Sleep-related Violence, Dissociative Experiences, and Childhood Traumatic Events

Aviolent behavior during sleep includes a broad range of behaviors: self-mutilation, sexual assault, murder attempt, murder and suicide. The violent behavior during sleep (VBS) can be directed to other subjects, to objects, or to self (1). Recently, Ohayon et al (2) reported violent behavior during sleep as 2 % of the population. They found that night terrors, daytime sleepiness, sleep talking, bruxism, and hypnic jerks were more frequent in subjects with violent or harmful behavior during sleep than the nonviolent subjects, as were hypnagogic hallucinations, the incidence of smoking, caffeine and bedtime alcohol intake. In 1989, Schenck et al (3) published a clinical and polysomnographic study on 100 consecutive adult patients complaining of sleeprelated injury. They identified several disorders as being responsible for causing nocturnal violence: sleepwalking, sleep terrors, REM sleep behavior disorder, nocturnal psychogenic dissociative disorders, nocturnal seizures, obstructive sleep apnea, and periodic limb Sleep-related Violence, Dissociative Experiences, and Childhood Traumatic Events