Sleepwalkers are four times more likely to have headaches and ten times more likely to experience migraines, according to research by the Gui-de-Chauliac hospital in Montpellier, France. Of 100 patients diagnosed with sleepwalking, 47 reported at least one episode of sleepwalking that resulted in injury. Nearly 80% of those who had injured themselves during a sleepwalking episode reported experiencing pain only after waking up.
Sleepwalking affects about 4 percent of adults, reports the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. This type of parasomnia is actually more common among children. Researchers at the Gui-de-Chauliac hospital in Montpellier, France, explored the phenomenon in 2015 and found that among patients who had injured themselves during a sleepwalking episode, nearly 80 percent reported experiencing pain only after waking up. What’s more, the research, published in the journal Sleep, said sleepwalkers were nearly four times more likely to have headaches during their waking hours and 10 times more likely to experience debilitating migraines.
Feel no pain:
In the study, out of 100 patients diagnosed with sleepwalking, 47 reported at least one episode of sleepwalking that resulted in injury. Only 10 patients said they woke up immediately, immediately feeling pain.
A patient in the study jumped out of a third-story window while sleepwalking, but only felt the pain after waking up. Another suffered a broken leg after a fall from a roof, but he too felt nothing, until after.
Scientists aren’t really sure what goes on in a sleepwalker’s brain, but lead researcher Regis Lopez has suggested that the parasomnia event somehow disrupts the brain’s pain sensory system.
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