By ZOE BRENNAN

Last updated at 22:58 07 March 2008

Stumbling out of bed into the darkness, the man searches around his room with strange, hypnotic intent.

Soon, he finds what he is looking for. Grasping a pencil, he begins sketching furiously on a discarded newspaper.

Oblivious to time passing, he hunches over his work for an hour as a beautiful image emerges. But, eerily, the artist seems to be in a trance, as if he is scarcely conscious.

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Lee Hadwin, by day a nurse, at night a sleepwalking artist who produces strange and fantastical works of art

The reason is simple: the man with the pencil is drawing in his sleep.

Meet Lee Hadwin, by day a nurse, at night a sleepwalking artist who produces strange and fantastical works of art, which he has no recollection of drawing when he wakes the next morning.

Dubbed 'Kipasso', he says he is utterly mystified by his nocturnal talent, not least as in the daytime, he shows no interest or ability in art whatsoever.

"It is the most extraordinary feeling to wake up and find myself surrounded by artworks, and have no recollection of having drawn them," he says.

"Often I'm genuinely amazed by what I've produced. What is strangest of all is that if I lift a pencil and try to draw when I'm awake, I'm unable to do even a simple sketch.

"I seem to be a medical phenomenon. I simply cannot explain where my art comes from. It's as if another part of my brain kicks in when I am asleep."

Hadwin, 33, from North Wales, is now to be investigated by the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, which studies sleep disorders. It has pronounced his story 'unique'.

He is also to be the subject of a forthcoming documentary, including incredible footage of him at work in a sleepwalker's trance which has already become a hit after it was shown on the website YouTube.

The video shows Hadwin drawing at great speed, but unresponsive to his name being called out by witnesses.

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Lee says he has no recollection of drawing when he wakes the next morning

Major galleries have also been asking for examples of his work, which they hope to market on its artistic merit as well as its novelty value.

After an exhibition in his native Wales last year, one art lover has offered £5,000 for his work Flight Of Fancy, a detailed sketch of two nymphs.

So does he have some extraordinary gift, or is he simply an elaborate hoaxer?

Hadwin says he first started sleepwalking when he was four years old, but his parents believed it was a normal childhood phase.

When he was in his teens, he began producing art work while asleep, at first on his bedroom walls. Once, staying over at a friend's house, he covered the kitchen walls with doodles in his sleep — an embarrassing discovery at breakfast time the next day.

In his late teens and early 20s, the intensity of his sleepwalking increased, and Hadwin would wake to find everything in the vicinity — tableclothes, newspapers, clothes and walls — covered in artwork.

Hoping to harness the strange ability, he started leaving artists' materials out when he went to bed and, sure enough, when he awoke he says he would find full-blown pictures beside him.

Now, he leaves his home prepared for nocturnal wanderings, with sketchbooks and charcoal pencils scattered around the house — particularly under the stairs, a favourite venue.

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Initially Lee's drawings were of horses and human figures but there are also landscapes, and surreal montages of shapes and broken images

Perplexingly, although he leaves coloured paints and pencils out, he has never drawn in colour. His sessions appear to last for between 20 minutes and an hour and a half, before he returns to bed.

And when he wakes in the morning, he says he feels utterly exhausted, often suffering from a severe migraine.

"It is horrible," he says. "I feel completely drained and nauseous, and have to lie in a dark room until I recover. I can only think that tapping into my subconscious brain is a huge strain on my body.

"It is only in the following days that I'm able to look at what I've produced and appreciate it. At first, I just feel terrible.

"Now I am undergoing therapy in an attempt to discover what prompts my subconscious self to draw. I want to get to the root of it.

"I find it really puzzling — obviously this art work comes from the depths of my psyche. I feel it must reveal a dark side to me, and yet I had the happiest childhood. If I had suffered traumatic experiences, I could understand where the drawings came from."

Hadwin is now using a diary to try to pinpoint what triggers his art, some of which is surreal and some graphically lifelike.

