Sleeping with my wife

My wife is always exhausted and I’m not even surprised. Let me explain her night to you.

It all started when she was much younger and she started talking in her sleep. This soon developed into walking as well. He parents had many evenings of entertainment when their daughter would walk into their bedroom and try on imaginary clothing at their full length mirror. They decided to experiment to see what she could do whilst sleep walking, turns out she accepted a cold drink and drank it all up.

The first night after the wedding was a wakeup call for me, as I was sleeping (rather awkwardly, as having somebody in my bed with me was still rather strange) when, all of a sudden, Michele sits bolt upright and starts complaining quite loudly that they left out an “e” on her marriage certificate. And then collapses back to her pillow and carries on sleeping. I lay there thinking “What? who did I marry? nobody had warned me of this side of her!”

We have been married for 27 years and she has spoken, walked and “saved me” on many occasions.

A few noteworthy ones would be as follows:

Michele is also highly claustrophobic and has a fear of water. Well this little fact did not stop me from watching Daylight with her, where all the people get trapped in the Holland Tunnel under the Hudson River and it starts flooding. Of particular note was the one scene where some of the actors are gasping the last few pockets of air at the top of the flooded tunnel. That night after watching the movie, Michele thought that she was trapped, she ripped the curtains in our bedroom right off the rails because when she “looked out” all she saw was water.
I woke up one evening as pain coursed through my foot. She had me by the ankle with her hands in "talon mode" and was pulling me off the bed, because there was a “fire”. I was clinging to the one poster of the bed, moaning and pleading to be left alone.

Michele hates camping, we really can’t see the point of it. But she had to go camping with the church girls. So with this on her mind, I was once again fast asleep when I felt the bed rocking. When I looked, Michele was jumping on the bed, waving her arm, and shouting “Hellooooo” repeatedly. She dreamt that she was at the camp site and the other people left her behind and she was calling for them on the top of the mountain.

We have had giants sitting on our house with their legs dangling in front of our bedroom window, just last night she was panicking because the bed was balancing on a huge crack in the ground and our bed was going to be swallowed up, she woke me in a panic, but then as she put her bedside light on, she then realised that it was not real.
“She dreams almost every night in extraordinarily vivid detail; she tosses and turns and sometimes walks in her sleep, one evening she stepped into a bath of water that one of the children had not let out. The season was winter and the water was ice cold. Needless to say she woke up very quickly.

She decided to google her symptoms because the episodes seem to be occurring more frequently, it is an actual condition called somniloquy or sleep-talking. It is a parasomnia that refers to talking aloud while asleep. It can be quite loud, ranging from simple mumbling sounds to loud shouts and long frequently inarticulate speeches, and can occur many times during a sleepcycle. This is as per Wikipedia. However I think that Michele has been doing it for so long that she has managed to make her speech clear to my sleep drugged mind.

Sleepwalking, formally known as somnambulism, is a behaviour disorder that originates during deep sleep and results in walking or performing other complex behaviours while asleep. It is much more common in children than adults and is more likely to occur if a person is sleep deprived. This is also as per Wikipedia.

She is more concerned now because we have our nephew staying with us for a year or so and she does not want to embarrass herself. Previously when we had an overnight guest, while we were in the lounge, we heard Michele while she crouching behind a wall (in her underwear) calling to Tanith our daughter. When Tanith looked back to see why her mother was whisper/shouting to her, Michele told Tanith that the police were outside for her and Tanith should go and see what it was about. Tanith said yes and Michele went back to bed. Perhaps I should put a security gate on our bedroom door??

Unfortunately for her (and fortunately for me?!), there is no cure or medication, so it looks like I am in for more interesting evenings with Michele.
She cannot have any secrets, as she is afraid of what will come out while sleeping, so this condition definitely keeps things transparent between the two of us.