Sleep Drunkenness

Ever wake up confused about where you are or of what time it is? Ever wake up to an uneasy feeling? You may have been experiencing Sleep drunkenness. Sleep drunkenness is when a person wakes up in a confused or disorientated state and it affects about 1 in 7 Americans.

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Sleep drunkenness can actually be very severe and can lead to people injuring themselves and others. Common incidents include hitting the person in the bed next to them or injuring themselves in some way. According to Dr. Maurice Ohayon, one man accidentally killed himself by waking up and falling off of a dock into water.

Sleep Drunkenness is often brought on by jet lag. Some people believe that sleep drunkenness might be brought on by other sleeping disorders, mental illness or medications that a person may be taking.

Dr. David Rye, a professor at Emory University, conducted a study consisting of more than 19,000 people over the age of 18. In the study, they asked who had experienced confusion when waking up, if they had any mental illnesses, and if they were taking any medications.

84% of the people who said that they had experienced sleep drunkenness also said that they experience other sleep disorders. A link was also found between sleeping too much or too little and the occurrence of sleep drunkenness.

In my opinion, this study has many flaws. I think to make this study more successful, they should observe the people as they sleep. Have a control group of normal sleepers, a group of jet lagged or sleep deprived sleepers, and a group of people with sleep disorders. If they run the experiment like this, then they can observe and see the sleep drunkenness and what might cause it, instead of just asking people about their sleep patterns. This would give the researchers more reliable data than just the sleep survey.

So what do you think? Have you fallen victim to sleep drunkenness?

Resources:

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/news/20140825/sleep-drunkenness-is-common-and-linked-to-other-behavior-issues

3 thoughts on “Sleep Drunkenness

  1. Xiaotong Wang

    This post is really good! For me, experiences about sleep drunkenness is more uncomfortable than the experience of having a nightmare. Especially when I was a little girl, some times I wake up and totally had no idea about where I am. One time when I took pill before went to bed, I felt that I can barely breath. And about the compare group you talked in this article, I think it’s necessary for this research because there’s one thought in communication class that sometimes people would hide something to researcher and add something to their describe, which didn’t happen actually in order to beauty themselves. Seeing in this way, direct observing is obviously more precise.

  2. Hayley Lynn Pontia

    I think this is a really relatable article and interestingly brings up the factor of REM. Maybe the sleepers should be watched while they sleep (as you said) while also having their brain waves recorded to see if there is any correlation between the way they sleep and the way they wake up.

  3. Katherine Jane Ballantyne

    Can I just say.. The worst is when you wake up feeling like you’re falling when in reality you’re just in your bed still. I read somewhere that it happens to a person once a night, which seems a little excessive to me. After reading further, it’s not known what causes them and it’s just an involuntary twitch– kind of like a hiccup. They might be triggered by stress, sleep deprivation, or as one scientist says– evolution?? There hasn’t been much research about it because they don’t cause any real adverse effects.

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