Crazy Sleeper

I am beyond a crazy sleeper - I'm an out and out nutcase.  Let's revisit some of the ridiculous things that I've experienced or had reported back to me from my attempts to catch 8 hours of shut eye a night.

Sleep Walking
Starting when I was very young, I began occasionally wandering around in my sleep.  I usually have little to no recollection of these incidents.  One night, I wandered into my family's office where my mom was working an overnight on call shift.  I said "hi mommy" and she said "hi sweetie - what are you doing up?  can you get me a diet pepsi?" (always thinking of me first eh) and I said "sure!".  Then she never saw me again, and found me fast asleep in my bed about 15 minutes later when she wandered out in a thirsty haze. 

Sleep Talking
This is my crowning and key characteristic.  I don't get as many stories now because Jeff sleeps like he's dead (once he slept through a policeman pounding on our door and ringing our doorbell at 3 in the morning - oh don't worry, it was our trashy neighbours they were after, not us) so he doesn't hear a lot.  But occasionally the intensity of my episodes has woken him up.  I don't even know where to start.  Those overnight on call shifts were when my mom realized I had issues - she'd hear my non-sensical mumblings from the next room and tease me about them the next day.  When I had sleepovers with my friends in high school, Dawn and Jana would always leave a pen out so they could scribble down what I said during the night. Some gems we still laugh about today: "can we have steak for breakfast?" "today's too cloudy for the teddy bears to have their picnic" or Jana's favourite, the time that I bolted upright in bed, pointing, eyes wide open, screaming to no one "stop! you're going to get me in trouble! put that down!".  ('You're going to get me in trouble' has been a nonstop theme in my sleep talking episodes as long as I can remember - concerning). I had an old boyfriend who I used to wake up with my talking who would engage me in conversations while I was asleep - my answers would grow increasingly more angry until I exploded awake yelling a bunch of nonsense just to find him laughing hysterically.  Recently I dove out of bed screaming to Jeff that no one cares about black bear safety except Lou and I (Lou is a nice older man who donated some land to my organization.. talk about taking your work home with you).  For a long time I've been having long, loud and often angry chats while asleep and the weirdest thing is they never have anything to do with my dreams - so where do they come from?!

Dreams
My dreams are a blog entry in themselves.  I dream every single night and can usually remember at least 1-3 dreams/night. Last night I had a dream about the Christmas Bird Count I'm participating in on Sunday, which starts at 5:45 a.m. on Sunday morning.  In my dream, I was about 15 minutes late getting there, and I saw my group packing up and getting into their cars.  I asked for an update and they reported "you're too late.  we've already seen every Ontario bird and recorded them, even though it's still dark out.  we're going home now." I was devestated. This is just an "off the top of my head" example.  I have dreamt about everything, everyone, in every scenario you can imagine.  I realize that sounds dirty - no worries, go there.. I've been there (you've probably been there with me!! HA!). But it's mainly the VIVIDITY of my dreams that disturbs me.  I often wake up convinced that these ridiculous soap operas I write in my head in my sleep are true and many of my friends and family have woken up to me inquiring about whether they were a) mad at me b) still alive c) ok or whether their a) horses had been stolen b) father had died c) fill in any blank here, I've done it.  I've been mad at Jeff for entire days about things he's done to me in my dreams, including a super weird stretch after we got engaged in which he left me for about a million different reasons (they completely stopped after we got married - weeeird!!). In high school I ended a relationship over a realization I made in a dream - I KNOW HOW CRAZY THAT SOUNDS!  The weirdest thing in the past few years, though, has been my dreams coming true (honestly, read on, I'm not bs-ing).  It started with an old coworker who wore a hat to the office every single day for the 8-9 months I'd known him.  I had a dream about him and in the dream he was sitting in his office, we were talking about his upcoming wedding, and he wasn't wearing a hat. The next morning, I was telling this dream to another coworker when the hat-wearer walked into the office.  I stared, openmouthed at him, as I watched him walk past ("uhh.. morning, Kristyn..") because he WASN'T WEARING A HAT.  What the eff?  Then, just last week I had a dream that I was arguing about the merit of cheesy wedding songs and how the Macarena wasn't a good one, and I thought it should be succeeded by Mambo #5 (an old favourite of mine from high school that I haven't heard in probably a year).  I woke up before my alarm that morning, turned on the radio as I got up, was brushing my teeth and the next song that came on was Mambo #5.  Now, if only I could dream the winning lottery numbers...

Sleep Arranging
I become extremely determined about certain things in my sleep and set to work.  In grade 12, while half asleep (I have vague memories of feeling quite set about my task) I made myself a nice bed of blankets on the floor, turned my shirt around backwards, put on some jeans (didn't zip them up) and went to sleep on the floor.  I woke up that morning in utter confusion.  When I was away on my first road trip for my current job, perhaps buoyed up by the excitement of travelling (ha 2009 Kristyn.. ha), I woke up in my hotel room the morning I was leaving to find my toiletries neatly rearranged on the floor beside the bed, moved carefully off the nightstand by, I presume, me.  In my last house I have blurry memories of being convinced that Pam and James were coming to sleep over and I had to turn down the covers on the bed in the guest room, NOW!  I did a double take when I passed the guest room the next day, then could just slightly remember my fervent hospitality from the middle of the previous night.

Hallucinating
Ah, my favourite.  I'm not as bad as my friend James who has seen pretty much every piece of spy equipment in his bedroom (through the mirror, sneaking through the vents) and hallucinated his cats into interesting scenarios, BUT I've done my share of hallucinating.  The time I could SEE moths fluttering against a motel window, even after I woke up - only to blink a few times, have them disappear and hear pattering rain outside which sounded like fluttering wings.  The time I looked down and SAW an acquaintance of mine sleeping on the floor of my bedroom in my old apartment, and, I sleeping in the buff, found this arrangement highly inappropriate.  I tore a blanket off the bed to cover myself, ran out of the room in a panic and found myself frantically panting in the living room, realizing there was no one in my room.  Jeff caught me a few months back pawing at the air below the ceiling fan, trying to turn on the light (there are no strings, it's controlled by a remote) and that damn fan has been so many things on so many nights, most recently helicopter blades a la PTSD Owen in Grey's Anatomy.  Terrifying.  Hallucinations are NOT fun!, but do make for extreme hilarity.

Is it any wonder I need 8-9 hours of sleep a night considering how much I have GOING ON every night?!

I'll leave it at that for now, hopefully having left you more grateful for your peaceful nights and easy breezy sleeps... next time you wake up after a restful 8 hours, think of me.. huddled in the corner..  swatting away moths.. and throwin' on some jeans...