There’s a website out there, where wild websites roam, that reports on the wacky things a man supposedly says in his sleep every night. The guy’s wife records the comedy, we’re told, and posts his best nocturnal pearls of wisdom to the internet every day.
And excuse me for being skeptical… but I don’t believe a word of it. The needle on my boolshit meter is dancing around like crazy. I suspect they’re attempting to create another ShitMyDadSays, which is also a dubious exercise, in my opinion. But at least that one’s funny…
In any case, it got me to thinking about the weird stuff that happens while we’re sleeping. Sleep is creepy, of course, but it sometimes gets even creepier — because of the tricks some of us perform while in a dormant state. Shit!
I don’t believe I talk in my sleep; nobody’s ever complained about it, anyway. And I certainly don’t sleepwalk. I’ve only seen that happen on TV shows, and the person is always wearing pajamas, and stumbling around with their arms stretched out in front of them.
I’m much too cool for such shenanigans, thank you very much.
Do any males between the ages of, say, 9 and 85 wear pajamas at this point? Somehow I doubt it. The idea of putting on a full set of clothes before going to bed, featuring a collared button-up shirt with a pocket on the front, makes me laugh. What’s the pocket for? To store an emergency sack of Combos, or something?
No, I’m strictly an underwear and t-shirt kinda guy. It’s the least I can wear, and still feel at-ease. I simply cannot endorse free-range genitalia while unconscious. Anything could go wrong. Ya know?
And I’d like to think I’d never walk around the house with my arms outstretched, like some kind of foo’. So, sleepwalking is out, on principle.
I guess the closest I come to funny sleeping tricks is snoring. Everybody says I snore, including the neighbors and pilots of passing aircraft. So, apparently it’s true? I’ve never heard myself snore, and used to doubt it, but there seems to be an awful lot of evidence to the contrary.
Toney’s even gone so far as to suggest I visit one of those sleep clinics, where they hook all kinds of diodes to your body, and videotape you thrashing around in the bedclothes from above. You can probably guess my answer to that one. Ha!
Everybody I’ve ever known who’s gone to one of those places is now required to wear a full World War I gas mask to bed, or something very similar. I don’t think so. Jeff Kay does not strap apparatus to his head, before turning in for the night.
So, except for the snoring, I’m a fairly boring sleeper, I believe. When I was young I did have a couple of disturbing dreams that I still remember, 35 years (or so) later. And they’re probably the most remarkable sleep stories I can offer.
The first was a vivid nightmare in which both my parents were killed in a nightclub fire in South America, possibly Brazil. The setting is laughable, of course. My parents have rarely set foot outside the southeastern United States, and aren’t really the nightclub types, either. But the dream was so real I remember many details from it, even today. Scary.
Another happened on more than one occasion, and was also terrifying. I was still asleep (I guess) but dreamed I’d just snapped awake — completely paralyzed. I laid there trying to move my body, and couldn’t. And I’d try to scream for my parents, but couldn’t do that, either.
Then I’d wake up for real, my heart hammering in my chest. This probably happened to me five or six times, all prior to fifth grade, when we moved to a different house. Have you ever had this dream? I’m not a fan.
Do you perform funny tricks in your sleep? What about people you know, or have known? Do you know someone who sleepwalks, for instance, or talks in their sleep? Did you have a dream or nightmare decades ago, that still affects you today? Have you ever visited a sleep clinic?
If you have anything on any of these subjects, or even if you don’t, please use the comments link below.
And I’ll see you guys tomorrow.
Have a great day, my friends!
Shit yeah!
Good Afternoon Surf Reporters……..
TOP 5!!! GO COLTS!!!!!
Top five, too! Woot!
top 5??
have never known a sleep walker. I talk in my sleep and always have. My daughter has vivid violent fights with her sister in her sleep you can hear her from across the house screaming her sisters name. it is pretty alarming. especially if you knew the older sister.
GO COLTS!!!
Jeff,
The second one was not a dream, it really happened. It is something called sleep paralysis.
I suffer from this, it really comes out if I am super tired or I am on painkillers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
When I am trying to scream because I can’t move I can make gurgle noises in my throat that wakes my wife up. Then she can usually get me to wake up. Usually. Sometimes I just have to wait it out for a few minutes.
