Discuss the significance of the sleepwalking scene in Shakespears "Macbeth" and its relationship to the rest of the play.

Sleep is the transitional state between wakefulness and death and gives our body and mind a chance to maintain, repair and protect itself. Lady Macbeth's true personality is revealed during the sleepwalking scene. Her character follows the pattern of decline, despair and death. This pattern starts when she no longer had control over her husband, followed by hallucinations when she is sleepwalking and finally in suicide. In the sleepwalking scene Lady Macbeth cannot bear to …

…pushed into this dark hole by his wife. From the beginning Lady Macbeth finds the strength to entice Macbeth to murder Duncan and to follow through with the murder himself. She didn't care about who she would hurt to acquire kingship. She saw nothing wrong with killing the king. Lady Macbeth's attempts to suppress her conscience soon fail. At the end she chooses death because she can no longer bear the torments of her guilt.