Many sleep disorders can involve sexual behaviors

By Amy Norton

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A wide range of sleep disorders carry some risk of inappropriate sexual behaviors during sleep, or even waking hours, according to a new report.

Abnormal sexual activities during sleep -- known as "sexsomnia" or "sleepsex" -- include anything from moaning to masturbating to making sexual advances toward a bed partner, all while in a state somewhere between deep sleep and wakefulness.

Sexsomnia is officially recognized as a subtype of parasomnia, a group of disorders that includes sleepwalking, sleep talking and night terrors, among others.

But abnormal sexual behaviors can affect people with a wide range of sleep-related disorders, according to the new report, published in the journal Sleep.

Inappropriate sexual behaviors have been described in people with sleep disorders as diverse as parasomnias, severe insomnia and restless legs syndrome.

In some cases, the sexual behaviors are not sexsomnia, but occur during waking hours, explained Dr. Carlos H. Schenck, the lead author of the report and a senior staff psychiatrist at the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis.

One example is Kleine-Levin syndrome, a rare disorder that causes recurrent bouts of excessive drowsiness and sleep. People with this disorder sleep for stretches of 16 to 24 hours, but when awake, some may become extremely "hypersexual" and uninhibited.

"We wanted to call attention to how virtually all known categories of sleep disorders carry a risk for inappropriate sexual behaviors," said Schenck, who is also author of the book Sleep: The Mysteries, the Problems, and the Solutions.  Continued...