Sleepwalking Through My Life

Some of you may not know that I sleepwalk on occasion. I have for most of my life, in fact. The first episode that I remember was when I was 7 years old. I was spending the weekend at my grandparents' farm in east Texas, as I usually did, and it had rained the night before. I woke up Sunday morning and was mystified as to why I had muddy feet. The bed was muddy too. My grandmother was very angry and threatened "a whoopin'", but my mother explained to her that I would sleepwalk and would try to go outside if the door was unlocked. Since my mom and I lived in town, the doors were always locked at night, but back then in the country, many people didn't bother to lock their doors at all. They were always locked after that. I was glad, since that meant Bigfoot or Dracula couldn't come in and carry me away, always something to consider when you're a kid and watch too many horror movies.

Since I've been with my husband, he's told me of many instances of my nocturnal wanderings:

- the most recent was this past week. He had just come to bed and I had been asleep for a short time. All of a sudden, I sprang up and exclaimed, "THERE'S A LEMUR IN THE BEDROOM!" Adrian asked me how on earth a lemur would get into the bedroom and I told him "through your overhead projector. Can't you see it's stripey tail??" After he patiently explained to me that there was not, in fact, a lemur in the bedroom, I got back into bed and resumed my slumber.

A Lemur


An overhead projector

- Years ago, when I still worked in a record store, I sprang up from bed and proceeded to "assume the position" with my hands on the wall. Adrian, who was reading in bed, asked me what I was doing and I told him that I was holding up the wall because it was falling down. He told me that the wall was fine, and back to sleep I went.

- I've also woken up on my hands and knees in my closet "trying to keep my papers from flying off my desk". I don't however keep a desk in my closet, so the exercise was rather futile.

- I've woken up clutching a picture from the wall, and broke it while flinging it away from myself in my surprise.

- I walked into the kitchen on night and apparently put my soy milk into the freezer, then went back to bed. When I was fixing my bowl of cereal the next morning, I asked Adrian if he had known I was out of soy milk. He said, "no you have soy milk, you put it in the freezer last night. Don't you remember?" I asked him why didn't he put it back into the refrigerator and he told me, "well, I thought you might have a good reason for wanting to freeze your soy milk". My husband, always the practical one.

I also talk in my sleep periodically. The most memorable time that happened was when I worked in the record store. I stirred and exclaimed, "the only profound thing in the world is a man with a record up his ass!" Wishful thinking, maybe? Record collectors can be difficult to deal with.

I must be entertaining and useful to live with, what with fighting off flying primates, holding up walls and expounding my philosophies while asleep. Most people just lie there and snore.