How do sleepwalkers incorporate their real life surroundings into their dreams?

Good question! I sleepwalked/talked and had night terrors from age 2–3 until into my 40s. I didn’t do a lot of “walking” per se, but would move around a room and sometimes interact with objects. Like once I woke up and I was standing over the kitty litter box peeing. Another time my ex and I were in a motel. I was asleep and he was watching a football game. I got up, walked to the tv, turned the channel knob all the way around back to the game, said, “There, now isn’t that better?” and went back to bed.

They say that people with night terrors don’t remember them or have an awareness of what they’re doing, but I did and have talked to other people who also did. But I couldn’t stop myself or wake myself up, and it wasn’t a real clear memory. Today, I can only remember a handful of instances and that’s only because they were exceptional, like peeing in the litter box. My ex said once he got used to being awakened by screams and me talking nonsense it became kind of entertaining.

As far as objects, I saw spiders in almost every night terror, but of course they weren’t really there. In my 30’s I had terrors and nightmares 3–4 times/week, so it wasn’t a rare occurrence. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I didn’t run into walls or objects. I’ve been told that my eyes were open, so I’m guessing that I actually saw things and could avoid them, and also interact with them.

The eyes could be open during sleep and the subconscious would be in control.

From about the age of 5 to 10, I had almost constant nightmares, had sleep paralysis a few times, and some seep walking episodes.

In my case, and in the few cases I remember, the environment was basically the same as my actual house, but also weird, sometimes colourless, and with ghostly and dreamlike elements in addition to what I would normally see.

Some of the nightmares and episodes were so vivid that I can recall them 40 years later.

One time I woke up in the kitchen after I turned on a tap and splashed my face with water in my dream as I sleep walked.

In another very strange episode, I fell asleep and went into a sleep-walk after I had already gotten up and was on my way down the stairs. The sense was that your conscious will is just not in control, and you’re just going with whatever the fuck your brain is deciding to do—which in this case was to walk into the living room, turn on the TV (the screen showed only static), then sat down and stared at the TV while strange ghostly whisps began to swirl around me. I snapped out of it when my mum opened the door and walked in.