Abstract

Human beings spend approximately one-third of their lives asleep. Disorders seen in sleep are therefore closely associated with quality of life. The increasing interest in sleep disorders in recent years has led to the emergence of new information. Various new sleep disorders have thus entered the literature. Abnormal sexual behavior in sleep (sexsomnia) is one of these, and is important because of its societal and medicolegal aspects. Sexsomnia is classified among NREM disorders (parasomnias) in the second edition of the International Classification of Sleep Disorders (ICSD-2). Like other parasomnias, it is generally complex, goal-oriented and consists of non-consciously exhibited sexual behaviour. Some researchers suggest that the disorder is a variant of somnambulism. One of the most important diagnostic tools is polysomnography. Severe psychosocial problems may occur due to sexsomnia. The literature was revised for the purpose of making a review of this less-known subject, important for having led to medicolegal events in recent years. For that purpose, the key words “sexsomnia” and “abnormal sexual behavior in sleep” were scanned using the “Pubmed, Google Scholar and Web of Knowledge” search engines. Articles in German and Spanish in addition English articles were used. All articles found in the search engines were analysed. The limitations of the study are the small number of articles and some missing information among studies. We wrote this review to create awareness about this less known subject and a plan of approach to patients likely to be seen.

Key words: sexsomnia, parasomnia, sleep