Medicines such as Lunesta, Ambien and Sonata have been reported to cause sleepwalking, sleep-eating and acts of “sleep-sex.” Complex behaviors such as “sleep-driving” are increasingly common. Psychologists define this as “driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative hypnotic, with no memory of the event.”
Two passing motorists reported seeing a man on top of a woman near a White Castle and called the police from their cell phones. When the police arrived, the woman, a known sleepwalker, was still asleep. Judge Fanon Rucker was told that the victim sleepwalked through the encounter. The man apprehended, a 52-year-old librarian, was charged with rape. “It goes to consent” said his lawyer. “How would my client know the alleged victim is sleepwalking? How is he to know that a ‘no’ means a waking NO, or that a sleepwalking ‘yes’ means a ‘real’ yes?”
*[forgotten mnemonic]