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Dreams and Reality

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Submitted By malkatepfer
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Sleepwalking

Sleepwalking has always attracted a sense of mystery and suspense.
Has anyone here ever watched someone who was sleepwalking?
I have. I was 13 years old and it was in camp when I watched my friend get out of bed and walk to the front door of our bunkhouse. I had no idea that she was sleepwalking. I tried whispering her name but when she didn’t turn around, I just figured she hadn’t heard me. I called out to her louder but still she didn’t respond. That’s when I noticed the faraway look on her face. Her eyes were glazed over and her face had a blank stare. She didn’t turn back; she just kept walking straight towards the door. It was a very eerie thing to watch. I remember not being able to do anything but stare at her. I kept wondering; where is she going? What is she doing? Ever since then, I had always wondered about what sleepwalking really is. Is it a dream? Or is it reality?
Sleepwalking wasn’t seriously investigated and diagnosed until the last century. In the 19th-century, a German chemist and parapsychologist, Baron Karl Ludwig von Reichenbach made extensive studies of sleepwalkers. Sleepwalking was initially thought to be a dreamer acting out a dream. Later on, the Society for Science published a conclusion saying that sleepwalking really has very little to do with dreaming and that it in fact, occurs when the sleeper is in his deepest sleep—a stage in which dreams are not even had.
Sleepwalking is also knows as Somnambulism, which means walking during sleep.
Somnambulism is a disorder that occurs when people walk or do any other activity while they are still asleep.

When does it occur?
When you’re sleeping, your body goes through different stages; from light drowsiness to deep sleep. There is something called REM sleep. REM stands for rapid eye movement. During rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, your eyes move quickly and

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