Makes sleep even creepier.
My freshman year roommate in college claims I spoke a lot of German in my sleep, funny, since I sucked at it in class.
I know I snore, because sometimes I wake myself up with my own snoring. I don’t do any wierd stuff once I’m in bed. Once I go to bed, I’m down until morning. Sleepware is always the same: the daily underware, shorts only.
ah Qweezy Mark, I thought I had ya’. Oh well.
I too am a supposed snorer, but it’s never been documented. It’s all hearsay and vicious rumors, unsubstantiated gossip if you as me. Of course, my wife will disagree.
She snores too. Not as loud as me *ahem*. She does talk in her sleep, although it’s so faint I’ve never really been able to make anything intelligible. It’s basically all mutterings and murmurings.
I can’t say I perform any neat tricks. I’m a pretty sound sleeper, so once I drift off I usually stay in the same position. Not much on tossing and turning.
One thing that happened recently though. I came home from work and took a nap. I woke up and saw the clock reading 9:30. Shit ! I was late for work! I busted ass to get ready then it dawned on me. If it was 9:30 in the morning, why was it still dark outside? Yea, that’s right. This dumbass was getting ready for work, at night, 12 hours early.
I have, in the past, been jolted awake by an inhale so dramatic that I thought my torso would colapse on itself. Not sure what the hell that’s all about but it takes a good 10 seconds for me to actually be able to exhale to to get another breath in. It’s almost like drowning. Maybe I should see a doctor?
Nothing really unuasual in my sleep, except occasionally snoring when I’m really tired, and the usual thrashing around trying to get comfortable.
My youngest daughter sings, and also carries on arguements with her older sister while she sleeps.
My son (now 25) is a sleepwalker until he reached his late teens. We had to put locks way up high on our outside doors. He would just wander around the house late at night. We could always tell he was asleep because he would be constantly scratching his butt?? We’d just tell him to go back to bed and he usually would. He tells me now he wakes up on the couch when he fell asleep in bed or visa versa with no memory of moving.
Ron, what you experienced is sleep apnea. Guess it can kill you… My hubby has it. I just pound on his chest when he hasn’t inhaled for awhile…. after I”m asleep he’s on his own.
I throw punches in my sleep sometimes, or at least thrash my arms out and hit the venetian blind in the window near the bed. I am usually in the middle of a dream about fighting (or being attacked by monkeys) when this occurs. Not sure whether the dreams cause the punching, or vice versa.
In my early 20’s I lived with two roomates. After moving in I was told that I needed to always lock the front door if I was the last one home, since one of them was a sleep walker. I didn’t believe him until one night watching TV he came down the hall way and tried to get out in his underwear!! Freaky shit–turned him around and told him to go back to bed–which he did with no recall of the event in the morning.
I only snore when I try to sleep on my back. I’m usually a tummy sleeper.
Back during a short time when I was drinking heavily I would wake up from someone yelling my name right in my ear but I was all alone. Happened many times. Frikkin weird.
The Qweezy Mark, gettin’ it done on MLK Day. First at last….
I’ve been to a sleep clinic, hooked up to all that crap. And yep, diagnosed with sleep apnea and now have to use a CPAP (the WW1 gas mask you speak of). I’ve been using it for 4 years, so I’m used to it now, but I absolutely hated it for the first few months.
I had a dream when I was a kid that a burglar broke into our house and killed my whole family while I hid in the closet. It was a horrible nightmare. When I woke up, I had to go check and make sure everyone was still alive. Thirty-five years later, and I still remember that dream.
Ive had quite a few experiences with sleep paralysis and they are terrifying. When it happens, I have to get out of bed and walk around or something before trying to fall back asleep or they just keep coming back. Ive also woken myself up with a loud snore a few times.
Off topic: A few days ago there was a link under Daily Essentials that was a sort of blog about “If I get murdered” or something like it. I spent a fair bit of time reading it and have been trying to find it since. Does anyone know it? It was pretty damn funny.
1) Someone who does something crazy in their sleep: My mom… she goes on in Spanish in her sleep… rambling on like she’s a female Ricky Ricardo. Oh, and she’s as WASPY as can be – read: has no latin in her AT ALL!
