People who sleepwalk are more likely to go operate on ‘autopilot’ even when they are awake, a new study has found.
Researchers made the discovery after testing the ability of sleepwalkers – medically known as somnambulists – to ignore distractions while walking.
Those who tended to sleepwalk were found to be less affected by having to count backwards while getting to a target object.
Instead, they were able to carry on walking as normal while those who did not sleepwalk were more likely to be thrown off the task by the counting. This suggests they have multi-tasking advantages over non-sleepwalkers.
Sleepwalking – which can involve small gestures, to complex actions such as walking and even getting dressed, driving a car, or playing a musical instrument – is believed to affect between 2-4 per cent of adults.