[LiteraryLark]

I went to bed at 1am last night. At 3am I realized that I was pacing back and forth in my room "memorizing" my flash cards, looked at the clock, then went back to bed and fell sleep. I checked my notebook and there is no indication that I took out my flashcards. I have no known history of sleepwalking, but my younger cousin sleepwalks. Was I sleepwalking?

[Piraeus]

That doesn't sound like you were sleep walking. It sounds like
you are anxious about taking a test. Is your school work bothering you?
I sleepwalk and do the craziest things. One time I was sleepwalking and
went to my Mother's room. I pissed in her trash can. Then they woke up.
It was so embarrassing.

[LiteraryLark]

Most people don't piss in peoples trash cans when they sleepwalk. Most people don't do crazy things at all, they just walk around the house doing normal things while asleep.

[Piraeus]

I think some of it has to do with meds I'm taking at night. It makes me do goofy things.

[lynn P.]

People can do very odd things and normal things - just depends on the sleepwalker. True meds can have an affect too. I have a history of sleep walking - only way I know is if there's evidence or if someone else in the house sees me. Last time I knew - I woke up in the morning and there were towels neatly place on the dresser and 2 night tables. Guess I went in the linen closet and did this.

People can do crazy things while sleep walking. My husband was very exhausted one night - he got up and peed in the corner of the room. Thank God we had tile and not carpet. I saw a mother on Oprah years ago - her teenage son was jogger - he got up at night and jogged down the middle of the freeway and unfortunately got hit by a truck. People have been known to venture outside and even drive a car. There's also sleeping eating where people eat very odd things - like raw meat and spoons of margarine. So people can do odd things. It sounds like you just had a very realistic dream.

[Perna]

I think your flash cards and notebook would not have been exactly as you left them, with "no indication". No, you don't have to piss in trash cans or even fold towels like Lynn P but there will probably be some indication of what you were doing, especially as you dreamed you were using your flash cards. People who sleep eat, leave wrappers and dirty dishes; no one does "complete" things the way they would, I don't think, Lynn P did not put the folded towels away in the correct place, for example. The "I'll do the dishes in the morning" sort of thing holds more sway I think when one is in the throes of sleep and doesn't have the "will" to override and say, "No, get them done now".

If you had not imagined yourself doing your flash cards, you might not know if you had slept walked or not; as Lynn says she does sometimes, you could have just wandered around the house. Sleep walking is often genetic and starts or happens in one teen years.

http://www.medicinenet.com/sleepwalking/page2.htm

However, sleep walking is also considered to include just sitting up in one's bed or sleep talking, etc. I was at a convention in another town and the woman I was rooming with was laughing at me one morning and asked if my husband had told me. I asked, "told me what" and it turned out I had been practicing my public speaking we'd been doing all week that was very stressful for me :-)