Saturday, May 21, 2005

Night ramblings

I have always talked in my sleep. I also sit up in bed, move around, and sometimes travel short distances within my room, especially in retrieving objects. These objects end up back in the bed. Usually this isn't too bad as the things I retrieve are small (hairbrushes, mirrors etc.). The time it was a spider plant, was not so good. This nocturnal activity never disturbs *my* sleep. But it is a cross to bear for poor Greg. The talking is often loud enough to wake him up (to say nothing of the laughing that sometimes also happens). During graduate school I was extremely stressed, and at least once a week, I would wake Greg up with screaming. I'm lucky I didn't give the poor guy a heart attack. Sometimes I would even wake myself up (it doesn't sound logical, but it's true). At any rate, at those times I was plagued with the night terrors that I have had on and off since childhood. Since I completed graduate school, I rarely have night terrors (I have to go on Greg's word for this because unlike nightmares, night terrors aren't remembered). I watched an episode of "DaVinci's Inquest" with Dad earlier this week. Part of the episode revolved around a couple who had separated because the husband had night terrors and refused to seek treatment (i.e. Valium - which FYI is addictive). Anyhow, the husband started living out of a vacant house he was trying to sell and hung himself in the basement. I have never taken Valium for my night terrors, but... I have taken Valium for anxiety to get through an annual with my GP. Worked like a charm. I love my clever GP. My old GP, while pleasant, was all about the muscle relaxants. Quite literally, muscle relaxants never worked on me. Muscles were in fact, but a symptom, while the mind was the source of the problem.
Now to return to the topic I actually intended to discuss... Since becoming pregnant, the frequency of weird dreams has increased, and (according to Greg), the sleep talking has also increased. He is trying to have fun with it now. He plays along with what I'm saying and he asks questions. This week there was something about a bed-eating dog which apparently was funny. Greg says that without fail, if he questions the rationality of anything I sleep talk about while I am sleep talking, I will get huffy and go back to sleep. I have had many strange dreams about babies. In every dream, the baby is a girl. This is probably because I had a very strong dream of the baby, around the time of conception, in which it stated its name. The name was a girl's name of which both Greg and I are fond. Ever since that dream, I have an unshakeable feeling that the baby is a girl, and it colours all the subsequent dreams. Of course, the reality is, the baby could be either boy or girl, and I should stop making assumptions until I have some proof. That kind of information isn't even possible to discern by ultrasound until the middle or late second trimester. Right now, Greg and I refer to the baby as Smudge. This is due to the quality of our first ultrasound picture. So, for example, if I take an extra helping of something, it's because Smudge was hungry.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Say it isn't so! I can't imagine you having more sleep incidents... is this really what I have to look forward to? Maybe not... I don't have the object-grabbing problem yet. Greg... Reuben sympathizes.

Anonymous said...

Nigel had a very similar vivid dream about a child. In the dream, he said it was clear that the little girl was our child and she told Nigel her name (although he couldn't quite remember what her name was, he was quite positive it was a four-letter name.)

Strange things, dreams. Sometimes eerily accurate, too. :-)