A woman, suffering from parasomnia, has spent over Rs 3.2 lakh on shopping while sleeping. She even ended up giving her financial information to scammers once!
Kelly has done Rs 3.2 lakh shopping in her sleep | Image: SWNS
Essex: A woman from England has spent more than £3,000 (Rs 3.2 lakh) on shopping while sleeping. Kelly Knipes, aged 42, has a rare sleeping disorder which has led to late-night shopping sprees.
Kelly noticed that she was sleepwalking regularly after her first child was born in 2006. Soon, her sleepwalking turned into sleep shopping and she unknowingly spent lakhs of money while snoozing. She even got scammed once.
Sleeping shopaholic
In 2010, she woke up to find a delivery of a full-sized plastic basketball court at her home. It included a net, pole and backboard.
She has also bought tins of paint, books about teaching, salt and pepper pots, a Wendy house, fridges and tables in her sleep.
Kelly couldn’t return the food items and decided to keep the paint tins after her kids saw them.
Got scammed
In March this year, she game scammers her financial information after she received a text saying she was owed £400 from the government to help with my bills. When she woke up, the scammers has taken £250 from bank account.
She was able to get her money back from the bank but believes that her personal information was sold on by the scammers as attempts have been made to withdraw money from her account.
Kelly was diagnosed with with parasomnia, a condition involving abnormal and undesirable behaviors that occur during sleep, in 2018.
Someone with the condition appears to be alert and doing activities like walking, talking or eating but they aren’t aware because their brain is partially awake.
Kelly struggles with sleeping peels as her children might need her help in night.
She wears a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device to keep the airway open at night. However, it has not been of much help as it locks her jaw and she removed the machine from her face while sleeping.