The morning in Portland began with confusion. A woman in her thirties woke up naked, something she never did, and turned to find her husband already awake with a look that carried irritation more than surprise.
He told her she had tried to have sex with him three times during the night, pushing herself onto him despite his attempts to stop her, and she stared at him in disbelief because she had no memory of it.
They had left New York behind before the pandemic and chosen Oregon because it seemed like neutral ground, a compromise where both could begin again, but the excitement of the move had collapsed into monotony, and intimacy had drained from their marriage like water leaking slowly from a cracked pipe.
She searched her phone and found a new word that unsettled her.
Sexsomnia.
A disorder classified as a parasomnia, related to sleepwalking, sleep talking, and even night terrors, in which the brain remains trapped in deep sleep while the body acts out sexual behaviors unconsciously.
Her notes that week read like a diary of a woman caught between longing and silence. She remembered the picnic by the river, the kitchen lasagna incident, the kind of spontaneous intimacy that once defined their connection.
Now she poured wine at night and relied on her vibrator when the bed beside her turned cold.
Her husband, who once surprised her with desire, now gave her excuses. He was tired, or stressed, or had an early start. When she told him what she discovered about sexsomnia, his response was one dismissive word: “Welp.” She laughed, but the laughter carried no joy, only resignation.
They tried therapy, but therapy never reached the bedroom. The sessions split in two directions: heated arguments when she raised sex, or idle chatter when they both chose to avoid the subject.
The dogs from his previous relationship received affection she longed for, and the resentment hardened into daily irritation she could not quite confess aloud.
Some nights her body moved on its own. She stroked him until he finished and then lay awake with shame because she knew she had not been awake enough to choose it.
Consent felt twisted in the dark, and she hated herself for what had happened.
Other nights ended with his promises to make it up the next day, promises that dissolved as easily as sleep itself. He ran errands, visited the dispensary, or sank into exhaustion.
She wrote it all down because keeping a record felt safer than confrontation, and her journal became a catalogue of disappointment.
Television only made it worse. They watched a season of The White Lotus in which a husband mirrored their struggle, refusing his wife’s advances until her frustration boiled over.
He despised the storyline and looked away, while she felt seen for the first time by fiction rather than by her own husband.
By the end of the week she reached the only conclusion she could write without crossing words out. This was not a loveless marriage. It was a sexless one.
And in the dark, her body acted without permission, a secret that mocked her by repeating itself when she least expected it.
Her story, raw and private, fits within a larger medical picture that doctors and researchers have been documenting for decades.
What sounds like scandal in a tabloid headline is a clinical condition known to shatter marriages, ruin reputations, and in some cases, bring the law crashing into bedrooms.
One man, aged thirty eight, repeatedly tried to force sex on his wife while asleep, waking with no memory of his actions. A married woman in her twenties tore off her clothes and masturbated while her partner watched in shock, and when he woke her she had no recollection.
A man in his early thirties masturbated for twelve years in his sleep, injuring himself so often that he avoided relationships altogether for nearly a decade.
These are not rumors but documented medical cases published in journals and reviewed by specialists.
They reveal the unsettling truth that sexsomnia can manifest in many ways: from seemingly harmless fondling to dangerous assaults, from whispered names to acts that cross legal boundaries.
Dr. Carlos Schenck, a senior psychiatrist at Hennepin County Medical Center in Minnesota, has studied parasomnias for decades and explains sexsomnia as a “disorder of arousal.”
It occurs during the deepest stage of sleep, called delta sleep, when the body is meant to rest but the nervous system fires as though startled.
He describes it like an alarm sounding inside the brain, propelling the body from the basement to the roof in seconds while cognition remains locked underground.
In this state, the body moves and acts while the conscious mind is absent, leaving the sleeper unaware of their own actions.
The problem is not limited to bedrooms. People walk through hallways, run into streets, or touch their partners without any understanding. They wake with no memory. Unless they injure themselves or a partner tells them, many never know what happens at night.
A study in Norway in 2010 surveyed one thousand adults and found that seven percent had experienced sexsomnia at least once, while nearly three percent were living with it.
Those figures suggest millions worldwide may be affected, many of them unaware or unwilling to admit it.
Some couples navigate it without distress, creating boundaries and even accepting the behavior as part of their relationship.
Others collapse under the strain, with one partner shocked or alarmed and the other left mortified upon hearing what they did in their sleep.
The consequences can be severe. Schenck published the case of a woman whose episodes began in 2005.
Twice a month she moaned sexually, used explicit language she never spoke while awake, and sometimes initiated sex with her husband. When she woke mid-act, she accused him of assault.
