A 38-year-old man repeatedly tries to force his wife to have sex in the middle of the night but has no memory of his actions when he wakes up.
A married woman in her mid-20s often tears off her clothing and masturbates but remembers nothing when her partner rouses her.
For a dozen years, a 31-year-old man masturbates while asleep, at times injuring his groin. Embarrassed due to his unconscious behavior, he avoids relationships for eight years.
These are all clinically documented cases of sleep sex, or sexsomnia, part of a family of sleep disorders called parasomnias that include sleepwalking, sleep talking, sleep eating and sleep terrors.
Wow, that’s somehow the opposite of my experience. I need dreams to fully relax and enjoy a good night’s sleep. Even though I regularly have “nightmares” to the point of sweating right through my pj’s AND my covers, after I wake up it feels only as if I watched an actual decent horror movie. Dreamless nights always result in me feeling only half-rested.