Sleep Mailing 195
Doctors have reported the first case of someone using the internet while asleep, when a sleeping woman sent emails to people asking them over for drinks and caviar. The 44-year-old woman found out what she had done after a would be guest phoned her about it the next day. While asleep the woman turned on her computer, logged on by typing her username and password then composed and sent three emails. Each mail was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, unformatted and written in strange language. One read: "Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only." Another said simply, "What the......." If I had known that researchers were interested in unformatted, rambling email I would have let them read my inbox. They could start a whole new school of medicine.
Sounds like the work of Ambien or some other drug. (Score:5, Interesting)
Many people take sleeping pills, pain pills, mix them with booze. And these all cloud or fog the memory, and bring out bizarre behavior.
I went through a period of sleeplessness and my doctor gave me a Ambien(a hypnotic) to put me down at night.
However, having spend a better part of my teens and 20s "experimenting" was able to evidently ride the drug out and function. I just did not remember it. My girlfriend has stories of me cooking dinner, calling my parents, and moving around the house very slowly.
I am going with she was high.
Seems like a good excuse as any (Score:4, Interesting)
Recently, a guy sleepwalked to death from his hotel room balcony:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/3727373/Briton-sleepwalks-to-his-death-off-hotel-balcony.html [telegraph.co.uk]
and another guy was acquitted of rape because of sleepwalking:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1085927/How-man-raped-cleared-sleepwalking.html [dailymail.co.uk]
Re:not uncommon (Score:4, Interesting)
Now that there's ambien and those other zombie drugs, people are sleep driving, jogging, typing, cooking, and eating.
Well I hate to tell you this but those things were all reported before sleep aids even existed.
I'm not saying this lady necessarily took them, but that sort of thing has been known to happen on some sleep aids.
I think it's more likely that it happens to people taking sleep aids because they are overtired to begin with... which is why they're taking sleep aids.
In other words, correlation != causality.
Now, as for this, I found the summary both interesting and hilarious. I would be both freaked out and amused if I woke to find the stream of my subconscious having been typed out into a series of emails. Of course, I'd put a lock on my computer that would require complex thought to unlock shortly after...
Re:Not buying it (Score:4, Interesting)
A widely reported behaviour of sleepwalkers is to redo in their sleep movements and actions they are very used to, like dressing up. Typing in an URL and a password might be such a repetitive action. Of course, you may also be right. But it doesn't seem that far-fetched to me.
Amazing what happens when you're asleep (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago in my mid 20s I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. I knew I wasn't well. I felt tired all the time, wasn't as sharp as I was because of the tiredness, was falling asleep at work even after weeks of early nights and was getting headaches. It even got to the point where I'd occasionally hallucinate or experience sleep paralysis. The kicker was falling asleep at my desk and in meetings at worked. I had to fix it or my life would very quickly end up in the toilet. It took weeks to work it out because doctors were doing blood tests etc. Once I video taped myself sleeping I knew exactly what it was and I didn't need a medical degree.
That video was one of the most revolting things I'd ever seen, and to this day thinking of it literally makes me cringe. I looked like some sort of snorting pig. I would stop breathing for between one and two minutes, then take the most loud awful pig like snorting deep breath, take a couple more shallow breaths, then stop breathing for a minute or two again. I'd do this for the length of the video. It turns out no one who had heard me snore wanted to bring it up out of politeness. I think they assumed I knew. On the other hand I had NO idea. I didn't think it was possible to do that in your sleep without knowing, but not only was it possible, it had been going on for months (or possibly even years) before I worked out what was happening.
Now I'm on a CPAP machine at night which opens up my airways so I don't stop breathing. I hate the damn thing - being hooked up to a mask blowing air into your nose just sucks badly - but just a couple of nights without it and the headaches return and I start feeling tired again. The change when I went on the CPAP was instant - mornings I felt so fresh and awake that it was surreal. I'd rather be dependant on a damn machine than constantly fall asleep, lose my job, walk around like a zombie moron, behave inappropriately or sluggishly because I'm half asleep, be unable to drive, and ultimately die of blood pressure related illness. I don't think I'd be alive today without it.
Anyway the point is this experience has shattered any illusion of knowing what happens when I'm asleep.
Re:not uncommon (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course, I'd put a lock on my computer that would require complex thought to unlock shortly after...
It doesn't help. It takes three rather complex passwords and a USB fob to unlock my computer, and yet every now and then I wake up in the morning to find a bucket load of C on the screen and no idea how it got there.
What scares me is that "doctors" have "just" discovered this - when I'm sure hundreds (if not thousands) of slashdotters can claim to have done it years ago.
Re:Not buying it (Score:2, Interesting)
Typing in an URL and a password might be such a repetitive action.
This is true. For 'lower security' passwords that I don't change often (yet are sufficiently complex), I often can't remember exactly what the password is if I have to tell it to someone else, I have to type it.
Re:Idle? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think sleep and sleep disorders are a very interesting and discussion-worthy subject (even though I can't offer any medical/biological insight, I'd be interested in such posts from others with more knowledge than me). The story is just not presented that well.
So in essence my verdict is "Where's the beef?" and not "/. is the wrong place to post something like that".
Re:Idle? (Score:2, Interesting)
I write email and forum posts in my sleep on a semi-recurring basis [the more stressed out I am and physically exhausted, the more often it occurs].
It is really interesting [and kind of terrifying, the "oh dear, what did I write this time, and who to?" sinking feeling of realization when I wake up to different browser page open than expected] to see the fluidity of the words I write. More free-flowing, less choppy, but still recognizably my style of writing and thoughts.
I think it would be really interesting if there was a way that an ongoing polysomnography could be preformed, to correlate with what I post/write and when. The sleep lab that my doctor uses does not allow computers to be on when testing, lights out at 10-11pm, and up at 7am -- which does not at all represent my typical sleep behavior of falling asleep somewhere around 2am, getting up between 10-12noon, generally curled around laptop with password-requiring screensaver.
Passwords really aren't that hard to type in sleep - it is patterns that you memorize of how your hands move, when you type them in enough. The interesting part is that she had her hands aligned on keyboard properly to be hitting correct keys in sleep -- some of the stuff I've typed in sleep looks like gibberish, as the nubs on my F and J keys are worn down, so I guess I've ended up with hands slightly over from where they should be.
Re:Idle? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Idle? (Score:3, Interesting)
I know. My brother used to do this occasionally, although only for short conversations á la: "Wake up, it's time for lunch." - "Yeah, I'll be there in five minutes." Of course he would then go back to seep and not even remember I ever woke him up. Quite annoying until it stopped at some point.
Oh, I've been told I'd keep up a fairly lengthy conversation. My grandmother claimed my mother used to talk to her like that; they would discuss chores and whatnot while my mother was asleep, and she wouldn't even know the difference. Even when she tried to make sure my mother was awake by making her repeat everything, it still didn't work - she would repeat everything while asleep.