Current Issue December 2011 | Vol. 6, No. 4

December 2011
ParasomniasMark R. Pressman, PhD, D.ABSM, Guest Editor
Parasomnias are behaviors—sometimes complex behaviors—that come out of sleep or out of the transition between sleep and wakefulness.1 Parasomnias are actually statistically common, but frequently misunderstood by the lay public and those in the medical field.2 A web search for the term "sleepwalking" brings back hundreds of hits, but rarely for the medical condition. Losing sports teams, governments, and countries are all said to be "sleepwalking." Sleepwalking is used in the sense they are unaware of what is going on around them, not paying attention to what is obvious to others, or moving without purpose or intention. The scientific definition of sleepwalking shares very little with this common understanding. It skims the surface of what we have come to understand is a group of complex and fascinating sleep disorders.