Avoiding the temptation to eat junk food and stay on course is hard enough to do on a daily basis. So just imagine how difficult it must be to fight the urge to eat while unconscious! That's exactly what 55-year-old British mom Lesley Cusack has to do every night.
Cusack suffers from a sleep-related disorder that causes her to eat up to 2,500 calories at night while she is asleep! Alarms have not been able to prevent her from getting up and her nocturnal binge eating has forced to diet during the day to compensate. To make matters worse, her consumption isn't limited to actual food. She's previously ingested everything from soap power to Vaseline and even paint! Can you imagine waking up and realizing you've eaten paint?! So gross, not to mention dangerous.
I don't know how Cusack deals with such a disruptive disease. But amazingly enough, that's far from the only crazy sleep disorder out there. Below, 6 things you never knew you could do in your sleep:
Eat
Cusack's condition, formally known as somnambulistic eating or Nocturnal Sleep-Related Eating Disorder, is a combination of a sleeping and eating disorder, which causes those affected to ingest large amounts of food and other items while unconcious.
Go for a walk
Sleepwalking, also known as somnambulis, causes people to arise from sleep to a state of low conciousness and perform activities usually performed while awake. It can be dangerous since some people actually leave their home while walking or worse, start engaging in every day activities like driving or cooking!
Get a headache
Exploding head syndrome is a parasomnia that causes the affected person to hear a loud noise just before falling asleep. It often occurs while waking up in the middle of the night and can cause a lot of distress. The condition has been known to affect individuals as young as 10 years old!
Paralysis
One of the scariest sleep disorders out there is sleep paralysis. As the name implies, the condition causes people to become conscious while their muscles remain in the ultra-relaxed state and makes them feel paralyzed. Some people who have this condition also experience hallucinations, in which they see "demons" or malovent presences nearby.
Leg spasms
Restless legs syndrome might not sound like a sleep disorder, but it's actually considered to be because it worsens at night. It's classified by a strong and urgent need to move the legs, which is said to be extremely hard to resist.
Act out your dreams
REM-Sleep Behavior Disorder cause people to act out extremely vivid dream while sleeping! Often, these dreams are full of action and sometimes violent, which means the individuals will swear, shout, kick, and move as if fighting. If not treated, RBD can get worse and more violent.
