Sleep Walking, Sleep Talking... Sleep Emailing?!?

If you thought sending your boss an email after a couple of beers was a bad idea, how about doing so whilst you're asleep?

Up until now it was thought that the possible range of activities when asleep was limited to fairly crude motor functions such as sleepwalking or mumbling incomprehensibly. Now the New York Times reports on what's believed to be the first documented case of "complex nonviolent cognitive behaviour": sleep emailing.

A woman who was staying at a relative's house managed, whilst asleep, to turn on the computer, log in to the email system and send an email. To be precise she emailed a friend saying "come TOMORROW AND SORT THIS HELL HOLE Out!!!!!!". Ouch.

The case, which is due to be published in the journal Sleep Medicine, is unusual. The woman was already undergoing treatment for severe insomnia and had recently increased her dose of zolpidem (Ambien) above that prescribed by her doctor.

So sending abusive or lustful emails in our sleep is probably not something most of us need worry about too much. But it is possible.