As with other parasomnias - including sleepwalking, sleep talking, and, yes, sleep driving - someone who is sleep sexing can seem fully awake and aware, even as they are masturbating, or fondling, initiating intercourse with, or even sexually assaulting a bed partner. But her spouse's problem wasn't so much a relationship issue as a sleep disorder called sexsomnia.Īlso called ' sleep sex,' sexsomnia is a type of parasomnia, where the brain is caught in transition between sleeping and waking states. The fallout from this startling episode was upsetting, he says the woman feared she wasn't satisfying her husband sexually or emotionally. This happened a few more times before the bewildered couple decided to seek help, says neurologist Michel Cramer Bornemann, MD, professor at the University of Minnesota. And when he awoke the next morning, he couldn't remember what he had done. After they had sex, he fell asleep - and then masturbated. One night after lights out, a man sleeping next to his wife began doing something that troubled her deeply.
