Mike Birbiglia
This is a movie about the REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD) which I have one DVD out on the subject already and am finishing up an e-book on the subject currently… My comment on the movie?
“This is a movie that should be seen by absolutely everyone!!! In 2010 there were 250 Million prescriptions written for antidepressants in America yet 86% of those being diagnosed with the potentially deadly sleep disorder featured in this movie were found to be on an antidepressant … no one should miss this movie! Mike Birbiglia has done an excellent job of presenting this now all too common sleep disorder, very funny, yet making it clear to the audience just how serious this condition can be and disruptive to normal life.”
Although this disorder has gotten much press lately as being associated with the sleeping pill Ambien, the drugs in that class are found to be in 3% of the diagnosis of RBD while a staggering 86% of those diagnosed with RBD are taking an antidepressant! Even worse is to know that RBD used to be a rare disorder and mainly found in drug withdrawal from psychoactive illegal drugs. But with 86% currently being on an antidepressant when diagnosed with this disorder in which patients have no paralysis during sleep and thus can act out whatever they are dreaming or having a nightmare about we need to be very concerned about the number of cases found in withdrawal from antidepressants.
What is the connection to antidepressants?
One theory is that it is the elevated serotonin levels that stimulate the brain stem and remove paralysis during periods of sleep.
It has been my experience in working with patients having reactions to antidepressants that the side effect of vivid or abnormal dreams or nightmares are the first sign of the manifestation of RBD.
Egbert movie review: “The hero of Mike Birbiglia’s “Sleepwalk With Me” is a stand-up comic who suffers from REM behavior disorder. One night in a motel in Walla Walla, he leaps through a second-floor window while acting out a nightmare he was having and narrowly escapes death… but has to have glass splinters removed from his legs. His doctor tells him to start using a sleeping bag to sleep in — and wear mittens so he can’t get out of the bag to act out his dreams or nightmares.
“Funny stuff, if it weren’t true….” (continue reading by clicking the following link): http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/sleepwalk-with-me-2012
Also see the trailer: http://watch.sleepwalkmovie.com/
