# If you thought sleepwalking was bad...



## Metryq (Nov 28, 2011)

This is pretty pathetic:

*People are sending text messages while they are asleep, says specialist*



> Dr Cunnington described sleep texting as the result of people having too much to do during waking life.



Bull-oney. So much for the pundits. These people don't have too much to do, they don't have _enough_ to do and are afflicted with attention deficit disorder. Such people become addicted to "social networking" sites and live on these "virtual mirrors" to validate themselves.


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## AnyaKimlin (Nov 28, 2011)

Anyone who has lived with a sleepwalker is unlikely to find it surprising.  I had a sleepwalking toddler who would get up get herself a biscuit, and sit down and play for an hour with her toys.  Just in the same way she would when awake.  If it's an action people perform during the day chances are some sleepwalkers do it.

The one thing that did surprise me was the study on QI about blindfolded people always walking in circles.  Yet sleepwalkers usually go in a straight line.


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## mosaix (Nov 28, 2011)

AnyaKimlin said:


> The one thing that did surprise me was the study on QI about blindfolded  people always walking in circles.  Yet sleepwalkers usually go in a  straight line.



Is it something to do with distance, Anya? I would imagine that the  majority of sleepwalkers are indoors and generally cover short  distances, whereas the QI example was of a blindfold man in a field  walking a fair way. I would imagine that it's only over a long distance that the 'circle' effect is noticed.


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## AnyaKimlin (Nov 28, 2011)

mosaix said:


> Is it something to do with distance, Anya? I would imagine that the  majority of sleepwalkers are indoors and generally cover short  distances, whereas the QI example was of a blindfold man in a field  walking a fair way. I would imagine that it's only over a long distance that the 'circle' effect is noticed.




Maybe but they had people in a room as well none of them moving in a straight line- my daughter is as straight as she would be awake she leaves the room, moves through to the kitchen, back to bedroom, gets her toys out, plays and returns to bed.  She hasn't done it in a few years.  My Mum used to make phonecalls when she was sleeping it off lol You can have a full blown coversation with her when she asleep as long as you can tolerate foul language.

I wondered if it was the difference between awake and asleep.   She sometimes has her eyes open and sometimes closed but it seems to make no difference.


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## DrMclony (Nov 29, 2011)

Many years ago I was madly smitten with a girlfriend who lived about an hours drive from my house. On more than one occasion I went to bed at my house and woke up at hers. My car parked strangely crooked in her driveway.


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## Moonbat (Nov 29, 2011)

That is scary. I wonder if you had had an accident, would 'but I was alseep' be any excuse.
It worked for the man who killed his in-laws.


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## Metryq (Nov 29, 2011)

Moonbat said:


> It worked for the man who killed his in-laws.



That's why I hate the "innocent by reason of insanity" defense. That's like claiming one was possessed. "My body did the deed, but it wasn't me behind the wheel." I've read that post-hypnotic suggestion cannot make someone do something they don't really want to do. Likewise, I don't believe alcohol can "make" people do uncharacteristic things. At most it lowers inhibitions.


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## Nik (Nov 29, 2011)

We had to fit wind-chimes to front door to alert us when my brother went walk-about in his sleep. For some reason, his dream-state never mastered the dead-bolt on the back door...


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## hopewrites (Dec 16, 2011)

I roomed with a sleeptalker for about 8 years. when stress was high he talked more, and he would do it with his eyes open and looking around as though at what was in his dream. The quickest way for me to tell if he was asleep or awake was to change the subject three times in as few sentences. If he followed them he was awake, if not he was asleep.
the higher his stress levels the more I had to play into his dream conversation to get him back to sleep.

I am by nature a light sleeper, who can pick and chose what I sleep through. If I chose to ignore something however the only way to do so is to incorporate it into my dream, so I always woke up when he would start talking to me.


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## J Riff (Dec 16, 2011)

Proper conditioning in various sleep states will have you jumping off buildings, shooting people or anything you can think of, with no memory afterwards. It goes waaaaay back to the Thuggee and other fun groups. Works like an absolute charm, see MKultra and other programs for tips on how to make a perfect Alpha/Delta sleep slave.
 Sometimes you see people let off for horrible crimes, because...well you figure it out, I'm going for a nap.


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## soulsinging (Dec 18, 2011)

Metryq said:


> That's why I hate the "innocent by reason of insanity" defense. That's like claiming one was possessed. "My body did the deed, but it wasn't me behind the wheel." I've read that post-hypnotic suggestion cannot make someone do something they don't really want to do. Likewise, I don't believe alcohol can "make" people do uncharacteristic things. At most it lowers inhibitions.



I don't know, being drunk or "hypnotized" is a little bit different from sleepwalking, which is a medical condition where your body truly is completely out of control of your conscious mind. If someone had an epileptic seizure behind the wheel that caused an accident would you call them a murderer?


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## Metryq (Dec 18, 2011)

soulsinging said:


> If someone had an epileptic seizure behind the wheel that caused an accident would you call them a murderer?



