Friday night, Inan and Jihan want to listen to ‘Voot FM’. They are brothers. Jihan is two years older than Inan. Jihan enjoys listening to ghost stories in the dark. Sometimes Jihan has to leave the bathroom light on for his brother. One night Inan was shocked by his brother.
Waking up in the middle of the night, Inan couldn’t find his brother on the bed. Inan started calling his brother by name. He turned on the bedside lamp to find his brother in front of the door; Jihan was just sitting there and doing something. Inan got up and shook his brother by the arm. Jihan woke up, oblivious to what just happened. Inan couldn’t sleep that night, not after what happened.
In the morning Inan told his mother about last night’s incident. Mother replied- ‘Your brother has a habit of sleepwalking’. At this point you might be curious to know why people sleepwalk.
In order to answer this we first have to know- What is sleep? Our brain has a ‘Sleep Center’ which controls functions like walking and sleeping. Calcium in our blood controls this center. During the day when we are awake and moving, Lactic acids and Calcium produced in our body gets mixed with our blood. When this Calcium rich blood flows to our sleep center, we get sleepy.
Sleep center has dual functions. Firstly, it numbs parts of our brain and makes us reluctant to work. This state is also known as ‘Brain sleep’. Secondly, sleep center blocks or numbs some nerves in our body and creates a mild paralysis like condition. Ultimately both of these actions make us sleep.
Sometimes despite the brain being asleep, the body stays active. But how is that possible? This often happens to people who have dysfunctional Nervous System. Due to this dysfunctional nervous system people start walking around during sleep. The brain is asleep but the body is not, this is the reason behind sleepwalking. It might seem paranormal to us but it is merely a subconscious action.