I have never been blackout drunk, but I have a history of sleepwalking which is probably the next best thing. (The next worse thing?) Both involve doing weird shit that you have absolutely no memory of. You’re completely dependent on others to let you know what happened. And when there are no witnesses, you have to deduce what happened Sherlock-Holmes style by the clues around you.
For all I know, I might not sleepwalk at all and this is a lifelong prank my friends and family have pulled on me. Pssst! Tell Jennette she sleepwalked last night. It’ll be hilarious! I’ve lived alone for a total of 6 years of my life, so I could be sleepwalking every night and not know it. That cats aren’t talking, anyway. As best as I can tell, it’s fairly infrequent, but it does still happen. These are the five incidents I know of.
Age 7: My mother asks me if I remember coming downstairs the night before and trying to pee in the hallway because I thought it was the bathroom. I definitely do not remember this, and even if I did I probably wouldn’t fess up to it.
Age 9: I sleepwalk around the ground floor of our house one night and try to get out the back door, but my family stops me. This freaks my mother out because the door leads to our backyard which leads to a small hill which leads to a creek, which she would very much never like to find me dead in one morning. Door: Deadbolted. Me: Do not have the key.
Age 15: I wake up on the downstairs couch although I am absolutely certain I fell asleep in my bed upstairs. Also, my shirt is off, which is kind of freaky, but I have no history of sexual abuse so I must have taken it off myself. At least I didn’t pee in the hallway this time! This experience in particular gives me great sympathy for rape victims who wake up in a weird place after being roofied. I, fortunately, have never been assaulted. I just woke up in my own house without my shirt on, but that experience was disturbing enough on its own. I can’t imagine how horrible it would be to wake up naked on someone’s lawn and have no idea what had happened.
Age 18: In the dorm one night I sit up in bed and have an incoherent conversation with my roommate and then lie back down again. She didn’t room with me the next year, but I don’t think this is the reason why.
Age 32: I wake up and see my full-length mirror leaning against the bookcase instead of hanging on the wall several feet away. This happened last month and freaked me the fuck out. (Yes, the f-word is definitely necessary here.) The previous month I had temporarily put the mirror in the same place because contractors were replacing the heating unit on the adjacent wall and I didn’t want it to fall and break. However, I put it back afterwards and had no reason to move it since then. I temporarily entertained the idea that someone had broken into my apartment, moved the mirror, and then left as some sort of bizarre prank. But the sleepwalking thing seems more likely, even though I haven’t had an incident reported by a second party for many, many years.
Those are the five incidents I’m aware of. God only knows how many times I’ve actually sleepwalked, or if I’ve forgotten other incidents people have told me about. It’s disturbing when there are no witnesses to explain what happened to you. Otherwise, it’s just a funny story someone is telling at your expense.
It’s also unsettling to know what my body is capable of doing without me knowing about it. I like to think I am in control. But what is the “I” that I’m talking about when I say? It’s that consciousness and sense of self I have when I’m awake. It’s that awareness that vanishes into no place when I fall asleep and then appears magically again in the morning at a moment I can’t quite pinpoint. I never notice that exact moment when I turn off, like if I were to look too closely at it the awareness would startle me awake again.
Whatever consciousness is, I evidently don’t need it for my body to go on a joyride without me. It’s too bad I don’t do something more useful in my sleep, like run three miles on the treadmill or vacuum my car or scrub mildew out of the tub. Those are experiences I wouldn’t mind being unconscious for. It would make me such a lovely house guest too. I don’t snore and I’ll do your laundry while we sleep! I’m also disappointed that I’ve never seen someone else sleepwalk. All I’ve seen are news stories with night-vision video from sleep disorder centers, or movies and TV shows that depict people walking with their eyes closed and their arms straight out, which sleepwalkers don’t do unless they’re dreaming about zombies. That said, I would NEVER want to see video of myself sleepwalking. It would be too embarrassing.
Even though I don’t sleepwalk that much, it’s a weird to know that I could one day wake up in my pajamas by the mailbox with a half-eaten electric bill in my mouth. It is a possibility! If I sleep, I could sleepwalk. If I don’t sleep, I will eventually go crazy and die. On the bright side, some people have it far worse than me, like the guy who tried to strangle his wife in his sleep, or the comedian Mike Birbiglia who once jumped through a second story window while sleepwalking and could have died from his injuries. Instead he turned it into a stand-up routine, off-Broadway play, and indie movie, so maybe it wasn’t so bad for him after all. I have no plans for that myself, so don’t hold your breath for my sleepwalking memoir, unless I happen to write it in my sleep.
Natalie says
April 5, 2013 at 7:58 amMy younger cousin used to talk in her sleep (maybe she still does). She never made any sense though, or made appropriate responses to what other people said. Presumably she was making appropriate responses to what the people in her dreams were saying. And they all must have spoken some kind of gibberish.
Sleepwalking would be much scarier.
You’re not allowed to wake up sleep-walkers because they will suddenly drop dead, right?
Nora jones says
April 5, 2013 at 8:03 amI sleepwalk… Or so I am told. I actually did a sleep study once, but it told me nothing useful. Too bad we CAN’T train ourselves to do chores at night… I’d enjoy that.
