Sleepwalking occurs in the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep stage rather than the rapid eye movement (REM) sleep stage. Measurement of patients in the sleepwalking state reveals that their brain waves are very close to those of an awake person. If we look at the neurology, the frontal lobe, executive prefrontal lobe, and functional areas of the brain that control judgment are slower in sleepwalkers than in the general population. The fMRI shows that patients also have sleep-like activity in the hippocampus, a functional area of memory. This difference in the activity of functional brain areas from normal individuals may explain the fact that their motor areas and visual pathways of the brain are awake in the sleepwalking state, and this awakening allows them to avoid hitting objects and also to go up and down stairs more normally instead of rolling down them. Furthermore, sleepwalkers sleepwalk with their eyes open (to ensure visual pathways are open). Is sleepwalking common? In fact, sleepwalking is more common in children than in adults because the NREM state is a form of slow-wave sleep, and childhood is the most intense period of slow-wave activity in a person’s life, so the incidence is higher than in adults. In recent years, the incidence of sleepwalking has been on the rise, mainly due to the widespread use of medications. Benzodiazepine receptor boosters, such as zolpidem and the like, they inhibit the hippocampal loop or executive prefrontal lobe so that patients can sleep more, but they mostly don’t remember waking up in the middle either. The human brain has a natural process of waking up during the night, and with sleeping pills, this waking process is disturbed. Sometimes this happens – the motor area and visual pathways are awake, but the judgment and memory function areas are still inhibited in the sleep state. This is the sleepwalking state. Simply put, any factor that can cause a person to sleep poorly can lead to sleepwalking. For example, sleep apnea syndrome, sleep deprivation, or other sleep disorders. In addition, environmental factors can also lead to sleepwalking. Background noise during sleep, for example, has been used as an inducer of sleepwalking in the laboratory. Treatment If the sleepwalking is non-drug induced, the symptom itself is now untreatable. Even though there are some studies with relatively small sample sizes that have attempted to treat it, the evidence from all of these studies is too weak to make it worthwhile to try. Also, sleepwalking is often caused by other problems, and if you cure the primary condition, such as sleep apnea syndrome or sleep stripping or something like that, sleepwalking will most likely be cured as well. If it is caused by environmental factors, as long as you get out of the environment and adjust your work and rest, you usually won’t have another attack. At the same time, sleepwalking symptoms that are not severe do not require intervention, such as sleepwalking in childhood, and many people will naturally subside after childhood. However, if it persists into adulthood and sleepwalking starts to appear in some dangerous situations, then intervention should be considered.