On Sleepwalking

Ever since I was a kid, I have always had wild dreams and done interesting things in my sleep. I have early memories of waking up in different parts of the house or being awoken, standing in front of family members. The move from Boston to small town Iowa was a big adjustment and it was the height of my sleepwalking. Having lived in a fraternity, it was, well, embarrassing waking up in other’s beds. On one situation, a friend “woke me up” as I was walking. I had walked down 3 flights of stairs. Most of my sleepwalking these days is more subtle. For example, I’ll have a dream that someone is visiting me and I’ll tidy up a few things… in my sleep. Good recent example: I dreamt that Chris got kicked out of his house and for a night needed to crash at my place. Not wanted to settle for the couch, he opted to sleep apart from me, on the other side of my bed. Apparently, he needed a pillow. Although my pillow was downstairs, I walked to the linen closet, got a new, fresh pillow case and went back to bed. In the morning the pillow case was there. I would say these things happen twice a month, on average. GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN My most interesting sleep walking experienced happened in January of this year when my team at work, collectively went to Green Bay, Wisconsin to visit AC Nielsen's corporate offices. We were all staying at the hotel with the casino, across from the airport. On the second night, we all kind of did our own thing. We are 16 people. Some went to the bar, some the casino, some to their beds. I was real tired and opted for bed. I was soon asleep and I was dreaming away. I’m not 100% sure the content of the dream, but it was very vivid. In my dream, I was in the hotel and I needed to get up for some reason, having heard some voices outside the door. I opened the door to the hotel room and looked outside. Mike was there and I started yelling obscenities at him. Mean, bitter words. I closed the door and went back to bed. The next morning, I woke up and had a vague recollection of what had happened. I was embarrassed. Especially because what I remembered was that I had cussed out Mike. Now, Mike can say his version of the story a lot better than me. His version always gets a lot of laughs. According to Mike, he and Eric were walking from the casino bask to their rooms. They were talking and all of a sudden, they heard someone messing with the lock in their room and yelling something inaudible. The door crashed inward and I stepped out into the corridor, in my boxers. Apparently, I started ranting on about missing the bus. I was talking in huge rush. I then, abruptly, ducked back into my room and shut the door and locked it. Mike mentioned afterwards that it was “quite possibly the most random thing that had ever happened to him in his life.” When I arrived at breakfast the next morning, everyone starred at me. I had thought it was because I had bitched out Mike. No, Mike had recounted his story to the group. “It’s just a good thing that I were wearing my bottoms,” I said timidly. This story became infamous and made for an interesting impression, an interesting way to begin in my new group.