This weekend I sleepwalked into a shower. The first awareness I had was thinking I shouldn’t just stand in the shower wasting water like this, but I was sooooo tired. I had a lot of trouble figuring out whether I’d already washed my hair or not. While drying off, I saw the clock and gradually figured out what the major issue was.
When I was a pre-teen, I used to take all the sheets and blankets off my bed, carry them somewhere else in the dark house (living room, kitchen), come back to my room, and wake up. THAT was discouraging. These days I’m more likely to wake up in the living room, or wearing different pajamas. As I get older, it’s giving me an unpleasant glimpse of what senility might be like: How did I get here? What happened? Did I do anything…ELSE?
William (who sometimes sleepwalks and often sleeptalks) says he read it was due to insufficient melatonin, so I took a melatonin last night, but it just gave me a very vivid dream in which an encounter with a man was getting increasingly dangerous. Sleepwalking can be caused by stress/anxiety, so I’m blaming it on my poor decision to read just a FEW comments on an article about a rape report. I only read FOUR comments! How could such a small sample make me want to give up on all humankind? I know what will fix it: taking a shower in the middle of the night.
I can’t read the comments on news stories. Nine years working with victims of sexual violence means I don’t have to be reminded how truly terrible people are. I know.
Sigh. Much love to you and your daughter from me and mine.
I mean, I seriously can’t read the comments. I have to be careful what I put in my eyeholes and my earholes, I always say, especially as I get older and especially as I have so much freaking exposure to people, to all kinds. I really love looking at videos of military parents coming home to surprise their children as a fixer. I used to always get in the stupid shower when I had to get up early the next day, like to travel. It was super annoying because there I’d be at 2:30 in the morning or whatever, soaking wet and awake and having to get up for real in like two hours. Now it only happens when I set my alarm, which I rarely do because it stresses me out so much. I make my husband do it, it doesn’t bother him as much.
OMG, my brother used to sleepwalk into the shower when he was in high school! Craziest thing. I’ve never heard of anyone else doing that! It seems so inconvenient – like, you can’t just immediately go back to sleep; you have to dry off and get re-dressed and so forth. The brain/subconscious is so mysterious.
I used to sleepwalk and wake up to find myself cleaning. It was always stress related, especially if I was worried about being able to get everything done for a particular day or event. I have, more than one, woken someone else up and made them start preparing for the day at some totally unreasonable hour of the night. This makes one very popular.
There aren’t many websites where I intentionally read comments. But I’m so glad this space is one of them – Team Swistle for all the best comments and extra fun stories!
It IS a good comments section, isn’t it! I notice that, too—and am so grateful I can read my own comments section!
I adore your comments section!
You are so right! Most of the comment sections on the internet make me want to get off this planet, quickly. Well done, Swistle!!
I’ve taken melatonin occasionally for many years, and I found the best success with just plain melatonin (the sublingual kind) from GNC. I tried a few brands that had additional herbs or something that were supposed to help me sleep and instead they gave me SUPER vivid and terrible dreams, so maybe you just need a different brand next time ;)
Yes, this is one of the places on the internet where the comments are genuinely good, and I look forward to reading them.
Also, I found that I went through a sleepwalking phase when drinking strong red wines. That was a bummer. I never actually did anything productive though. Once I woke up in the shower (I had not turned the water on) trying to file mail in PO boxes. Another time I woke up sitting on the throw rug in our guest room, pretending to fly a magic carpet. Guess who woke me up? Our guest, my MIL.
I don’t drink Shiraz any more. Waaaa.
This is probably the best family story I’ve heard in a long time.
phancymama, I know that your flying carpet story was probably anything but funny at the time, but you tell it hilariously. Hear, hear to the good content of this comment section.
I’m definitely a sleep-talker, and I know that I’ve sleepwalked at least once, because it was at a group sleepover at a museum. I never woke up during it, and one of the adult chaperones was able to convince me to go back to bed (and not keep searching for my friend at the “disco” they’d set up that night). None of the other kids saw me, but she shared the story with the group the next morning because it was “just too good.”
