Sleepwalking - History

History

Sleepwalking has attracted a sense of mystery, but it had not been seriously investigated and diagnosed until the last century. The 19th-century German chemist and parapsychologist Baron Karl Ludwig von Reichenbach made extensive studies of sleepwalkers and used his discoveries to formulate his theory of the Odic force.

Sleepwalking was initially thought to be a dreamer acting out a dream. For example, in one study published by the Society for Science & the Public in 1954, this was the conclusion: "Repression of hostile feelings against the father caused the patients to react by acting out in a dream world with sleepwalking, the distorted fantasies they had about all authoritarian figures, such as fathers, officers and stern superiors." This same group published an article twelve years later with a new conclusion: "Sleepwalking, contrary to most belief, apparently has little to do with dreaming. In fact, it occurs when the sleeper is enjoying his most oblivious, deepest sleep—a stage in which dreams are not usually reported." More recent research has discovered that sleepwalking is actually a disorder of NREM (non-rapid eye movement) arousal. Acting out a dream is the basis for a REM (rapid eye movement) sleep disorder called REM Behavior Disorder (or REM Sleep Behavior Disorder, RSBD). More accurate data about sleep is due to the invention of technologies such as the electroencephalogram (EEG) by Hans Berger in 1924 and BEAM by Frank Duffy in the early 1980s.

In 1907, Sigmund Freud spoke about sleepwalking to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Society (Nunberg and Federn). He believed that sleepwalking was connected to fulfilling sexual wishes and was surprised that a person could move without interrupting their dream. At that time, Freud suggested that the essence of this phenomenon was the desire to go to sleep in the same area as the individual had slept in childhood. Ten years later, he speculated about somnambulism in the article "A Metapsychological Supplement to the Theory of Dreams" (1916-17 ). In this essay, he stated to clarify and expand his hypothetical ideas on dreams. The dreams is a fragile equilibrium that is only partially successful because the repressed unconscious impulses of the unconscious system. This does not obey the wishes of the ego and maintain their countercathexis. Another reason why dreams are partially successful is because certain preconscious daytime thoughts can be resistant and these can retain a part of their cathexis as well. It is probable how unconscious impulses and day residues can come together and result in a conflict. Freud then wondered about the outcome of this wishful impulse which represents an unconscious instinctual demand and then it becomes a dream wish in the preconscious. Furthermore, Freud stated that this unconscious impulse could be expressed as mobility during sleep. This would be what is observed in somnambulism, though what actually makes it possible remains unknown.