2) I have had the same dream about paralysis and being mute at roughly the same age. I also have had the go to school naked dream… only I wasn’t embarrassed or anything. I also had the dream where kidnappers were chasing me and just as I got inside the house, slammed and locked the door, I find my mother with her hands upon her hips saying “You must have done something to deserve this” as she opened the door and pushed me out to the kidnappers.
3) Finally… the worst dream I ever had was when I was roughly 5 years old… and it came back a few times. For some reason I was off at camp or something and Jason (from Friday the 13th) finds me and shoves my head in a copy machine and copied my face to death. I looked a little more dead in every copy until I actually was dead. Who the hell knows.
Also, I recently watched a documentary on rare sexual disorders and they had some girl who got preggers by her Ex-Boyfriend while she was asleep because she had sexsomnia… where you get freaky in your sleep. He knew she had the disorder and would show up at her house in the middle of the night when he was feeling “the urge” and she would open the door in her sleep and go to town. Then he’d just leave and she would never know about it… till she ended up pregnant.
I sleep fully clothed, really nice jammies… so I don’t scare off any nocturnal suiters….
My oldest son was a sleep walker when he was a kid. If he is still doing it now his wife is keeping mum. He would look like he was absolutely awake – eyes open and every thing. One one occasion he came and told me all about the dinosaurs in the backyard. On another occasion he got up to whiz and went straight for the kitchen trash can.
I usually drop off immediately and sleep like a log all night without snoring no matter what anyone says. Once when I was a teen on my first job I woke up in the middle of the night sitting up in bed trying to work my cash register. I remember being frustrated at trying to do it in the dark. Another time I was a on such a strict diet – tyring to catch me a fella – that I dreamed I ate a whole chocolate cake. The dream was so real that I woke up in a panic that I had packed on the pounds over night. I had to reassure myself it was all a dream and that we really didn’t even have chocolate cake in the house. But other than that, I fall right asleep and stay that way until time to curse the alarm.
I have had some nasty nightmares tho – some really bad falling dreams – the kind that can kill you if you hit bottom. That really isn’t true, by the way, as I did hit bottom once. If I died, I slept through it.
If you want a funny (and real) take on sleep disorders, I recommend Mike Birbiglia’s performance on episode 381 of This American Life (a podcast) (link here: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=1255 ). He’s a stand up comedian, but he (used to?) suffer from a serious sleep disorder.
Regarding your second frightening dream, that’s sleep paralysis (as someone above mentioned). The night I found out about it from my friends, I stayed awake out of absolute fear of it happening to me.
Ugh, sorry, I forgot to mention that his bit starts at around 7:30 of the podcast.
I am a documented snorer (and have woken myself up from time to time). I have also had the sleep paralysis (or out of body experiences – while in college, but they stopped shortly thereafter).
Also, several weeks before the Evil Twin and I got married, I would get up and walk around in my sleep. I attribute that to nerves.
No sleeping weirdness herem. I sleep like a baby.. Except nekkid. I can’t sleep a wink with anything on – I get all wound up in jammies.
I dated a guy in college that tossed and turned like a crazy man. He’d start mumbling and thrashing around. Scared the shit out of me first time I spent the night with him. You weirdo sleepers should really come with a warning label of some sort!
I read the sleepig guy blog the other day and nearly fell off my chair. It’s true, every word of it. How do i know? because I do the same damn thing in my sleep.
Several months ago I was talking about some nefarious plot involving Ethel Merman, caning jars, overhead luggage and sheep.
Don’t ask me, ask my subconscious.
Last week my Fiance told me i was crying out “help me, help me” over and over, and when she asked me what was wrong, I informed her a rattlesnake had bitten my feet off and hat thrown them into the middle of a busy highway.
There was another time I told her not to trust clothes dryers because they tend to be vindictive bastards.
Of course not all is sweet/funny/weird a few weeks before christmas she was in a snit for a few days, when I finally got an answer out of her it was because I had apparently been a complete bastard to her and told her some really prickish things in my sleep.
Try apologising to someone for something you have NO MEMORY of ever saying…
There is also just plain funny stuff, like not letting her in bed untill she killed all the bubblebees in my dream. She wound up clapping her hands together and saying “got one” while i counted em off till they were all dead.
yes, I was dead asleep, and have no memory of it. She informed me there were 8 bees altogether…
So, yeah, believe the sleeping guy, it truly sounds like the rantings of someone’s unconscious.
