Sleepwalking is also known as somnambulism. The sleepwalkers arise from a mental state, in low consciousness and do activities that usually one would do under full consciousness. A person could do normal everyday activities, like: doing the dishes, driving a car, cooking, and even grab hallucinated objects. Sleep walking can last 30 seconds up to 30 minutes. Sleepwalking is most common in children, and is usually outgrown by teen years. As we sleep we go through 5 stages: 1,2,3,4 and R.E.M (rapid eye movement). One complete cycle lasts 60 to 100 minutes. On average a person experiences four or five sleep cycles in their sleep. During the steps 3 or 4 is usually when your mind is in a deeper sleep. It is much harder to wake a person up at this stage. The person might feel groggy or disorientated for a couple minutes. Some causes for sleepwalking are : lack of sleep or fatigue, irregular sleep schedules, illness or fever, certain medications, and stress.
Hallucinations come from Latin, and means; to wonder mentally. Hallucinations have been defined as the perception of a nonexistent object or event. Hallucinations involve hearing, seeing, smelling, touching, and even tasting things that are not real. Hallucinations are often caused from schizophrenia. A sign of a hallucination is muscle stiffness in the back and neck. Drugs are also a key factor to hallucinating. Use of ecstasy, LSD, and psilocybin often trigger the effect. Drug withdraw can induce tactile and visual hallucinations. Intoxication's or withdraw to the drugs; cocaine, marijuana, LSD, crack or heroin will cause hallucinations. Electrical or neurochemical activity in the brain is a hallucinatory sensation. Having brain damage will also alter the affect of hallucinations.