I suppose this was meant to cleverly undercut my argument, but some people with epilepsy are not supposed to be operating heavy machinery. If someone has such a condition that is not controllable by meds and/or that person is under medical or legal advisement not to drive, then yes, they should be held accountable. (Manslaughter, probably.) *But not today*. There's an excuse for everything; zero accountability. Maybe we'll have a legal defense for demonic possession, too. We already have such testimonies as "the knife went in," as though the wielder was not in control. It was just bad luck that the accused's  body happened to be there at the time. Circumstantial.


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## Metryq (Dec 18, 2011)

J Riff said:


> Proper conditioning in various sleep states will have you jumping off buildings, shooting people or anything you can think of, with no memory afterwards.



Sorry, my BS meter is clanging:

*Hypnosis: Military Applications*



> A recently declassified document obtained by The Black Vault Freedom of Information Act archive shows that hypnosis was investigated for military applications. However, the overall conclusion of the study was that there was no evidence that hypnosis could be used for military applications, and also that there was no clear evidence for whether 'hypnosis' actually exists as a definable phenomenon outside of ordinary suggestion, high motivation and subject expectancy. According to the document,
> 
> The use of hypnosis in intelligence would present certain technical problems not encountered in the clinic or laboratory. *To obtain compliance from a resistant source, for example, it would be necessary to hypnotise the source under essentially hostile circumstances. There is no good evidence, clinical or experimental, that this can be done.*


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## soulsinging (Dec 18, 2011)

Metryq said:


> I suppose this was meant to cleverly undercut my argument, but some people with epilepsy are not supposed to be operating heavy machinery. If someone has such a condition that is not controllable by meds and/or that person is under medical or legal advisement not to drive, then yes, they should be held accountable. (Manslaughter, probably.) *But not today*. There's an excuse for everything; zero accountability. Maybe we'll have a legal defense for demonic possession, too. We already have such testimonies as "the knife went in," as though the wielder was not in control. It was just bad luck that the accused's  body happened to be there at the time. Circumstantial.



There's nothing clever about it. My cousin got into a car accident just a month ago when he had a seizure behind the wheel. He'd never had one before. I really doubt he was faking it just to avoid accountability. He doesn't drive anymore on doctor's orders, but that hardly makes him to blame for having a medical emergency he never could have foreseen that first time. If someone had died in the accident, do you really feel it would have been justice to have put him in prison for a few years because his brain went haywire on him out of nowhere?

Sure the whole "devil made me do it" excuse is bunk, but to act like there's never been a valid medical explanation for someone doing things without conscious control is as absurdly dismissive as someone trying to use the devil to avoid blame for their actions.


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## Ursa major (Dec 18, 2011)

soulsinging said:


> If someone had an epileptic seizure behind the wheel that caused an accident would you call them a murderer?


Murderer, no, but gaol was still the outcome for this driver:


> A driver with a history of epilepsy caused the death of a woman by playing "Russian roulette" with his condition, police have said.
> 
> Philip Chapman, 56, from Rayleigh, Essex, was jailed for six years after crashing into four cars in Southend while having an epileptic seizure. Linda Brooks, 68, was fatally injured and three others, including a two-year-old child, were seriously hurt.
> 
> ...


From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-15790030​The key point, though, was that the driver _knew_ about his condition and what that meant. His culpability stemmed from his ignoring of the restrictions that his condition imposed on him.


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## soulsinging (Dec 18, 2011)

Ursa major said:


> Murderer, no, but gaol was still the outcome for this driver:
> 
> From http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-15790030​The key point, though, was that the driver _knew_ about his condition and what that meant. His culpability stemmed from his ignoring of the restrictions that his condition imposed on him.



And if he hadn't known about the condition in advance, like my cousin?


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## Metryq (Dec 18, 2011)

soulsinging said:


> And if he hadn't known about the condition in advance, like my cousin?



You seem to be having difficulty with a point that both Ursa Major and myself were very clear on—_knowledge_ of the condition, and _ignoring_ advice (or orders) against certain activity, such as driving.

Sorry to hear about your cousin's difficulty. And to spell it out for you, no, I would not class your cousin as a murderer (had someone been killed).


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## hopewrites (Dec 19, 2011)

knowledge is key.
and credibility of that knowledge is called into question when the condition is questionable. 
recovered memories are not permissible as evidence in court cases, as I understand it. because there is currently no reliable way to prove that it is a true memory and not something some one just made up in their head and have come to believe is true.

the mind is a strange place.

as much as I would like to not have my recovered memories, likely the reason I repressed them in the first place, with out evidence there is no way to prove to me or anyone else that I am wrong or right.


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## soulsinging (Dec 19, 2011)

Metryq said:


> You seem to be having difficulty with a point that both Ursa Major and myself were very clear on—_knowledge_ of the condition, and _ignoring_ advice (or orders) against certain activity, such as driving.
> 
> Sorry to hear about your cousin's difficulty. And to spell it out for you, no, I would not class your cousin as a murderer (had someone been killed).



You didn't make that at all clear to me. You posted about lack of accountability in post #7 and used as examples intoxication and hypnosis. I pointed out that these are both very different from medical conditions like seizures or sleepwalking and THEN you brought up knowledge of the condition in advance, which you kept repeating when I mentioned examples of people suffering the effects of such conditions WITHOUT advance knowledge. I'm glad to know we've been in agreement this whole time though!


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