From sleep + eat; by analogy of sleepwalk.
sleep-eat (third-person singular simple present sleep-eats, present participle sleep-eating, simple past sleep-ate, past participle sleep-eaten)
- (intransitive) To eat in one's sleep; to eat while asleep.
2008, Don H. Hockenbury, Sandra E. Hockenbury, Psychology, Macmillan Publishers, →ISBN, page 165:Females are more than twice as likely as males to sleep-eat.
2014, Stephan Eirik Clark, Sweetness #9[1], →ISBN:"He's not the only one who needs it. Mom's been sleep-eating." "What? What do you mean?" I listened in disbelief as she said she'd come out into the kitchen no fewer than three times in the last couple of months and seen Betty with her hand in the breadbox.
2015, Himender Makker, Matthew Walker, Hugh Selsick, Oxford Case Histories in Sleep Medicine[2], →ISBN:Topiramate has been described as being particularly efficacious in people who sleep-eat as their non-REM parasomnia.
2015, Kelly Carlin, A Carlin Home Companion: Growing Up with George[3], St. Martin's Press, →ISBN:Because he was diabetic he'd sleep-eat in bed.
2016, Dima Zales, Anna Zaires, Limbo: The Last Humans: Book 2[4], Mozaika Publications, →ISBN:I must've done what Liam used to do as a kid: sleep-eat in the middle of the night and deny it in the morning.
2016, Kathie Johnson, The First Storm[5], AuthorHouse, →ISBN:Recent studies showed that some patients experienced sleep-eating, where they would dream about food and in their drugged-induced coma, they would actually get up to prepare a meal.