CLEVELAND -- A disorder called sleep eating is baffling experts, and researchers have managed to capture sleep eaters in action on camera.

Researchers at the Center For Sleep And Wake Disorders monitored patients. During testing, researchers found one woman munching on brownies in her sleep. After each bite, she used her pinky to shove any remaining bits in her mouth. She was just conscious enough to respond to a question.

Another woman captured on tape gulped a soda after eating in her sleep.

It's a problem Leigh Abraham said he can relate to.

At night he gets out of bed, goes downstairs and raids his kitchen, asleep the whole time.

"It's like being compelled. It's like overdrive to eat. So when I wake up, it's the only thing I can do," Abraham said.

Abraham and the others have the rare sleep-eating disorder. He eats strange foods while asleep, combining syrup and desserts, chocolate chips, yogurt, and molasses.

Abraham's wife Becky said, "He eats like a starving man. He can't eat it quick enough or enough of it."

Sleep experts have traced the problem to the hypothalamus. That is the part of the brain that controls basic behaviors.

They're still not sure how it works, but somehow the basic needs to sleep and eat become intertwined in sleep-eating.

Dr. Helene Emsellem is with the Center For Sleep And Wake Disorders.

She said sleep eaters are caught in "an ambiguous state, between wake and sleep, where they may superficially look awake, but they're not forming new memories. And they're not necessarily consciously aware of what they're doing."