Are you groggy and disoriented when you wake? It's a medical condition.

Image via Thinkstock

Have you ever woken up groggy and confused, not knowing exactly where you are, what time it is, or why that clock on your bedside table is making such obnoxiously loud noises when people are trying to sleep here, dammit?

Wait, allow us to rephrase: have you ever woken up like this and not consumed any alcohol the night before?

According to science, this means you’ve officially woken up ‘sleep drunk’ – and you’re not alone. Friends, it might be time for someone to start SDA (Sleep Drunks Anonymous).

A new report published in the journal Neurology has found around 1 in 7 Americans have experienced this phenomenon, which is also known as ‘confusional arousal’. As TIME explains, sleep drunkenness refers to “having trouble coming to full wakefulness after sleep, accompanied by intense confusion and disorientation, and even sometimes violent reactions and amnesia.”

Of the more than 19,000 people interviewed by Stanford University researchers, 15% had experienced one of these episodes in the past year, while 8% reported that it occurs at least once a week.

These episodes generally last less than 15 minutes after waking, and can occur any time throughout the night. It’s not known exactly what causes this behaviour – although in this study, sleep drunkenness appeared to be caused by a lack of sleep in many cases. It was more frequent among participants who had slept for less than six hours a night over the previous week.

Sleep drunkenness is relatively harmless if it only occurs every now and then. However, if it's happening more than once a week it can be serious, and might suggest an underlying sleep disorder. Among the study respondents who reported sleep drunkenness episodes, 84% also had a sleep disorder or a mental health disorder, or were taking drugs like antidepressants.

A quick poll of The Glow's office reveals many of us have experienced 'confusion arousal' at least once before, although we didn't know the fancy science name for it at the time. These are our (admittedly, quite hilarious) stories:

"I've sat straight up in bed, slapped a friend I was sleeping next to in the face, then laid back down again and gone to sleep." - Alyx

"I woke up in my new house last weekend and it took me a good two minutes to figure out where I was." - Lucy

"When I was a bit younger I was on a family holiday and sharing a room with my cousin. He woke up the next day and was really sad and didn't look at me. I asked what was wrong and he huffily apologised for making noise. I had no recollection of this, so I asked him what he meant, and he replied that when he was zipping up his sleeping bag I turned to him and said, "Elliott, could you please shut the fuck up?" - Dimity

"I sat up once and yelled out to my mum, and asked her where the cigarettes were. (I have never and will never smoke) I had my eyes open and everything. She was confused, and so when she didn't give me an answer I lay back down and went to sleep. I have no memory of this." - Sarah

"Once I was awoken by a phone call from my dad. I kept whispering to him because I 'didn't want to wake up my friend in my room' and eventually snuck out into the hallway to be quieter. After a couple of minutes I properly 'woke up' and realised nobody was sleeping in my room. Bizarre." - Kahla

"I'm a serial sleep-drunk texter. I genuinely have SMS exchanges with people on a semi-regular basis at around 5am and by the time I wake up proper, I have no recollection of it whatsoever. Thankfully, Sleep Drunk Me texts quite coherently and I've definitely responded to important things, work-related things, date-related things in that haze." - Kate

"On several jet lag-suffering moments, I have taken a call, spoken to whoever, and only realised I was on the phone when the conversation was finished. And asked 'Who is this?'." - Avi

"Super embarrassing - I quite often will wake up in the middle of the night and take my clothes off. This happened once in a tent with four male family members. HORRIFYING." - Caitlin

Have you ever woken up 'sleep drunk'? Tell us the story!

We think you'll also enjoy:

"How I fixed my insomnia."

You might not actually need 8 hours of sleep.

Why sleeping in your makeup is a really bad idea.