Daytime sleepiness in patients with SW/ST is not the consequence of disturbed sleep but is associated with a specific polygraphic phenotype (rapid sleep onset, long sleep time, lower numbers of awakenings on N3) that is suggestive of a higher sleep pressure that may contribute to incomplete arousal from N3.

Patients with sleepwalking episodes or sleep terrors (SW/ST) exhibit sudden abnormal behaviours arising from sleep, mostly from N3 sleep (American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 2014). Patients usually open their eyes, look around with a confused gaze, sit, stand, walk, talk, scream or flee their bed (Derry, Harvey, Walker, Duncan, & Berkovic, 2009). There is a continuum between the different behavioural patterns of arousal parasomnias. Specifically, the behavioural patterns of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) parasomnias appear with a hierarchical order, with arousal behaviours being the fundamental component, possibly followed by abnormal agitated conduct, which can be further accompanied by distressed emotional manifestations (Derry et al., 2009). Several clinical, polygraphical and brain functional imaging studies support the concept that these behaviours occur during local (primarily thalamo-amygdalo-cingulo-cortical) arousals from N3 sleep, disengaged from the control of the prefrontal and frontal associative cortex

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