She also called out other men’s names in her sleep, including a coworker, which led her husband to believe she was cheating. Schenck warns partners never to treat sleep talk as hidden truth.
The sleeping brain, he says, is wired differently from the waking brain. Words spoken while unconscious cannot be used as evidence of infidelity.
For years she refused to believe her husband’s descriptions. Only in 2015, when her nine-year-old son overheard her moaning, did she accept that something was wrong.
She sought treatment, overwhelmed by shame and guilt. Patients like her often apologize endlessly, crushed by the knowledge of things they cannot remember.
At times, sexsomnia spills into the legal system. People have been arrested when their nighttime behaviors crossed lines of consent, particularly with minors or in aggressive episodes.
Courts now consult sleep forensic experts who conduct detailed interviews, analyze case histories, and determine whether behavior was the result of a genuine disorder or a convenient defense.
The triggers remain unpredictable. Some people who sleepwalked as children later develop sexsomnia, while others do not. Genetics play a role, with first-degree relatives who have parasomnias increasing the risk.
The more relatives affected, the higher the likelihood the disorder persists into adulthood.
Obstructive sleep apnea can also be a powerful trigger. Apnea causes breathing to stop for seconds or minutes, forcing the body to jolt awake repeatedly. Those arousals can trigger sexual behaviors in sleep, especially in men.
Treating the apnea with medical devices or surgery often controls the sexsomnia as well.
Doctors sometimes prescribe clonazepam, a medication used for epilepsy, restless legs syndrome, and panic disorder.
It can calm sleep disruptions and reduce episodes, but it does not work for everyone and carries risks of dependency and side effects.
One woman who failed to respond to medication found relief only after quitting a stressful job. She began sleeping consistently for six to seven hours, and the episodes disappeared.
Stress, Schenck notes, affects people differently. Some lose all desire, while others experience surges of unwanted nocturnal behaviors.
For those who avoid medication, behavioral approaches can help. Jennifer Mundt, a professor at Northwestern University, emphasizes education as the first step.
Many patients do not understand sleep stages and assume sexsomnia is connected to dreams. In reality, it occurs in deep non-REM sleep, long before dreaming begins.
Sleep unfolds in cycles of ninety minutes. The first two stages slow breathing and heart rate. The third stage, slow-wave sleep, restores the body at a cellular level. Finally, REM sleep arrives, with vivid dreams and a paralysis that prevents people from acting them out.
Most adults need seven to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep to reach full cycles, yet caffeine, alcohol, stress, and irregular schedules disrupt these stages and increase the chance of parasomnias.
Sleep hygiene, including cool, quiet bedrooms, consistent schedules, and reduced stimulants, forms the foundation of treatment.
Relaxation techniques, from deep breathing to body scans, further reduce arousals. When those methods fail, hypnosis can be introduced.
Unlike stage shows, clinical hypnosis guides patients into a trance-like focus similar to daydreaming. In this state, therapists encourage them to visualize sleeping peacefully through the night.
Mundt explains it as staring out of a bus window, so absorbed in thought that the outside world disappears.
That openness makes patients more receptive to suggestions, allowing them to imagine calm, restorative sleep instead of disruptive arousals. Some see dramatic improvements, while others find only partial relief.
Back in Portland, the woman kept feeding her pets, handling contractors for home renovations, and attending calls with financial advisers she barely listened to.
She went out with friends, drank wine at tapas bars, and came home to a husband too tired to notice the loneliness beside him.
She thought about children but hesitated after watching friends buckle under the strain of toddlers. She imagined her husband as a father and believed he would be good at it, but she still resented the dogs that already consumed his affection. Parenthood felt both close and impossibly distant.
One snowy morning they ate waffles together, laughed at their kitten batting at falling flakes, and briefly enjoyed the warmth of domestic life. They tried ear candles later that day, only to discover online they were a hoax. The disappointment was almost sweet, a moment of connection over something trivial.
They admired furniture online and agreed on tables without fighting, progress compared to earlier arguments about tiles.
She wondered if learning to compromise on the house might one day translate into the bedroom. That night they watched a film and went to bed quietly, another day passing without intimacy.
Her diary closed with resignation. The marriage was steady in many ways, anchored by shared projects and routines, but sex remained absent. The episodes of sexsomnia haunted her.
She knew they would return, though she could not say when. Each night carried the potential for another secret act she would not remember.
Sexsomnia thrives in silence because few want to admit it. The Portland woman’s private struggle reflects thousands of households worldwide, where shame, confusion, and fear keep couples quiet.
Behind the curtains, lives are changed by something that unfolds in darkness while the mind remains asleep.