Initially, his drawings were of horses and human figures — one depiction of Marilyn Monroe is striking in capturing the star's mesmerising features, while a huge charcoal nude takes pride of place in his collection. There are also landscapes, and surreal montages of shapes and broken images.

More recently, he has produced strange and disturbing images of shattered fairies, their fragile wings splintering into the ether.

As he has matured, his drawings have become more complex and adept. On one occasion, he awoke to find that he had cut up a pair of his favourite jeans and incorporated them into a work of art.

Yet he claims he has had no artistic training whatsoever. Having left school at 15 to join a country and

western band, he says his interest is music rather than art.

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A huge charcoal nude takes pride of place in Lee's collection

"Strange as it may seem, I've never actually been inside an art gallery," he says. "The closest I've got is walking past the Tate Modern in London. I would love to be able to draw in my waking life."

He finds watching video footage of his sleepwalking particularly disturbing. "I find it very odd watching myself," he says.

"There is a feeling of embarrassment-like watching a video of yourself when drunk, because I have no control over this side of my life. It is very disturbing and unsettling."

Some might dismiss Hadwin's work as a cynical stunt, but he is adamant that his works are genuine products

of the subconscious.

And far from dismissing him as a crank, behavioural specialists say thatit would be possible for a

sleepwalking person to tap into their hidden creativity.

Dr Chris Idzikowski, director of the Edinburgh Sleep Centre, says: "He is a curious case, but we know that people certainly do unusual things while sleepwalking.

"I've seen cases of sex-somniacs, who have sex in their sleep, and night-eating syndrome, which is much more

widespread, where people consume food without ever waking."

There was also the case, three years ago, of a 15-year-old girl who managed to climb a 130ft crane in East London while sleepwalking, while other cases have been recorded of people driving, or riding horses in their sleep. So why not drawing?

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Lee's depiction of Marilyn Monroe is striking in capturing the star's mesmerising features

"People can walk around and do automated tasks," says DrIdzikowski. "But Lee's case sounds rather different because he is actually creating something. It could be that he is suffering from an unusual type of epilepsy."

"We are curious about him," he adds, "and want to investigate him further by recording these episodes and analysing them."

But if the science world is taking Hadwin seriously, the same cannot be said of the art world. Art critic Matt

Collings dismisses Hadwin's work as 'rubbish'.

"Art is not something you produce as if by magic," says Collings. "It is made from layer upon layer of experience. It isn't just made when you are asleep.

"Real art comes from doing it and doing it over and again, developing and labouring over something until you create a piece of art."

He is also dismissive of claims that Hadwin's drawings reveal the workings of the subconscious.

"That is silly in the extreme. Everything comes from the subconscious. Any scribble comes from the subconscious. You don't have to be sleepwalking for that to be the case."

Hadwin takes such attacks in his stride. "Of course there are sceptics out there," he says. "It's frustrating

because I can't prove that I'm real, beyond showing video footage of my sleepwalking self at work. That's one

of the reasons I'm keen to be investigated by sleep experts."

He also has the consolation of his growing fan base. He has recently moved from Wales — where he worked with people who have suffered head injuries — to London in order to further his art career and has received many inquiries from abroad.

He is also planning further exhibitions. Nooshkin Gale, manager of ArtSpace Galleries in London's Mayfair, expects to exhibit Hadwin's work in the next year, and believes it to be commercially viable.

She says: "His work is pretty interesting and different. He intends to exhibit here and in our gallery in Paris.

We think his pieces could generate a lot of interest.

"I believe they could attract around £4,000-£5,000 each. But who knows? People pay astronomical amounts of money for art that catches their eye, and Lee's work is extremely interesting because it is produced in this way as well as being beautiful in its own right."

Hokum or not, Hadwin says his greatest fear now is that his nocturnal habit will suddenly come to a halt.

"This is a talent that is completely out of my control and has apparently sprung from nowhere, so I am terrified

that it could disappear just as suddenly as it arrived," he admits.

"Each morning I wake up and see a newly-created piece of art lying beside my bed, I breathe a sigh of relief that my gift still belongs to me."