Health

Forget Sleepwalking, Study Reports First Case of Zzz-Mailing

Monday, December 15, 2008

Forget about sleepwalking.

A study published in the journal Sleep Medicine reports what's believed to be the first known case of a person e-mailing while asleep.

According to the study, a 44-year-old woman, believed to be in a deep sleep, sent e-mails to friends asking them over for wine and caviar in what doctors believe is the first reported case of "zzz-mailing" or using the Internet while asleep.

The woman was taking the sleep medicine Zolpidem, sold in the U.S. as Ambien. Previous studies have found that some people taking Ambien have experienced side effects such as eating, walking and even having sex while sleeping.

Doctors reported that the woman went to bed about 10 p.m. but got up two hours later and walked to her computer in the next room, Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reports.

She turned it on, connected to the Internet, and logged on before composing and sending three e-mails. Each was in a random mix of upper and lower cases, not well-formatted and written in strange language, the researchers said.

One read: "Come tomorrow and sort this hell hole out. Dinner and drinks, 4 p.m., Bring wine and caviar only."

Another said simply, "What the ..."

The new variation of sleepwalking has been described as "zzz-mailing."

"We believe writing an e-mail after turning the computer on, connecting to the Internet and remembering the password displayed by our patient is novel," the researchers said.

"To our knowledge, this type of complex behavior requiring coordinated movements has not been reported before in sleepwalking," they wrote.

The neurologists said that unlike simple sleepwalking, the activities their patient was involved in required complex behavior and coordinated movements including typing, composing and writing the messages.

Click here to read more on this story from news.com.au.

Click here to view the study published in the journal Sleep Medicine.