Rapist of Sleeping Woman: I Was Asleep Too

A Swedish man admits to raping a sleeping woman last summer but says there's one hitch: He was asleep at the time. The 27-year-old, who isn't named by The Local, says that after a night of heavy drinking in a cabin he "was awakened by her pushing me away and asking, 'Are you awake?'" Under police questioning, he claimed to suffer from sexsomnia, which makes people commit sex acts in their sleep.

"This is very well-accepted as a diagnosis within the field of sleep medicine," says a neurologist in Minneapolis. "It's different than having a sexual dream. It's full-fledged sexual behavior while asleep." The sex-while-sleeping defense isn't exactly new, either: A 38-year-old man claiming sexsomnia was acquitted of raping an 8-year-old girl in 2007, and another man won a rape case with it on appeal last year. See more on the affliction "that can leave you tired the next day." (More sex stories.)