumped out of his bedroom window on three seperate occasions while sleep-walking.

i used to sleep-walk too but i only walked around the house and went back to bed. apart from one time when i took all my bed clothes and put them in the (empty) bath. i returned to my room, woke up while standing up and realised my bed clothes were gone. it took me ten minutes to find them.

I certainly am not an expert in the field, but I know that when you sleep your brain cuts off connections between your mind and your limbs (so you don't enact your dreams). However, sometimes this isn't always 100% like in the case of sleepwalkers and sleeptalkers. Obviously what you have here is quite a remarkable example of this. Like Seeker said the first thing you should really examine is his mental state in waking life. Howver dreams very often are vivid and scary, even if you're a-okay in waking life you get nightmares - it's just extra scary if you see someone unconcious acting them out. I suggest you consult your GP as there might be something they can offer to lessen the effects and give a good think as to what, if anything, could be effecting him mentally. Good luck

p.s. Maybe get him to record him dreams so you can match what he's acting out to the part of the dream - might give you some insight into what he's dreaming about when these events occur?

Originally Posted by pack-of-wolves21

Words...

When I screwed up my foot, I had a hard time falling asleep. When I finally fell asleep, I started sleep-walking, and I was jumping around on one leg, saying something about brown boxes. Naked.

When I woke up, I went downstairs, all normal and I sat and played my computer, checked the internet. Then my mom asked me "How was your night?" and I said "Oh fine, I finally managed to fall asleep " and then she told me the entire thing. I was just like "What the fuck?" I couldn't answer, it was like, crazy.

I guess this happened, because of a big change in my day life. Try and ask your partner, if he's having some problems.

Maybe if it is getting worse you should see your doctor about it, it seems like the safest thing to do currently, he seems to be affected by something, maybe a doctor could give a better diagnosis, does he have any recollection of these actions? If so maybe you could work from there at figuring out the problem.

Is it affecting his waking life at all? I don't know much about sleepwalking, but (unless they do something dangerous, like jump out a window) I don't think it's harmful. Although, what you explained isn't exactly sleepwalking. Maybe you should ask him if he had some kind of traumatic expirience, or a lot of stress or something like that.

I had a scary experience with my hubby a long time ago, before we were married, but we were living together at the time.

He woke up in the middle of the night, and he had a crazed look on his face. His eyes looked evil and full of hatred. And he just stared at me - and when I tried to talk to him, he just spoke to me through clenched teeth like he was the angriest I've ever seen him. I was seriously afraid he was going to hurt me in that moment.

But then he laid back down and didn't make another sound. In the morning when I told him about it, he didn't remember any of it, or any dreams about him being mad.

It never happened again, but I will never forget the look on his face and in his eyes. It was truly frightening.

Sounds like possible early stages of narcolepsy, specifically the symptom called "automatic behavior." See a doctor.

It's definitely time for a doctor's involvement. This could evolve into something quite dangerous.

Originally Posted by Oneironaught

It's definitely time for a doctor's involvement. This could evolve into something quite dangerous.

yeah i agree, i mean that time he was obsessing the tv guy was bad or something. He may not mean to but another time he may be convinced your bad or something and hurt you, not intentionally but that kind of thing can happen sometimes.

Pack of Wolves and Burns, I believe these might be cases of "Night Terrors". They are not common with adults but possible. It's basically sleepwalking plus hallucinations, so if your boyfriends experienced that, then they were asleep while they were acting that way. The most important advice I could give is not to shake them awake, as they might not even notice you, and/or hallucinate of you as an evil entity of something and lead to a bigger scare to him and maybe make him act aggressively towards you.

http://www.nightterrors.org/ for info

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quVJ5ZeVn_U for an incredible self-videotaped night terror (lower the volume halfway, there are loud screams)

I hope that helped, Pack of Wolves, but still take him to a doctor as he/she knows 1000X more than me.

Thanks for the info, zitro. Good information on the night terrors site - interesting stuff. That video is a bit unnerving...

If you have a night terror and someone shakes you out of it, will you remember it? I think I had once but I was brought down to reality while it was happening, so I was able to remember every piece of it. I definitely did not know I was awake while it was happening.

I think the worst part is (if you checked out other videos) they can sometimes really hurt themselves or others. Doing violent striking motions, swinging, kicking. That would freak me out if my partner did that.

Originally Posted by Super Duck

i used to sleep-walk too but i only walked around the house and went back to bed. apart from one time when i took all my bed clothes and put them in the (empty) bath. i returned to my room, woke up while standing up and realised my bed clothes were gone. it took me ten minutes to find them.

HAHA!!! i remember my friends telling me that once we were play a game at night. then i just fall asleep, they said that i stood up and walked to the nearst bed and lay there and slept!