Sleepwalking: Why Don’t I Remember What I Did?

What happens during a sleepwalking episode?

The NHS describes getting up or moving, often with the eyes open and with limited response to the surroundings. A person may perform familiar or more complex actions, return to bed, or wake confused. This usually happens in the first part of the night during a partial arousal from deep sleep. Open eyes alone do not tell us the person’s state of awareness. ^[1]

The phrase “half awake” is an approximation for understanding, not a home test. The NHS describes a partial awakening from deep sleep that allows movement before full wakefulness is restored; Royal Papworth Hospital explains that features of sleep and wakefulness may coexist. This description does not allow us to infer the activity of particular brain circuits merely from seeing someone move, and neither open eyes nor amnesia alone is enough for classification. ^[1][2]

Episodes may be associated with sleep deprivation, stress, fever, changes in sleep schedule and some medications, and sleep-related breathing disorders may overlap. These are possible factors, not a verdict that stress caused a particular event. New-onset behavior in an adult, or behavior associated with injury, may warrant medical assessment. ^[1][9]

Why might I forget what I did—and can I remember anything?

During incomplete arousal, awareness of the surroundings, responsiveness and later recall can all be impaired; that is why many clinical descriptions note absent memory for the episode the next morning. But “usually does not remember” does not mean “can never remember anything.” Recalling the whole act is different from recalling fear, a brief mental image, or the moment of waking. Memory alone is not a precise measure of how awake the person previously was. ^[1][9][10]

In an original study published in 2019, researchers examined records from 45 adults referred for nighttime behaviors, including clinical history and video-polysomnography. Thirty-five reported recalling mental activity during some episodes, not all of them. Some participants described using a phone or opening a door among behaviors that had occurred. This shows that such recall is clinically possible; it does not prove that a particular person wrote a coherent message while asleep. The figures describe a selected clinical sample, not the proportion of all episodes remembered or the prevalence of the disorder. ^[10]

If Maryam sees a photograph on her phone the next morning, she may know that the image exists or recognize her room. That is later knowledge of a trace, not necessarily a memory of creating it. If she remembers a dream or fear, that does not automatically provide a reliable record of real-world actions. The more precise question is: what does she remember directly, and what did she learn from the phone or from other people’s accounts? ^[5][10]

How can the body move while wakefulness remains incomplete?

The brain is not a single switch that turns entirely off or on. In a 2009 study, intracranial electrodes recorded local signs of wakefulness while slow sleep waves persisted in other regions during a confusional arousal in a patient with epilepsy. It was one case—not proof of the mechanism of every sleepwalking episode and not an explanation for how Maryam’s message was written. The research helps us understand how movement can coexist with incomplete wakefulness; identifying the cause of an individual event remains a separate question. ^[5][7]

«أم عباس»: the messages at three and the doorway at two

On pages 71–74, Maryam sees three messages sent from her account at 3:17 a.m. and a photograph of the talisman. She finds two photographs and a short video on her phone, recorded in her room, yet tells Rana, “I don’t remember this.” Rana suggests that Maryam may have sent them while in a state of absent-mindedness; the text does not present a witness who saw her send the messages while asleep. A digital trace from the phone establishes what reached the group, but it does not show the person’s mental state or who held the phone at every moment. ^[5]

After this scene, the novel places a key to its reading in the “Dark Margins” (pp. 79–80): it mentions popular interpretations involving possession, psychological explanations, and sleep disorders that may involve actions performed without full awareness, including use of a phone. These are possibilities within the novel’s discourse, not a medical report about Maryam. The passage ends with the question, “Did the act come from me… or did it come out through me?” It touches both ownership of the act and the person’s fear of losing control. That tension is not resolved simply by selecting a diagnosis from a list. ^[5]

On pages 132–135, meanwhile, the narrative describes Maryam’s restless sleep and dream, then her waking while standing at the door of her parents’ room. Her mother asks whether she had been walking, and her father asks whether she was asleep. She answers, “I don’t know.” Her father records the time, 2:43, her location and her lack of memory. She then asks, “Write that I’m afraid too,” and he adds her statement to the record. The text later mentions water running in the bathroom, without a direct witness to who opened the tap. Observing where she was standing is different from knowing the path she took or her state of awareness along the way; her lack of memory does not close that gap. ^[5]

The literary question reaches the heart of the novel here: is recording the location of the body enough when the person’s own sense of what happened is absent? The narrative describes Maryam feeling that her father is burying her in orderly words, even though he records the event and then responds to her request by adding her fear. The record becomes useful when it distinguishes observation—“we found her at the door”—from self-report—“I don’t remember, and I’m afraid”—from hypothesis—“she was walking in her sleep.” The mother’s phone call on page 138 adds ambiguity by grouping the messages, bruises, nausea and walking under one explanation, while the father mentions the possibility of seeing a sleep doctor. The text gives neither of them privileged access to complete knowledge. ^[5]

This tension begins even before the doorway episode. On page 122, the father announces a plan to record events while avoiding shouting, interpretations and accusations; yet to Maryam the record itself feels like a promise to document her collapse. The effect of observation on the person becomes a question parallel to the cause of the movement: a family may agree to collect facts and still disagree about what those facts mean and who has the right to describe them. The strength of the scene is that the father does not become a pure accuser, and medical language alone does not become enough to reassure Maryam. ^[5]

Even the times 3:17 and 2:43 are not enough for medical interpretation. Assessing their relationship to sleep requires knowing when sleep began and what happened between sleep onset and the event, not the clock time alone. This is the difference between precise timekeeping and precise inference about sleep state—and it matters when certainty inside the household begins to accumulate faster than the evidence. ^[2][5]

Why is memory loss not enough for diagnosis?

