Sleep Mailing

Doctors have reported the first case of someone using the internet while asleep, when a sleeping woman sent emails to people asking them over for drinks and caviar. The 44-year-old woman found out what she had done after a would be guest phoned her about it the next day. While asleep the woman turned on her computer, logged on by typing her username and password then composed and sent three emails. Each mail was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, unformatted and written in strange language. One read: "Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4.pm,. Bring wine and caviar only." Another said simply, "What the......." If I had known that researchers were interested in unformatted, rambling email I would have let them read my inbox. They could start a whole new school of medicine.

Comments

Sounds like the work of Ambien or some other drug.

[puto]

Actually,

Many people take sleeping pills, pain pills, mix them with booze. And these all cloud or fog the memory, and bring out bizarre behavior.

I went through a period of sleeplessness and my doctor gave me a Ambien(a hypnotic) to put me down at night.

However, having spend a better part of my teens and 20s "experimenting" was able to evidently ride the drug out and function. I just did not remember it. My girlfriend has stories of me cooking dinner, calling my parents, and moving around the house very slowly.

I am going with she was high.

Amazing what happens when you're asleep

[syousef]

A few years ago in my mid 20s I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea. I knew I wasn't well. I felt tired all the time, wasn't as sharp as I was because of the tiredness, was falling asleep at work even after weeks of early nights and was getting headaches. It even got to the point where I'd occasionally hallucinate or experience sleep paralysis. The kicker was falling asleep at my desk and in meetings at worked. I had to fix it or my life would very quickly end up in the toilet. It took weeks to work it out because doctors were doing blood tests etc. Once I video taped myself sleeping I knew exactly what it was and I didn't need a medical degree.

That video was one of the most revolting things I'd ever seen, and to this day thinking of it literally makes me cringe. I looked like some sort of snorting pig. I would stop breathing for between one and two minutes, then take the most loud awful pig like snorting deep breath, take a couple more shallow breaths, then stop breathing for a minute or two again. I'd do this for the length of the video. It turns out no one who had heard me snore wanted to bring it up out of politeness. I think they assumed I knew. On the other hand I had NO idea. I didn't think it was possible to do that in your sleep without knowing, but not only was it possible, it had been going on for months (or possibly even years) before I worked out what was happening.

Now I'm on a CPAP machine at night which opens up my airways so I don't stop breathing. I hate the damn thing - being hooked up to a mask blowing air into your nose just sucks badly - but just a couple of nights without it and the headaches return and I start feeling tired again. The change when I went on the CPAP was instant - mornings I felt so fresh and awake that it was surreal. I'd rather be dependant on a damn machine than constantly fall asleep, lose my job, walk around like a zombie moron, behave inappropriately or sluggishly because I'm half asleep, be unable to drive, and ultimately die of blood pressure related illness. I don't think I'd be alive today without it.

Anyway the point is this experience has shattered any illusion of knowing what happens when I'm asleep.

Re:Idle?

[Jesus_666]

As for this story: With more background links (such as a discussion in a medical journal) this would be a bona fide geeky news story. While it's been knwn for a while that people can act in their sleep (even to the point of semi-intelligent conversation), something as abstract as writing mails is new.

I think sleep and sleep disorders are a very interesting and discussion-worthy subject (even though I can't offer any medical/biological insight, I'd be interested in such posts from others with more knowledge than me). The story is just not presented that well.

So in essence my verdict is "Where's the beef?" and not "/. is the wrong place to post something like that".