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Approximately two weeks ago I sent a message to the Parkinson's List asking for information on "unusual" sleep movements, "such as kicking, hitting, falling out of bed, or talking." As of today, I have received 38 reports on the presence or absence of unusual movements in a total of 50 individuals (two individuals with diagnoses other than PD were not included in the analysis). Twenty-six persons were reported to have PD and 24 were not. Unusual movement during sleep were reported for 18 of the 26 persons with PD. That is, 70% reported unusual moves during sleep. By contrast, those twenty-four persons living in the same household but without PD reported unusualmovements in 4 cases, i.e. 20%. Although (unfortunately) I asked only for a "Yes" or "No" response, several people wrote descriptions of their problems. One person wrote that she "talked,actually screamed in my sleep while dreaming.S Another wrote that her husband had, R Occasional vivid nightmares in which he trashes about and cries out in his sleep; some difficulty in getting comfortable during the night; SNORING when he lies on his back (which his body seems determined to do); sometimes laughing in his sleep; talking in his sleep; has kicked me out of bed a coupleof times (he was dreaming that he was playing soccer!). "Yet another person reported that her mother has "very vivid dreams, yelling and occasionally hitting." There was a self-report that " yes, I talk, yell, strike out, and the other night I got a hold of his [her husband's] arm, pinching it and saying, 'You made me drop my bug!'" Another report: "I don't know for sure what I do while sleeping (except snore), but my husband (pd dx ~3 yr...Eldepryl & Sinemet), is "wild" at night. He yells, swears, kicks, thrashes, takes a swing at his 'opponents',and generally raises hell." Yet another wrote, "My husband occasionally kicks violently in his sleep. He also converses (unintelligibly most of the time, but occasionally much clearer than his waking speech for short sentences) during his sleep. When the kicking started, I resorted to sleeping with my back to him, to prevent injury. I occasionally have the startle jerk when falling asleep, and my husband used to tell me I talked in my sleep occasionally."A diagnosis was reported by one respondent of her husbandUs sleep moves, "His initial symptoms (hindsight) or at least an accompanying disorder - were increasingly disturbing nocturnal movements including whole body jerks, leg movements, arm flailing (caught me a couple of times) as well as loud shouts. A sleep study at that time documented the almost constant "bicycle riding" movements of his legs and a diagnosis of myoclonus was made." Although we should take the percentages of those with "unusual movements" during sleep (60% for PDers and 20% for nonPD housemates) with a handful of salt, the results at least establish that troublesome movement disorders of a new kind mayemerge during sleep. But as a note posted to my initial request for reports of movements during sleep suggests, people with unusual movements during sleep are not the worst off: they at least can sleep. (Their partners may have a difficult time, however.) (to be continued...)