Sleepwalking is known as somnambulism. It's classified as an abnormal behavior during sleep that's disruptive.

The handbook for mental health professionals, the DSM-IV, defines sleepwalking by the following criteria:

• You leave your bed while sleeping.
• Others find it difficult to wake you during an episode of sleepwalking.
• You can't remember what happened while you were sleepwalking.
• When you do wake up from an episode, you're confused.
• You don't suffer from dementia or another physical disorder.
• It impairs your work or social life.

In the arts, sleepwalking is linked to blood, danger, the occult, and loss of control.

• Shakespeare used a sleepwalking scene in Macbeth to reveal a key element in Lady Macbeth's character development. She plots a murder but doesn't want to pull it off. In a sleepwalking episode, she ...