When I was elementary school aged, I had a couple of sleep walking episodes. I didn’t walk around in pajamas with arms outstretched, but once I did put on a pair of jeans and walked barefoot and barechested three or four blocks to my school’s playground. I came to around 2 a.m. sitting on a swing, then ran back home before anyone noticed. My folks did find me wandering around the house, front porch and lawn a few times. They said I looked awake but somewhat clumsy until they talked to me and got various forms of gibberish until I regained consciousness. Since puberty, my nocturnal urges involved sexual lust rather than wanderlust, restricting my travel to in head and in bed.
Snoring is great! Apparently I’m a loud snorer and I’ve woken myself up because of it a few times. I’ve been told by a couple of different people that my snoring gets louder and turns into gurgling and desperate breathing. They say it sounds like I am dying! Why do I sleep thru it without being aware of it?
I’ve been in jail a couple of times and it gets really fun when I snore real loud while in jail. Once I woke up hearing the other jail-birds yelling at me to “shut the fuck up!”‘
Hubby is an HVAC guy — measures his jobs in his sleep. Fairly complicated math and dead on right every time.
Little brother was a sleepwalker, walked into my parents bedroom one night, into their closet and peed in their laundry basket thinking he was in the bathroom.
I had a recurring nightmare about ducks as a kid — they would peck my voicebox out so I could scream for help. I am still terrified of ducks to this day.
As a kid, I had a pillocase that was blue. My older brother use to get a real kick out of seeing me first thing in the morning. From drooling and slobbering, with a wide open mouth, on my pillow all night long, I’d wake up each morning and come into the kitchen to greet everyone, with a big blue stain all over the side of my face.
Now I just wake up with “Kramer hair”, wild hair like Seinfeld’s Kramer. I should go out in public like that.
“Toney’s even gone so far as to suggest I visit one of those sleep clinics, where they hook all kinds of diodes to your body, and videotape you thrashing around in the bedclothes from above. ”
Did anyone other than me misread “diodes” as dildos?
I sleep with one hand in my panties. Habit.
I’ve never encountered a sleepwalker before. It kind of freaks me out. I’ve never allowed someone to hypnotize me either. Too afraid of it. But sleepwalking happens, but its weird. As was mentioned, the whole thing of slepp is strange, but I guess our bodies need it to rejuvinate and rest andwho knows?
My dreams are pretty vivid, but not too often on the scary or nightmare side. Mostly just really interesting.
Brynhildr – I thought only guys did that! Its a comfort thing, I think, for guys to have one hand on their “vital” organ while they sleep. We’d like more details, my dear.
A funny story – Me, my brother and about six of our friends, when we were kids, one summer night we were all sleeping out in the front yard. Our dog was sleeping with us. We all had bikes and chained them all together near by us before we went to sleep…about 8 bikes! In the morning, we woke up and to our amazement, all our bikes were gone! Stolen during the night. We would’ve thought that at least our dog would have barked or something! How did they take the entire bunch of bikes that were chained together? Why didn’t we chain them to the porch railing on the house?
I thought that condition was called “paralyzed wakefullness” and I used to have it quite often. It is TERRIFYING and I struggle mightily to move ANY part of my body to break the spell. I find that it occurs much less often if I limit my caffeine.
Friday night I went ice skating. Down a frozen sidewalk in my neighborhood. In street shoes. In my dreams, that is. Pizza before bed will do it every time and anything with tomatoes or tomato sauce virtually guarantees not only a night full of dreams but vivid ones too.
When I was a kid I woke up once with every member of my family watching me pee in the kitty litter box. In my dream my brother wouldn’t get out of the bathroom and the kitty litter box made perfect sense.
I’ll never live that one down.
Been to the sleep clinic thing. They said I stopped breathing a coulple of hundred times and gave me this machine that makes me look like some kind of Borg. I don’t snore any more but thats ’cause I can’t get any sleep hooked up the ‘The Machine’.
