Dreaming and enacting dreams in nonrapid eye movement and rapid eye movement parasomnia: A step toward a unifying view within distinct patterns?

摘要

Sleepwalking (SW) and night terrors (NTs) have fascinated physicians, artists, and theologians since antiquity. Interestingly, they all thought these nocturnal events were the result of a force emanating from within affected individuals (i.e., from the brain or soul depending on their viewpoint). Thus, for a long time individuals affected by SW or NTs were thought to be acting in the grip of a divine or diabolic possession. Most 19th century scientists believed that sleepwalkers were enacting the content of their dreams with expression of intrapsychic conflicts. In fact the Greek-derived term, oneirodynia, which is now an obsolete synonym for sleepwalking, once was known as walking while dreaming.