I slept walked as a kid. Not every night, but often enough to be dubbed a "sleep walker".
My most extreme case of sleep walking - the story that takes the cake - is this: I was roughly somewhere between 10 and 12 years old. Apparently I got out of bed and made my way downstairs (not unusual).... but then (unusual) I left the house. Unlocked the front door and headed down the street.
I went a couple doors down to my grandparent's home and rang their doorbell. It was sometime around 1 or 2 a.m., so it's a wonder they got up and answered it, and didn't think it was some psychopath (though I'm sure they had their suspicions). As soon as they saw it was me, they were thrown for a loop. Apparently I asked them if they wanted to have some tea.
They're English. We frequently had afternoon tea together.
But never at 1 am.
Nanny and Pop called my parents and from there one of the came over to escort me home, still asleep. The only thing I recollected vaguely the next morning was the texture of the sidewalk beneath my bare feet walking home; I had 'come-to' barely enough at that point to have that bizarre and dream-like memory implanted in my head the next morning.
I tried to figure out if it was a dream or if it actually happened.
I asked my parents, and they told me the whole story.
...
To this day I still have interesting episodes during the night, but rarely ever sleep walk. I tend more than anything to have hallucinations; moments of being caught between a state of dreaming and a state of consciousness. I'll find myself sitting up in bed terrified of imagined objects in the room, or standing up trying to avoid an impending presence, holding on to things, trying to swat or avoid things that aren't in front of me, or just being in pure panic about something going on that I can't even understand or make out - and that always isn't real.
Luckily it doesn't happen very often, but it is very real and very scary when it does.
Quite honestly I rather be a 'happy sleep-walker' visiting neighbors for tea, opposed to a terrified, pseudo-awake dreamer trying to find reality.
9 comments:
Interesting. You might google or wiki "sleep paralysis" and/or "night terrors."
Happens to me, too. I don't sleep walk -- just the other stuff.
Fascinating. I don't know that I do anything, but my brother used to sleep walk and yell at me in his sleep. My kids both talk. Tom can sit with his eyes open and appear to be listening to me. I've learned that when his eyeballs are pink, he's asleep. And he's often had the dream where he's being chased and people are dying, and he's trying to save everyone.
He must keep all his worry in his gut.
So, has the pregnancy been messing with your dreams?
z - my brother had really really bad night terrors when he was younger. scary "emily rose" night terrors.
wm - yes, pregnancy has been messing with my dreams. not so much of the bad stuff, but many more incredibly vivid dreams.
Oh man Sarah this used to happen to me frequently, not so much now, but before, oh man it was, well it causes me to get a urgent pressure in my chest just thinking about it.
I remember the noises, the swirling of evil, trying to move, trying to throw myself from bed, trying to drag myself out the door and into the light, frantically reciting the Our Father in my dreams, sometimes the words coming out backwards. Struggling over and over. (Wonder if the backward words had something to do with the nuts in the seventies playing albums backwards and claiming it was satanic?)
A friend told me once if I counted to five on my right hand in the dream state that it would allow me to wake up/stop the paralysis. Most times it worked too, who knows why? Later when I was in college one of my professors practiced altering his dreams and he taught me how to confront the fear, ask it what it wanted…to be aware that I control my dreams if I need to.
But before,
I mostly relied on prayer to get me through those nights. Many nights I went to bed afraid to sleep, and woke up afraid to go back to sleep.
The night terrors some times came to me, with the lingering kind of terror, like, way into being awake and not being about to shake that irrational feeling of impending doom, when my estrogen levels were high.
Oh sweetie, just tell yourself in that dream next time… “I am in the rapid eye movement segment of my dream and I can wake up from this when I am ready. It will take more than this to scare me. I am a protected soul of quality and I can make or break this dream.” If all else fails say the Our Father and count to five on your right hand.
Love you, Lori
Sarah, I do the exact same things that you are talking about. It's scary as hell. Sometimes I see people standing next to me beside my bed, bugs, all kinds of things. I even scream. I seem to do it when im under stress. My sister does it too, but not as bad. So I know exactly what you are going through. It majorly sucks. I used to be scared to go to sleep at night, I was afraid I would have a night terror. It IS very real and very scary when it happens. And im like you...i'd much rather be a happy sleep walker.
My younger brother Tommy had night terrors when he was young. He would walk in his sleep. If you tried to touch him he would scream like a banchie.
One time he woke up sleep walking opened the refrigerator door and tried to pee in it.
A few years ago I walked out of my apartment building in the middle of the night... as I got farther out into the sidewalk the reality of cement under my feet began to register as being scratchy and I woke up enough to realize that I was alone in the night (thankfully dressed in pajamas)and that there were men standing down the block from me. i turned around and went back to the entrance and was super grateful that the doors were painted that afternoon and still propped open... otherwise I would have been locked out of the building, and would have had to go beat on my bedroom window till my hubby woke up.... I got lucky.
Oh man, Tom did have horrible night terrors...I remember, poor little pumkin pie. I remember his eyes and the fear in them.
My oldest son had them too, and the really odd thing about his, he would wake up and be talking total gibberish. Not one sound that came out of his mouth made any sense, nothing. I remember speaking to him very softly, telling him it would all be okay, gently trying to wake him.
Wow, Beck, I had forgotten about Tom trying to pee in the fridge...do you remember the time Pam got up still asleep and walked into grandman's kitchen, pulled a butcher knife from the drawer and hamburger from the fridge and started hacking around on it? I do, and it scared the sh*t outa me...we were sleeping together at the time, I followed her, so did grandma to see what she was going to do, when she got the knife grandmas said, "Don't startle her for God's sake, just let me handle this"...Pam reached in for the hamburger, put it on the counter, got a good hack in, and grandma gently reached over and took the knife from her, Pam continued to whack at the hamburger with her hand. Then she threw it in the sink and went back to bed....weird.
I totally slept walked as a kid and even a teenager. Once I did a similar thing as you and unlocked the door, went outside and rode my bike down the street. I must have been about 8? Scary!
Then as an adult in college in the "big city" (san diego, lol) I would have horrible night terrors and wake up screaming in the middle of the night. It drove my dh crazy, he was afraid the neighbors would call the police and turn him in for domestic violence or something! Then when we moved to this small town, all of my night terrors stopped. It was weird. Now I get anxiety dreams when I am stressed. Usually I am naked in a front of a classroom of students or something to that effect.
But now...now my dreams have been more peaceful, as you read. I think, like you said, that we need to listen to our dreams and see how they reflect our daily lives. Afterall, they are a part of our mind and who we are...why not take them more seriously than we do?
I've missed you Sarah!
Thanks for all of your comments.
xoxo,
Kristie
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