I do many quirky things. I can admit that….sort of! Most of the time I am conscious of these idiosyncrasies, but the odd and somewhat scary thing is, that for one of these quirks I have no idea what I am doing!? This one particular thing leaves me confused in places around the house and scared of random objects in my room….I am a sleep walker….

Sleep Walking

I am not sure if sleep walker is the correct term. Most likely I should be studied because I think sometimes what I have could be considered night terrors. I have done this pretty much all my life. It turns out that it’s genetic because my grandma on my father’s side was a sleep walker as well as my aunt who I am told used to host parties in her sleep. When I was young I used to wander into my parent’s room and start up random conversations. I am always told that it’s weird because my eyes are open and I seem to be awake, but I’m not. Over the years they got used to just telling me to go back to bed. That normally worked.

When I was 14 I went a trip around Europe with a group from school and my mom came as a chaperone. During this trip I tried leaving my hotel rooms and opening windows…all while sleeping! It got so bad that my mom had to sleep closest to the door and we pretty much had to tie me up! This just isn’t normal. We have narrowed it down to the fact that I sleep walk when I am overtired, and/or stressed. Since I always  have things rolling around in my mind…this happens a lot.

My husband is an expert with my sleep walking by now. I told him that I do it early on in our relationship, but I think someone has to see it to believe it. It’s always funny to hear him tell the story of the time I blamed him for bringing a pig into our room…all while I was asleep. I guess you can never truly prepare someone for their significant other starting fights unconsciously, especially when that fight is about a nonexistent pig. The poor guy has even been woken up from me frantically running across our bed because something was after me from our armoire…he luckily grabbed me before I leapt from the bed.

Recent Experience

My most recent activity was this week. I woke up to find myself unscrewing the light bulb in our ceiling fan…I was awoken by me sticking my hand into the moving fan…Not good let me tell ya! Once I woke up I was embarrassed and looked to my husband who was still sleeping…How could he sleep through that? Since I did not wake him, I quickly tried to go back to sleep and pretend it never happened. I did tell him the next day and I told him he is my protector and should be watching out for me! Who else is going to stop me from doing insane things?

It is hard to explain the sensation of sleepwalking to those who don’t. It’s almost as if you know what you are doing while you are doing it. Most of the time I have an explanation for why I am saving my dog Tinkerbell and running into the other room…at the time it makes sense, until I look around and realize it’s all a dream. Very odd…