I’ve encountered my brother sleepwalking on a few occasions when we’re back visiting home, and he also doesn’t wake up (but can be convinced back to bed). So every so often I have a meta-level version of the worries Swistle described above: did I do anything while I was asleep, and how often might I be doing it?
This happened to me a few times in high school, during a particularly tumultuous time in our family. I wore a uniform to school and often didn’t think to wash them; it was always the night before I needed a clean uniform (I also went to an all-girls school, so we can say my general hygiene was more questionable than it would’ve been otherwise). More than once I went to the laundry room in the middle of the night to retrieve my uniform and yell at my mom to wake up because we were going to be late. I doubt she found it at all amusing.
I am SO GLAD to know I’m not the only one so profoundly affected by reading comment sections! I did a whole bunch of reading horrible comments recently and practically came unhinged. I thought I might end up needing psychiatric help to pull me out of the deep funk I fell into. Over COMMENTS. Jeez.
Sleepwalking sounds slightly terrifying.
I’ve only sleepwalked once that I know of, nothing exciting, I just got up to talk to my husband after taking a dose of Nyquil. It took him a bit of time to realize that I really was not awake and convince me to go back to bed. No more Nyquil for me! I do talk in my sleep a lot, especially when stressed. When I was a young adult I had a job working for an answering service and spent the first few weeks working there reciting telephone numbers in my sleep all night long. Just ask my stepsister, my roommate, how much fun that was!
I have to say that I adore your comment section (and your blog in general), people are just so nice and helpful and all together wonderful. Kind of like the author of this here blog. :)
My niece tries to leave the house while sleepwalking. My SIL has to have extra complicated locks to keep her from wandering outside in the middle of the night.
A coworker took a weekend trip with friends and woke up to find the female half of the other couple curled up next to her, using her bottom to push her husband off the bed and the water running in the bathroom sink.
My husband talks in his sleep. Those are some of the most hilarious conversations I’ve ever had. Once I realize he’s asleep and not just being an idiot.
Swistle commenters are some of the nicest I’ve encountered, practically the direct opposite of what I find on MSN articles.
Had to come back and comment on the Scary Mommy article MSN posted. I made the mistake of reading the comments, clearly from deluded people with no sense of humor. The response to saying how sucky it could be trying to dress and clean up after kids was a lot of “I feel sorry for your kids” and “if you hate being a mom, you shouldn’t have had kids” and “well, *I* think children are a joy and you are hateful” stuff. Because clearly their kids’ poop smelled like roses and they enjoy getting head-butted by a toddler who doesn’t want to get into a car seat….
I thought of Swistle. “I acknowledge my luckiness, without giving up my claim to the suckiness.” God bless the people who get it.
I used to sleep walk but thankfully it has been about 12 years…the last time I did it I was visiting my friend’s family home during spring break in university. Apparently…I walked into her parents room and asked her mom to tell her dad to STOP SNORING!!! I almost died of embarrassment the next day when I heard the story as I had no recollection.
Once when I was a kid, my mom woke up to my dad stuck behind the bedroom door calling to me. She could hear me calling back to him and I was also stuck fumbling in the corner of my room! This is one of the few comment sections that isn’t filled with stuff that just makes me feel worse. I’m actually here this morning specifically after reading the news. Thank you.
NEVER READ THE COMMENTS.
(here is ok, and there are maybe two other websites/blogs on the whole internet. everywhere else you just want to give up).
Sending hugs. I used to wake up at 0300, convinced it was 0800 and panicking that I was late, so I’d jump in a shower and then go back to get dressed, and take another look at the clock.
Gah.
I used to do that a lot in high school. Get up, start getting ready, realize at some point that the house was very quiet and dark and OOOOHHH NOOOO it’s 3:15 in the morning. It’s been a long time though, I must have worked out my melatonin situation.
And thumbs up for a comments section that doesn’t give me nausea, yeah!
What did you wind up making for Thanksgiving? And happy Thanksgiving to the Swistle family!