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The big E
Doctors, law enforcement and ravers are scrutinizing ecstasy's possible long-term effects as the drug pours into the U.S. in record numbers.
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[07/07/99]

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From North Beach bars to the Mitchell Brothers' high-priced flesh emporium, she went in search of women to dance in her lap.
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[07/03/99]

Column
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The 1899 Merck Manual is being released along with the 1999 version.   
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[07/02/99]

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The history and mystery of the plant that may have been one of the first contraceptives.
By Susan McCarthy
[07/01/99]

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Advances in sleep research include the development of the polysomnograph, which allows researchers to study the brain waves of sleepers. Researchers have found that during sleepwalking episodes, sleepwalkers exhibit mixtures of brain-wave patterns, including those typically found in deep sleep, in the transition to waking, and in drowsy and waking states. Although the sleepwalker's body is able to move, the person's brain is not fully awake. Shakespeare captured this phenomenon in describing the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth:

"You see, her eyes are open."

"Ay, but their sense is shut."

What can a sleepwalker, whose brain is not fully in gear, accomplish? Sleepwalkers are clearly capable of quite complex tasks. Peter Fenwick, a sleep researcher at London's Institute of Psychiatry, has sleepwalking patients who have ridden horses, made breakfast, stripped wallpaper and repaired refrigerators. Sleepwalkers can have conversations, albeit disjointed ones.

A quick perusal of back issues of the medical journal Sleep reveals tales that are by turn puzzling, hilarious and frightening. There are "sleepeaters" who lose their table manners, waking up with hands slathered in spaghetti sauce or smeared with mayonnaise. One sleepwalking woman favored snacks such as buttered cigarettes and cat food sandwiches; an Italian sleepwalker ate his watch.

Sleepers not only can walk, talk and eat -- they can have sex, too. An article in the Archives of Sexual Behaviors last year described a man whose lover "became alarmed when she realized one night that while having intercourse in their darkened bedroom that the patient was snoring loudly." The woman noted that her lover's unconscious sexual repertoire was highly varied; while sleeping he was "more aggressive and dominant than was his custom while making love in the awake state" and was more prone to "talking dirty."

Not all sleepwalking episodes are chuckle-worthy. Dr. Clete Kushida, a sleep researcher at Stanford Medical School, estimates a 60 to 70 percent risk of injury during sleepwalking incidents. A Sydney, Australia, hotel is said to have banned sleepwalkers' conventions because of the damage caused by sleepwalking conventioneers. One 14-year-old boy got out of bed and sleepwalked to the kitchen. He sleepwalked out the kitchen door -- of the family's RV, which was barreling down a San Diego highway at the time.

Sleepwalking -- and sleep-talking, sleep-eating and sleep-sex -- are clearly real phenomena. But what of violence perpetrated by the sleepwalker, who remembers nothing the next day? Even Scott Falater told Connie Chung, "If I had been at home reading this in the paper ... it would have seemed like a pretty bizarre and flaky defense to me, too." Bizarre and flaky, indeed -- but not unprecedented.

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