It’s like sleep walking, but rather than finding your partner wandering down the stairs, you might find them on top of you attempting to engage in sex.

Matty Silver, a relationship counsellor and sex therapist, explained that the disorder, which  “involves engaging in sexual behaviour while still asleep,” is very rare and was only added to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in 2013, reports HuffPost.

It is known as sexsomnia – more commonly referred to as “sex sleep” – and is a type of parasomnia “where the brain is caught in transition between sleeping and waking states”:

It is most likely to occur in the first few hours of the night, during the deep sleep state. At this time, the cortex — the thinking, planning, awareness part of the brain — gets switched off.

But the brain stem, the part responsible for basic urges like the drive to eat or have sex, is still working.

By this stage, the sexsomniac is acting completely without inhibition. As with other parasomnias like sleepwalking or sleep talking, someone who is sleep sexing can seem fully awake and aware whilst engaging in sexual acts like masturbating, fondling, oral sex or initiating intercourse.

Because the lower level of the brain is amnesic, he or she will have no memory of what they have done. Women suffering from sexsomnia usually only masturbate or make loud aroused noises during sleep.

Although it is suspected that there are more examples of the disorder than people who come forward, medical practitioners are putting down the lack of information to the negative emotions associated with it, such as “shame, confusion, anger, denial, fear, guilt and frustration”.

These, in turn, lead to stress and that’s when everything goes wrong:

It can damage relationships when couples have to deal with this problem and there is also the worry of allegations of sexual assault or rape. Several unscrupulous lawyers have tried to use it as a defence against rape and the Australasian Sleep Association is concerned that growing numbers of people charged with sex offences are claiming to be affected by sexsomnia. They want to ensure the doctors called to give expert testimony in court are well versed in its symptoms and sexsomnia, as a defence, is scrutinised.

There are real sufferers of sexsomnia, and then there are rapists trying to get away with a heinous crime. That’s an important distinction to make.

You can find out more about the condition HERE.

[source:huffingtonpost]