Sleep walking when stressed

[Mental Fairy]

Hi everyone
First time here and learning.
Just reaching out to ask if anyone else struggles with sleep walking and talking when stresses are piling up on top of you mentally?
Currently concerned as it’s not the first time but now I’m actively drinking from bottles in my sleep, chicken stock last night and tomato purée! Then proceed to pour on floor and go back to bed.
Also dreams of large bugs being killed, light massive stick insects and beetles.
Wtf!!!
Recently went through a phase of depression after being good for a number of years. Wondering if that’s a contributing factor?
Thank you.

[manuel_moe_g]

Hello Mental Fairy, welcome to our little forum!

Hmm, not sleepwalking or sleeptalking, but sometimes i have bouts of falling out of bed because of movements that i make in my dreams. i don't know if related to stress or depression

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all the best, take care, Mental Fairy

[Mental Fairy]

It’s so weird, it’s like I’m conscious and I’m not all at the same time. Seems to only happen at times of stress. I am thinking of tying a bell to my toes!!

[oak]

Mental Fairy, hello!

Since you ask, I can offer some theories on dreams, any of which you are welcome to take or leave. I'll also get a bit Jungian.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/connecting-coincidence/202011/the-scarab-jung-created-coincidence-within-coincidence

Here is my understanding of what dreams mean and do:

1. Garbage collection: often violent, these early-night dreams are processing upsetting incidents from the previous day
2. Wish fulfillment.
3. Random stuff.
4. Archetypes. Often (for me, at least) right before waking, to send messages, through symbols. We ignore this at our peril.

Here is my extremely amateur guess, based on your report of bugs and light (both of which are highly archetypical, which leads me to believe you are onto something big in your growth):

What do bugs avoid? Light.

How interesting that you dreamed of light-stick insects. I immediately thought of those odd deep sea fish that have bioluminescent bulbs to attract prey.

Bugs avoid light, but they are critical to the circle of life in dark, neglected, "scary" places.

See what I am getting at?

You have some work to do: spiritual/emotional. Like when Luke Skywalker had to go into the scary tree. All archetypes, Mental Fairy!

I'm not expressing myself very clearly, Mental Fairy, so here is one last try:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)

You have the courage to do Shadow Work.

Bugs live in the shadow. Shadow work is no joke: it is scary and dangerous. Some people don't make it (I could tell you some stories). But if we don't do the shadow work, we die.

Intrepidly enough, you psyche is throwing you into this dangerous shadow work. Hence the bugs. They're doing something important.

Light-stick insects draw the shadow-loving bugs out. This takes enormous courage.

The bugs are onto something, my friend.

[oak]

Mental Fairy, if you'll indulge me, can I offer a flight of fancy?

I'm not sure if even I believe the following, but let's see if any of it is helpful to you.

Chicken stock
Tomato puree
Flour

Each of these is an atomization, a deconstruction, a reduction to its essence of:

A chicken
A tomato
A grain of wheat

Looking at each one, no one would say that chicken stock is a chicken. But everyone would immediately recognize it as the essence of a chicken. No one would confuse chicken stock with a piano or Coca Cola. No one would call tomato puree a tomato, but a glance can tell it is the essence of a tomato.

So far so good?

Here is where I get woo-woo:

Each of the three food products above is an atomization of a larger, more complex reality: flour is simpler than a grain of wheat. Something happened, and now it is one (important and useful) aspect of something previous, that was bigger and more complex.

Yet you consume these distillations of the larger, the more complex.

As if you are trying to re-integrate something that atomized. Through the physical acts of eating and digestion you are making whole what was crushed and seperated.

We can't eat a whole chicken (feathers, beaks), but we can eat chicken stock. We transmute it from something indigestible into energy and strength. We can act in the world because of the sacrifice, so to speak, of the chicken that was turned into stock.

But this atomization from chicken to chicken stock creates distance, and alienation. By unconsciously eating these foods at night, you are trying to integrate what was lost.

[Mental Fairy]

Oak I think your onto something !

[snoringdog]

Hello Mental Fairy,

Did a board search for sleepwalking, and found one of your first posts.
I'm sorry that you're still having trouble with the sleepwalking and nightmares.

But you know, "You're not Alone"

Just listened to three podcasts on BBC Sounds (BBC Radio 4) that you should find interesting.
They cover sleepwalking, dreams and insomnia.

One lady seems to have you beat. She took her motorcycle out for a spin at night a couple of times!
Now has the ignition keys in a timer-locked safe.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09jj9t4/episodes/player

In your case I wonder if rigging some sort of motion sensor with gentle alarm that might wake you before you head out to the great-out-of-doors....

[Mental Fairy]

Wow, getting on motorbike.

Thank you for the info. You have been a valuable wealth of information

[troebia]

Rigging a motion sensor alarm is actually a great and cheap hack!

Btw wishing you all a better 2025