Adventures in Dreamland

When I was a little kid I was constantly falling asleep in one spot and waking up in another, or having incoherent conversations in my sleep. Often times it would be something simple, like I’d walk into my parents room, mumble something that made absolutely no sense, and get sent back to bed. Well, as I got older I continued this trend. When I was about 9 or 10 years old, we went on a family vacation out to CA. In the middle of the night I got up out of my bed, opened our hotel room door, let it shut behind me, then immediately turned around and started knocking on it. (This was one of those hotels where the doors open up directly to the street, not a hallway) I must’ve scared my mom half to death when she woke up to a knock on the door and her little girl wasn’t in her bed. Good times, huh mom? Even in college, I still did this kind of stuff. I remember my freshmen year, I actually climbed into bed with one of my roommates. We had only known each other for a couple weeks, so needless to say it was pretty freaky for her. Good thing she thought it was funny, otherwise I may have been turned into the Honor Code Office for that one…

One night last week Jared & I were watching TV in our room before bed. I fell asleep before Jared, so when he was ready for bed he turned the TV off and started to cuddle with me. All of my muscles stiffened and I said “STOP IT” very emphatically, but almost a whisper and through really pursed lips like I didn’t want anyone to hear (ya know, like how a mom talks to her unruly toddler in a public place where she doesn’t want to yell but wants to get her point across?).

“What? What’s wrong?” Jared said, while not letting go. He said my elbow was really close to his face and I sounded so serious that he was afraid he was gonna get an elbow to the mouth. But apparently I had his arm clamped in my armpit so he couldn’t move any farther away.

Finally I said, sounding very serious and hardly moving my lips, “STOP IT I SAID, MY MOM IS R.I.G.H.T. T.H.E.R.E.” Hmmm…..

Then just last night we had another ‘episode’. Around 1:30 am, Jared went to the bathroom and when he came back into the room I was gone. He saw one of the front room lights turn on, so he went out there. I was standing by the front door.

“What are you doing out here?”

“I thought I heard something.” I was standing there in a T-shirt holding a towel around my waist.

“OK…why do you have a towel around your waist?”

“Cause I’m in my undies”

“Uh, yeah, so?”

“Well I didn’t want anyone to see me.”

After I was satisfied that I didn’t actually hear anything, he got me to go back into the room. He started to cuddle with me again (recurring sleep talking theme, maybe?) and I said, “Don’t!”

“What’s wrong?”

Sounding frustrated, I said “It’s like the McDonald’s analogy…You wouldn’t hug your hot french fries would you?!?!”