--- title: Sleep Drunkenness Affects 1 in 7 People description: Severe disorientation while waking up or falling asleep could be a real problem canonical: https://time.com/3170331/1-in-7-people-suffer-from-sleep-drunkenness/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-25T20:00:38.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-21T09:49:42.771Z article:section: Health og:title: 1 in 7 People Suffer From Sleep Drunkenness og:description: Severe disorientation while waking up or falling asleep could be a real problem og:url: https://time.com/3170331/1-in-7-people-suffer-from-sleep-drunkenness/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt648d1e4fb1856959/6986a0c1169ab0e21227adc3/sleeping-alarm-clock.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5520 og:image:height: 3105 og:image:alt: Alarm clock og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: 1 in 7 People Suffer From Sleep Drunkenness twitter:description: Severe disorientation while waking up or falling asleep could be a real problem twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt648d1e4fb1856959/6986a0c1169ab0e21227adc3/sleeping-alarm-clock.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # 1 in 7 People Suffer From Being 'Sleep Drunk' > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=1a196448-d093-43ac-8274-7fcaf9498940&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 25, 2014 8:00 PM UTC  Weekend Sleep Weekend Sleep Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Aug 25, 2014 8:00 PM UTC It’s a scene familiar to about 15% of us. Your alarm goes off in the morning, but instead of waking up alert (if not especially chipper), you’re entirely confused by what’s going on. You may be disoriented, not know where you are, and you may even try to answer your alarm as though it were a phone call. If that’s happened to you, it’s because you’re sleep drunk. According to a[ new report](http://www.neurology.org/) published in the journal _Neurology_, sleep drunkenness—which is having trouble coming to full wakefulness after sleep, accompanied by intense confusion and disorientation, and even sometimes violent reactions and amnesia—is a serious and surprisingly common problem. Researchers at Stanford University School of Medicine interviewed 19,136 people ages 18 and older about their sleep behaviors, mental health, and medication use and found that about 15% of the participants had experienced a sleep drunkenness episode in the last year, with over half of those people reporting experiencing an episode a week. Further data suggests there may be a connection between sleep drunkenness and other factors, including mental health. Among those who had reported sleep drunkenness episodes, 84% also had either a sleep disorder, a mental health disorder or were taking drugs like antidepressants, which suggests that sleep drunkenness could be a symptom of—or a red flag for—other problems that could disrupt sleep quality. The researchers say that even though sleep-related problems like sleep drunkenness get less attention compared to behaviors like sleep walking, they can be just as dangerous, and more research should be done to determine the best ways to treat it. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3170331/1-in-7-people-suffer-from-sleep-drunkenness/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3170331/1-in-7-people-suffer-from-sleep-drunkenness/"},"headline":"1 in 7 People Suffer From Being 'Sleep Drunk'","datePublished":"2014-08-25T20:00:38.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-21T09:49:42.771Z","description":"Severe disorientation while waking up or falling asleep could be a real problem","url":"https://time.com/3170331/1-in-7-people-suffer-from-sleep-drunkenness/","keywords":["Mental Health/Psychology","Mental Health","Sleep","Antidepressants"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt648d1e4fb1856959/6986a0c1169ab0e21227adc3/sleeping-alarm-clock.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt648d1e4fb1856959/6986a0c1169ab0e21227adc3/sleeping-alarm-clock.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Alarm clock","caption":"Alarm clock","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/mental-healthpsychology/","name":"Mental Health/Psychology"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3170331/1-in-7-people-suffer-from-sleep-drunkenness/","name":"1 in 7 People Suffer From Being 'Sleep Drunk'"}}]}] ```