As for wierd dreams (i before e except in wierd… what’s up with that) The wierdest occur after a battle with seafood, especially lobster. I mean it’s like tripping in my sleep. Crabs, oysters, clams and such to a lesser degree but in a wierd way I actually look forward to it.
Oh, and a lot of you S.R.’s have a lot of wierd shit going on at night.
I have always talked in my sleep. Whenever my sister wanted to know anything (crushes, grades, whatever), she’d wait until I fell asleep and ask me.
I spilled the beans EVERY TIME. I’m still pretty annoyed with her.
My daughter walks and talks in her sleep. Her eyes are wide open, and she walks normally. She snores while doing this. She once walked into the living room visibly distressed, and tearfully informed me that she had to tell me something. When I asked her what, she cried and said “Please don’t be angry!”
I assured her that I wouldn’t. While covering her butt with her hands (pure spanking protection, I guess), she stuttered, “I’m sorry, Momma. I JUST REALLY DON’T LIKE ZEBRAS!”
While trying not to scream with laughter, I told her that everything was fine, and thanked her for her honesty.
I had to look this up:
i before e except after c
or when sounded like a
as in neighbour and weigh
Exceptions to this version include gneiss, neither, height, leisure and weird. Further exceptions including ancient, efficient and species can also be covered by the addition of the line.
An additional version is:
i before e except after c
unless you’re being weird
I once wrote an article about a Georgetown sleep specialist, who told me about people falling asleep on the bus on route to appointments. Or falling asleep in the waiting room and smashing the wall (I guess apnea and weight go together).
Me? I just eat 5-9 bowls of cereal once the Ambien kicks in. Not sure if that counts as asleep or awake.
Although Neil planned to bow and kneel, and persent a present with a bow, there was no way he could save their heads.
present a present….crap….
30 miles south — It’s also a comfort thing for me to cup my girl parts, always with my left hand. Sometimes, I think about what would happen if I died in my sleep and my sister or mother found me with my hands on my goods, naked except for my panties. Will they think I died vigorously entertaining myself, so to speak? The sight could really scar a person emotionally. I don’t think I’d care if a stranger found me in that position because 1) I’d already be dead so who cares, and 2) it would just give them a good story to tell their friends.
When I was a teenager, my best friend insisted she caught me pleasuring myself in my sleep, but I think she just saw my hand down my pants and assumed I was up to something. Also, instead of talking in my sleep, I moan — I assume because I’m too lazy to move my mouth and form words — making it sound like something more interesting is going on. I couldn’t recall any sexual dreams that night, so I’ll continue to deny there was anything untoward going while I slept.
I was a sick kid. Asthma and allergies which meant…a six year old on some pretty good drugs. Late 50’s early 60’s…my nightmares were works of art and still vivid to this day. I have them all in a journal and too much to go into here but…I would sometimes dream I was standing at the toilet and let it fly and thereby pissing the bed.
Summer time I sleep in tighty whites and maybe a T.
Winter…Long johns and sweat pants and a long sleeve thermal and a sweat shirt. It gets very cold here and we kick the heat down to 60 at night.
I still have very vivid dreams. Some emotional, some frustrating and some outlandish. Always a good time inside my head it seems.
I have dreams where my teeth shatter and I have to spit them out to talk. I’m told this is a sign of high stress, it’s been going on for about 15 years or so regardless of other happenings in my life.
If anyone wants to purposely have some bizarre and vivid dreams, put on a nicotine patch before going to bed. I’ve used the patch a few times over the years in my never-ending quest to kick the habit, and every time, I’d wake up in the morning with strong memories of brilliantly vivid, colorful, detailed dreams featuring the weirdest topics imaginable. Try it, it’s fun!
(Been nicotine-free for five months and counting.)
I go to some really dark places when I sleep. Not sure where it comes from, some of my friends say it is because of war experiences,but they usually have nothing to do with Iraq . They are disturbingto me and I act out on them in my sleep. That is what really freaks me out. My wife tells me the things I do and say and I get scared, I really can’t go into detail on a public forum but…what can I say, I just wish I could exorcise these demons. Oh well,good night Surf Reporters.
@Brynhildr who’s hand? enquiring minds need to know!!
@Chuck in Belpre WAKE UP CHUCK YOU DRUNKEN BASTARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Swami when they invent the liqour patch I’ll pay attention:)