Sleepwalk

Sleepwalk

Verb & Noun · /ˈsliːpwɔːk/ · to move through the world without truly being present

Definition

To sleepwalk is, literally, to walk about while asleep — a condition known medically as somnambulism. The sleepwalker moves, navigates, sometimes performs complex actions, all without any conscious awareness. Eyes may be open. The body is active. The mind is elsewhere. But sleepwalk has a second, figurative meaning that is at least as important: to do something of great consequence without proper attention, awareness, or deliberate choice. A government can sleepwalk into a crisis. A company can sleepwalk through years of slow decline without ever addressing it. A team can sleepwalk through a project, completing tasks without engaging with them. In this figurative sense, sleepwalking is deeply dangerous — more dangerous, perhaps, than deliberate bad decisions, because at least bad decisions are made consciously.

Origin

Sleepwalk is a compound formed from sleep and walk, with the first recorded uses appearing in English in the early nineteenth century. The medical condition it describes — somnambulism — was recognised far earlier and featured in literature and folklore across many cultures, often associated with supernatural explanations. The figurative use of sleepwalk as a metaphor for unconscious, unaware action became especially prominent in the late twentieth century. The historian Christopher Clark used the phrase "sleepwalkers" in the title of his landmark 2012 study of how European leaders drifted into the First World War — a masterpiece of historical argument built on a single vivid metaphor.