Have you ever woken up in the middle of eating a sandwich?

felt paralyzed in your own bed? Or maybe you've heard an earth-shattering explosion just as you were falling asleep

that nobody else heard? Well there's a name for these strange happenings in the

night. They're called Parasomials. Welcome back to savvy psychologist. I'm your host

Dr. Jade Wu. Every week I'll help you meet life's challenges with evidence-based

research, a sympathetic ear, and zero judgment.

Today we'll learn about Parasomias, a truly bizarre set of sleep disorders that are

super fascinating and sometimes a little frightening.

In 1833 in Springfield, Massachusetts, a young servant woman named Jane began to attract attention from the

four most medical experts of the time. She was a sleep walker, and her sleep

walking was extraordinary. She would get out of bed and complete full sets of chores, like setting the table, arranging clothes. One witness even saw her thread a needle, sew a cloth bag and use that bag to cook a piece of meat in a

boiling pot of water.

All in the dark, all while she was asleep.

Sadly, Jane's strange symptoms landed her in an insane asylum. The eminent doctors of the time tried all sorts of tinctures, medicines and even leaching, but her sleepwalking was never

cured. She eventually convinced her doctors to just give up on her and she was able to

go back to living a quiet life,

thankfully.

But Jane was not the first nor the last sleep walker

to capture the public's morbid curiosity.

In 1987, a Canadian man named Kenneth Parks drove 14 miles to his in-laws

home and killed his mother-in-law with a tire iron.

Covered in blood, he went straight to the nearest police station to confess, and he claimed that

...