Sleepwalking to Your Death: Is It Possible? - East Idaho News
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Sleepwalking to Your Death: Is It Possible?

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GETTY H 122211 Sleepwalking?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1324655387339PhotoObjects.net/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — It’s not unusual for people to walk or talk in their sleep.  But drown while you’re sleeping?  It’s possible: a New Jersey woman found on Monday may have sleepwalked to her death.

The body of Charlene Ferrero, 55, was found in Newton Lake near Oaklyn, N.J.  Calls to the Oaklyn Police Department were not immediately returned, but WPVI in Philadelphia reports that police ruled her death an accidental drowning.

Ferrero’s friends say when she walked to the lake a few blocks from her apartment sometime late Saturday or early Sunday, she may have been sleepwalking.  Teresa Cerini, Ferrero’s next door neighbor, told ABC News affiliate WPVI-TV in Philadelphia she had done it about a week and a half before her death.

“I heard a knock on the door, and I go, ‘What are you doing up, honey?’  And she goes, ‘I’m so sorry.  The people at Table 2 ordered the eggs,'” Cerini told WPVI.

Sleepwalking and other forms of parasomnia are not uncommon. According to the National Sleep Foundation, about 10 percent of Americans report some erratic nighttime behaviors like eating, walking, talking, having sex or even become violent while they are asleep.

But most sleepwalkers simply move from room to room in their homes.  Only a few, like Ferrero, end up going farther.

“This case is extreme but not impossible,” Dr. David Rapoport, director of the Sleep Medicine Program at New York University School of Medicine, told ABC News. “There are clearly cases of people doing complex things, and these can include driving or walking into dangerous situations.”

WPVI reports that Ferrero was spotted driving her car on Saturday night. Cerini said she noticed the car parked awkwardly in front of Ferrero’s apartment on the morning she went missing. She told WPVI that she thinks Ferrero may have sleepwalked and fell into the lake.

“Hitting the water and not being roused is unusual. We usually expect a person to wake up after that kind of stimulus,” Dr. Helene Emsellem, director of the Center for Sleep and Wake Disorders in Chevy Chase, Md., told ABC News. “It’s hard to know whether she was awakened by that impact or not.”

Scientists know that sleepwalking is much more common in children, tends to run in families and can be aggravated by alcohol, stress, fatigue or insomnia.  But exactly how the brain allows a person to perform complex tasks unconsciously is still a mystery.

“Different types of parasomnias may occur in different stages of sleep,” Rapoport said. “It is not clear exactly what is happening, but the current thinking is that part of the brain is awake, while part remains asleep.”

Copyright 2011 ABC News Radio

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