PSY 0816 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Polysomnography, Sleepwalking, Sleep Mode

• School: Temple University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSY 0816
• Professor: Kareem J.Johnson

Document Summary

23 year old kenneth parks drives to in-laws house, beats father-in-law unconscious and beats and stabs mother-in-law to death. After investigation they could conclude that parks was sleepwalking (and driving and attacking) Extreme cases like parks are rare, but unintended acts of violence during sleep are quite common. Different studies show high percentages of sleep walkers showing harmful behavior during sleep as well as acting in a potentially injurious way. Sleepwalking is alarming because there is a total lack of self-control. Carrying out complex actions while sleeping poses challenge to our sense of being in charge . Typically, the frontal lobe is typically inactive while sleeping/sleepwalking. Others parts are unusually active as if the person is awake. The boundaries between sleep and wakefulness can be disrupted, and people can become caught between these two states. People with arousal disorders enter a dissociative state, as if beginning to wake up but failing to do so completely.