Astrid says
April 6, 2013 at 8:29 amMy older brother used to sleep walk as a child. The most terrifying incident happened when he was six or seven and tried to climb out the open window in the middle of the night. He and my sisters slept on the third floor. Luckily, the eldest woke up from the noise he was making and was able to stop him from hurting or killing himself, but they kept the windows bolted even in the summer after that until they moved to a house with screens in the windows.
He’s never really had any sleep walking incidents since childhood, though, as far as I know. Not that he would remember or anything.
maggie says
April 6, 2013 at 9:03 am*Love* the idea of sleep-houseworking! You’d definitely be the best guest ever.
My sister used to sleepwalk… was found at age 11 on the front porch, having eaten half of a giant bowl of potato salad my mother had made for a group picnic the next day.
I’ve often wondered if sleepwalkers could be re-trained using the “lucid dreaming” techniques I’ve read so much about. (it’s worth googling.) Maybe that would be the path to sleep-houseworking.
Zandria says
April 6, 2013 at 5:23 pmI used to sleepwalk as a kid, and as recently as a few years ago I woke up a few mornings (in a pretty short period of time) and something I knew I had left in one place was somewhere else. Luckily it hasn’t happened in a while (at least that I know of!).
Karen says
April 7, 2013 at 6:10 amI have been going through this myself! I heard a story on NPR that said that most sleep-walking occurs in children, BUT if you have a history of sleep-walking as a child you MAY sleep-walk as an adult. One or all of 3 factors tend to bring it on… chronic sleep deprivation (I tend to sleep 4-5 hours a night, and not in a row); stress (I have a year-old job that involves working in a different location, different hours every day); and drinking (I tend to drink several glasses of wine in the evening).
It’s only happened twice. The scariest was when I woke up and realized that I had cut (used a knife!) a piece of a large sandwich from the fridge and put it on an upturned pot lid (thought it was a plate?), smashed and peeled several garlic cloves, and poured a glass of wine that I left on the coffee table.
The sandwich was uneaten, wine undrunk, don’t know wth with the garlic. I live alone so no witnesses. I woke up in my bed and just discovered the evidence in the morning. Yes, it freaks me the fuck out! Especially the knife.
Karen says
April 7, 2013 at 6:12 amJust wanted to add to my comment above that I, too, have a witness-verified history of sleep-walking as a child. On several occasions I would walk down the hall to my sister’s room for incoherent conversation, and once I even made it downstairs.
Merry says
April 7, 2013 at 1:37 pmI wonder what would happen if you took Ambien? Would it exacerbate the problem or counter-act it?
Personally, I would feel quite miffed if I woke up somewhere else and knew that my body had been off partying while I was asleep. I’m glad the cats haven’t learned how to operate a webcam.
Jaime says
April 10, 2013 at 12:30 pmi dont usually sleep walk (but i have) but i will have full converstations with my husband while sleeping. this is what i call Connie (for sub conscious), connie doesnt like my husband and calls him a stupid cat or tells him not to get on the bed cause you are taking up all of my warm air (just happened the other night). sometimes she is nice. i asked my husband a while back to ignore whatever im saying in my sleep cause i wake up so tired when she is active.
Rosemary says
April 13, 2013 at 9:25 pmI think sleepwalking is way worse than getting drunk (although the comparison made me smile). At least with getting drunk you have some control over when, where and with whom …!
Carm says
April 22, 2013 at 3:25 amI am a fellow sleepwalker. And Jen I so get that freaked out feeling when you discover you’ve been doing things in the middle of the night that you don’t remember doing and don’t believe you would normally do. Like you, my remembered sleepwalking incidents are about a handful. And I only have one really memorable incident from adulthood (not counting sleep talking which I do all the time).
When my husband and I got married we got a few books from a pastor as part of our premarital counseling. I am not the greatest housekeeper and I left the books in a stack on my nightstand for a decade or so. They had become invisible to me, covered with dust. Until one morning I woke and they had been moved!! They were all in a different position and it completely freaked me out. I knew that there was no way I would have touched those books. They hadn’t even been in my consciousness for years. I checked the apartment door lock and it was still secure. No one had broken in and rearranged my books. Nothing was missing. My husband is legally blind and there was no reason for him to have been on my side of the bed much less rearranging anything. It was really spooky.
In fact, it made me wonder if this is how people with multiple personality disorder felt. It was like a stranger was living in my space and touching my things. And the stranger was me! I knew it was just sleepwalking, but for a moment I wondered if I had some terrible disorder like the woman in “The Three Faces of Eve.”
Not to worry, though. It seems to me that as you get older the instances of full-on sleepwalking diminish. It’s still possible, but unlikely as we get older. Instead, it wouldn’t surprise me if you talk in your sleep as most of us do who also sleepwalk. My husband tells me all kinds of strange stories about the things I say in my sleep. The incident I described above happened about 10 years ago and I haven’t had an incident since. I was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea and the apap machine treatment has really helped my sleep. It wouldn’t surprise me if it helps to prevent sleepwalking too as my sleep is just of better quality.
Wishing you happy, healthy sleep.
Rebecca says
April 28, 2013 at 6:30 pmSleepwalking freaks me out too. 😉 My sister used to sleepwalk, my mom would find her wandering in circles at random times. She never did anything dangerous, though!
I also had a childhood friend who had sleep terrors. She always warned anyone who had a sleepover with her, just in case she started screaming and thrashing in her sleep. I never witnessed it, but it was certainly unsettling to consider–especially when you’re 10!