Things I do in my sleep
I’ve probably talked before about how I’m inclined to sleep-walking and sleep-talking. Usually I wake myself up part-way through, feel hideously embarrassed, and try to act like I was doing whatever stupid thing I was doing on purpose. Denny has told me I don’t have to be embarrassed, and logically I know that, but for some reason that semi-conscious part of me is just humiliated when it gets caught out to play.
I had a good example the other night. I don’t usually remember the details of my sleep activities, but this one is very clear. I sat up in bed, looked at Denny who was sleeping facing away from me, and said to him, “Who are you, and what are you doing in my bed?”
Fortunately he didn’t wake up, because that would have been really embarrassing. He just made a little grunty noise, which was enough to remind me that yes, in fact, it is ok for my husband to be in bed with me (Donna Reed-style twin-bed sleeping be damned!).
That’s actually one of my most common sleep confusions: I freak out because I don’t know who’s in the room with me. Usually I just lie there in silence, hoping the stranger will leave without realizing I’m there. I guess I was just feeling extra confrontational the other night.
That’s odd. And fascinating. I wonder, how can you tell it’s not just a dream? I mean, if you’re conscious of turning to Denny and saying this, aren’t you just…well, awake?
It’s really hard to describe. I call it sleep-walking or sleep-talking because that’s the best vocabulary I have for it, but that’s not really accurate either. I’d say it’s sort of…a lower level of consciousness. I can make basic decisions (such as asking Denny who he is), but it’s like I have no cultural or personal context for them.
Maybe that’s what it’s like to have amnesia. I really don’t know.
You ah… haven’t been visited by aliens have you? Whatever you do DON’T read Communion!
I haven’t read that, but I had a friend in college who swore up and down that he had been visited by aliens. It really didn’t seem like he was lying, but on the other hand, he was a hippie, so who knows what was altering his perceptions.
Are my experiences symptomatic of alien visitation? I don’t feel like I’ve been probed or anything. :O
Actually the feeling that someone else is in the room with you is symptomatic if alien visitation. Or at least paranoia that you have been visited by aliens. Or that you want to be visited by David Duchovney. 🙂
I’m married to a sleep talker like this–at one point, he got out of bed, went to the bathroom, and started complaining that he didn’t know where he was. I told him, he came back to bed, then like 20 minutes later sat up and exclaims “well, you know, I’m not just some whore from New Jersey”–and proceeded to flop back down and stop snoring.
I can’t believe Holly missed this discussion — she would probably have all kinds of stories about me. Apparently, I often have long, rambling conversations with Holly in my sleep, a key feature of which is my insistence that yes, I *am* awake, dammit, and getting flustered when Holly insists that I am not.
This is all secondhand, as I never remember these episodes, not even a little bit.
Daphne talks in her sleep too.