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 confesses her sins.
- In Bellini's opera "La Sonnambula," a sleepwalking woman is accused of being unfaithful to her husband when she innocently wakes up in another man's room.
- The plot of "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" centers on the idea of a murderer sleepwalker controlled by an evil doctor.
- In "Dracula," the vampire sinks his teeth into Lucy during a bout of sleepwalking.