The Sleepwalking Burnettes, Part II

Unfortunately, the tendency to sleepwalk and snore were both passed on to me. When I was a small child, my parents were always catching me wandering around the house in the middle of the night. It started causing serious concern when my dad caught me going out the door late one night when I was around six years old. We lived on Route 58 where the speed limit was 55 mph and tractor trailers usually went by our house very fast, so wandering outside was a very dangerous thing.

Like father, like daughter.

When I was in the 6th grade, I went on vacation with my good friend, Debbie and her family. We went to Williamsburg, Jamestown, Busch Gardens and then on to the Outer Banks. This was a camping trip and it was so much fun. One night, we stopped at her relative's home to spend the night. Debbie and I were going to be sleeping on the pull-out couch. In the middle of the night, I woke the whole house up as I was trying to choke an African Violet! This story has been the source of much amusement through the years and even if I wanted to put it out of my mind, I am reminded of it often!

When I was in college, I neglected to mention to my two roommates, Jennifer and Laura, that I was a sleepwalker. It did not take them long to discover my problem. One night I woke them up with my mumbling. I was gazing out the window into the street that ran in front of our 3rd floor dorm room. When they asked me what I was doing I said, "All of the cars are gone." What?!  There were always cars parked on both sides of the street and now I was saying that the cars were gone?  They got out of bed and looked.  Of course, all of the cars were there and they tried to tell me that, which just made me angry. Then, I said "All of the addresses are gone too!"  Well, of course, this was just too much for my roommates and they started laughing at me which made me really mad. This happened within the first couple of weeks of my freshman year and my roommates were really strangers at that point, so this whole deal freaked them out. I eventually just went back to bed. Months later, there was a boiled egg throwing incident, but I will just let you use your imagination on that one!

I typically go to bed a couple of hours before my husband does and it seems like most of my sleepwalking incidents occur during those first two hours. On quite a few nights, I appear in the family room where he is watching television and I will start babbling on about things that usually make no sense. Sometimes, I can vaguely remember these episodes. The ones that I do remember usually start when I jump out of bed and I know that I just HAVE to do something or something bad will happen. As I am walking through the house, I will start forgetting what it was that I have to do, which frightens me even more.  I do know that when Steve attempts to interact with me, I get very, very angry when he laughs at me or tells me that I just need to go back to bed. The more that I try to explain what I am doing, the madder I get because on one level, I KNOW that I am not making any sense and when someone laughs at me, that just infuriates me.  I just can't seem to wake up completely.

I have always been prone to nightmares too and growing up I had one reoccurring nightmare that was just horrible. After I would have it, my parents would have to sit up with me for hours trying to get me to calm down and realize that it was just a dream and that I was okay. To this day, I cannot really tell you what the nightmare was about, but I can still see snippets of the dream in my mind, but if I try to describe it to you, it makes no sense. I still get a sinking feeling when I start thinking about that dream. I had this dream from the time that I was a very small child up until I was almost 16 years old.  Interestingly enough, I never had the nightmare again after my mom was killed in a car accident. It makes me wonder if the nightmare was a premonition of her death.

So, yes, I must confess. I am a sleepwalker. I talk in my sleep. I have terrible nightmares. And, to hear my husband tell it, I snore like a rhinoceros! But it is all something that I inherited, so I will blame it on my genes!

To read part I, click HERE.

 Copyright 2013--All Rights Reserved--The Wheel & Distaff by Kimberly Burnette-Dean