6 Spooky Sleep Disorders Bound to Get Your Heart Racing

Oct 31, 2022 | Blog, Sleep Disorders

As a leading digital healthcare enterprise to the corporate market, Somnology is committed to the remediation of sleep disorders. Our comprehensive sleep care platform SLaaS® (Sleep Lab as a Service) provides the benefits of sleep evaluation, continuous accurate monitoring, and telehealth sessions with experienced healthcare advisors focused on improving sleep.

What better way to get your heart racing and blood pumping than learning what goes bump in the night? Today, we are talking about real-life, spine-tingling sleep disorders.

For the majority, sleep is a peaceful, restful time. But for others, going to sleep is a nightmare. Keep reading to learn about six of the world’s spookiest sleep disorders.

1. Sleep Related Eating Disorder (SRED)

As difficult as sticking to a healthy diet can be, imagine having to worry about doing so while also unconscious. Sleep-related eating disorder (SRED), a type of parasomnia, causes people to eat things they normally would not – including cat litter – and leaves them with little to no memory of the event the next day.¹ Weight gain is not the only side-effect; those suffering with the disorder can also experience cooking injuries or even unknowingly ingest poisonous substances.

2. Sleep Bruxism

If there is one sleep disorder a vampire would not want, it would be this one. Bruxism is a condition characterized by persistent teeth grinding or jaw clenching. While Bruxism can take place at any time of day, sleep bruxism happens during the night, as the name would suggest. People who grind their teeth are also more likely to suffer from other sleep disorders, such as sleep apnea. If severe, bruxism can lead to jaw disorders, cracked teeth, and chronic headaches.²

3. Somniloquy

Imagine suddenly realizing you are having a conversation with someone unconscious. While not quite on par with conversing with a zombie, it can certainly give you the heebie jeebies. Somniloquy, otherwise known as sleep talking, is the act of speaking while asleep. This can include anything from complete gibberish to complicated dialogues.³ Some people have even been known to have full-fledged conversations while asleep. Most will experience at least one episode during their lifetime as sleep talking is perhaps the most common abnormal behavior that can occur during sleep.

4. Narcolepsy

Picture yourself going about a normal day, never sure when you might suddenly fall asleep. You could be behind the wheel, at the grocery store, or giving a speech. It could happen anywhere. Talk about unnerving. For individuals with narcolepsy this is a daily, life-altering struggle. Those afflicted experience extreme tiredness during the day as well as sudden sleep attacks. Prior to falling asleep without warning, sufferers undergo a sudden loss of muscle tone accompanied by weakness and/or loss of muscle control.⁴ This is thought to be triggered by extreme emotions, such as laughter.

5. Nocturnal Paroxysmal Dystonia

Although sleep should be a time of peace and restoration, for people with Nocturnal Paroxysmal Dystonia, it is instead a time of relentless motor attacks. These attacks, lasting from several seconds to minutes, typically involve the limbs and neck during non-REM sleep and could potentially be associated with epileptic seizures.⁵

6. Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome

Sometimes, sleep can even end in death. The majority of the victims of Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome (SUNDS) are young healthy male individuals of Asian descent.⁶ Chillingly, routine post mortem autopsies are unable to explain the deaths. SUNDS is an exclusionary diagnosis, meaning it is only given when no other cause of death can be determined.

Whether you suspect you may suffer from a sleep disorder or simply feel you are not getting the quality of sleep you deserve, it might be time to seek a solution. Through continuous monitoring and comprehensive treatment, Somnology can ensure you are on your way to a better night’s sleep with the SLaaS^® (Sleep Lab as a Service) platform, SomnoRing^®, and our SomnologyMD mobile app.

For more blood-curdling sleep disorders, read this post if you dare, check out our blog, or subscribe to our newsletter for more sleep tips.

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