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Page: << Prev | 1 | 2 In another case, a 26-year-old woman would initiate foreplay with her bed partner during sleep and then awaken and accuse him of forcing sex upon her.
None of the patients reported remembering the incidents.
Patients who have sex while asleep typically do not have any form of mental disorders, Schenck said. "Basically, an alarm rings in their nervous system when it shouldn't ring, and they have this partial awakening. It's a twilight state," he said.
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Unfortunately for the patients, "they have suspended judgment," Schenck said. "They can't monitor themselves, and they're are risk for harming themselves or someone else."
In many cases, he added, bed partners reported unwanted sexual advances by a sleeping person, but sometime said they didn't mind the extra attention.
The sedative clonazepam (Klonopin) is a frequent treatment for unwanted behaviors during sleep and it works in 90 percent of parasomnia cases, according to the new report.
It's not clear how common sleepsex is. Dr. Robert Vorona, a sleep researcher and associate professor of internal medicine at Eastern Virginia Medical School, suspects that the true number of cases is not on the rise.
"However, until sleep specialists actively question our patients about these delicate issues, we will not really know just how common or uncommon these behaviors might be, or whether these activities might be occurring more frequently," he said.
As for the future, he said sleep experts -- already called as experts in court cases on violence reportedly taking place during sleep -- may find themselves testifying even more often.
"Sleep clinicians should not be surprised to find themselves increasingly being asked to testify in controversial cases involving sexual activity during sleep," he said.
More information
To learn more about sleep disorders try the National Library of Medicine.
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