A nighttime action plus amnesia does not distinguish sleepwalking from every other possibility. Knowing the timing relative to sleep onset, duration, movement pattern, responsiveness and later recall can help assessment, and clinicians may need to distinguish the event from nocturnal neurological seizures or a medication effect. A phone image alone does not capture all of that. For the broader question outside sleep, see the article on memory gaps. ^[2][9]

Video-polysomnography may help when the diagnosis is uncertain, depending on specialist judgment, but it is not required for every event. In a retrospective study of referred patients, the test helped document disorders of arousal and detect other sleep disorders; its diagnostic yield in a specialist clinic does not represent an individual person’s probability of having the condition. ^[3]

Sleep paralysis is also a different condition: a person may be aware of the surroundings during the transition between sleep and wakefulness but temporarily unable to move. The presence of movement and wandering in sleepwalking makes the clinical question different. For readers looking for that experience, see the sleep paralysis guide. Do not place every unusual nighttime experience under one label. ^[1][4]

This table compares descriptions; it is not a self-diagnosis tool. Some features overlap, and other causes are possible, including nocturnal neurological seizures. ^[1][2][4]

Religiously: what does “the Pen is lifted from the sleeper” mean?

Sunan Abi Dawud transmits, from Ali, the hadith “The Pen has been lifted from three,” including “from the sleeper until he wakes.” The source page displays al-Albani’s grading of the report as sahih. The text concerns the state of sleep in the context of moral responsibility; it does not provide a medical criterion for distinguishing sleep from wakefulness in an ambiguous event. Judging the person’s sleep state first requires knowing what that state actually was; memory loss alone does not establish it. Maryam saying “I don’t know” is not enough to conclude that she was asleep during every act, just as uncertainty about the cause does not justify accusing her of intending harm or attributing the act to a supernatural force. ^[5][6]

The hadith connects to the scene by disciplining the question that comes before blame: what was the person’s state when the act occurred, and what do we actually know about it? This is a literary application of the distinction between establishing the act, establishing the actor’s state, and judging the actor; each is a different question. If a real event results in harm or affects someone else’s rights, an individual religious ruling cannot be extracted from this literary reading; judgment requires the details of the case and qualified specialists. ^[5][6]

Verify before interpreting the act

Qur’an 17:36 says, “Do not follow what you have no sure knowledge of.” Al-Sa‘di’s commentary explains this in terms of verification in speech and action. Applied here, the principle is that the father should describe what he saw, Maryam’s statement about fear and amnesia should be preserved, and not knowing the cause should not become proof of whichever cause one side has chosen. The verse is not a clinical test for sleepwalking and it does not negate the supernatural world of the novel; its relevance to the scene lies in responsibility for claims that have not been established. ^[5][8]

When a family disagrees between a spiritual explanation and a medical one, it can begin with what the facts support: protect the person from harm, listen to them, and seek specialist assessment when needed. The label “possession” does not become evidence for a specific cause merely because memory is absent, and a medical possibility does not justify mocking the household’s religious concerns. For the distinction between the basis of belief and the evidence required to attribute possession to a particular person, see the dossier on the existence of jinn and the limits of inferring possession. ^[1][5][8]

What should the family do in practice?

Clear floor hazards, move sharp objects away, and secure exits while preserving a safe route for evacuation. Gently guide the person back to bed and avoid frightening them. Seek medical advice if the behavior recurs, begins for the first time in adulthood, creates a risk of injury, or is accompanied by severe daytime sleepiness or pauses in breathing at night. If a medication may be related to the event, discuss changing it with a clinician. ^[1][9]

A log can help if it preserves facts without turning them into accusations: bedtime and event time, what other people directly observed, the person’s response, medications and sleep deprivation, and what the person says when fully awake. This information can help at a medical appointment; the family does not need to recreate the event or pressure the person into an answer they do not know. In Maryam’s case, adding her fear to the record preserves her experience alongside the external observation. ^[1][2][5]

If a clinician decides that the description warrants a sleep study, the purpose is to collect measurements that may help distinguish among possibilities. Referral does not mean the person is “dangerous” or that the family lied, and assessment should not be replaced by forcing the person to confess to a cause selected by the family. In real life, medical recording also deserves consent and privacy; publicly posting clips of a frightened person is a different decision from collecting information for care. These are editorial principles of care, not experimental findings from the novel. ^[2][3][5]

This is general educational material, not an individual diagnosis. If the person is injured or reaches a dangerous location that cannot be made safe, seek local emergency help according to the situation. Do not stop a prescribed medication or change its dose on your own because of a nighttime event; discuss whether it could be related to the episode with a clinician. ^[1][9]

The novel «أم عباس» invites us to read the log alongside Maryam’s sentence too: “I’m afraid.” You can follow the official novel page for its status and themes. The literary text is the source for the scenes only; the clinical information comes from the sources listed below. This material is educational, and independent external medical and religious specialist review has not yet been completed.

Sources and limits of inference

أم عباس لجلب الحبيب وردّ المطلّقة

A forthcoming psychological-horror novel by Ahmed Alhafiz. What do the messages tell us, and what is missing from the father’s record?

Explore the novelRead about memory gaps