Lock Up Your Cat Food and Tie Yourself to the Bed

Accidentally eating strange things in the middle of the night — not just for Ambien users anymore! It turns out there’s also a kind of sleep-related eating disorder where people sleepwalk into the kitchen and make themselves elaborate snacks. I’ll admit that at first this sounded like maybe it wouldn’t be so bad — who wouldn’t love to enjoy some beef bourguignon in the wee hours of the morning? But it’s freaky because people do dangerous things like leave the oven on, and one woman awoke from an episode and “found an open, half-eaten can of cat food and she was not sure if she had really fed it to her cat.”

And you think it’s bad to have it, try being married to it:

“Some patients even bring food back to bed, so even if it wouldn’t bother you if your spouse got up every night, few of us would want to wake up to find our spouse in the bed pulling apart a greasy chicken and throwing the carcass under the covers.”

So true. Very, very few — in fact almost zero of us — would want to wake up next to a greasy chicken carcass! But relax, only 4% of young adults get it so you’re probably fine.