While Rachel sleeps in the same position all night, other people get a lot more exercise while sleeping. Sleepwalking is most common among fifteen- to twenty-four-year-olds and among those who also talk in their sleep. Having a psychiatric or mental illness also seems to increase your risk of being a sleepwalker. If you have a sleepwalker in your family, you may worry about them hurting themselves as they wander around the house or, even worse, outside. But many people try to never wake these sleepwalkers because they fear that it will cause a heart attack, shock, or brain damage.
No sleepwalker has ever died as a result of being woken up while sleepwalking. Waking up a sleepwalker may confuse or frighten them, and they may even become violent in their confusion and try to hurt you. There have been rare cases of sleepwalkers committing murder while sleepwalking, so if you can guide the sleepwalker back to bed without waking them up, that might be the best strategy
That does not mean that you should avoid waking the sleepwalker at all costs. If you do wake them up, they are not at any increased risk of heart attack or stroke or any of those other scary things. You may need to take action to prevent a sleepwalker from hurting himself, since they are not aware of their movements. If the sleepwalker is in danger and you cannot otherwise get them back to bed, you should certainly wake them up!
There are some steps you can take to prevent the sleepwalker from injury. Remove any dangerous objects from their rooms, put bolts on the doors and windows if you need to prevent them from opening them during sleep, and think about whether it might make sense to have the sleepwalker in a room on the ground floor so that they won’t accidentally fall down the stairs.