Somnambulism

Honey, something bad happened last night while you were asleep. Calm down, it's nothing major, but I feel like you should know about it. If it happened once, it could happen again, and it could be worse next time.

I had a dream that we were outside on the porch having a barbecue. You were sitting on one of those plastic chairs at the table, and I decided to walk over and put my arm around you. Everything was perfectly normal.

At the same time that I put my arm around you in the dream, however, I also put my arm around you in bed, while we were sleeping. I didn't get my arm up high enough though, so I elbowed you in the forehead.

You slept right through it, so obviously I didn't elbow you very hard. I woke up right away and felt really weird about what happened. I asked you if you were awake and you didn't say anything, so I guess it's no big deal.

I saw a 20/20 news report a long time ago about sleepwalkers that I'll never forget. One old guy put his wife in a chokehold. He was dreaming that he was wrestling a deer. He said in an interview, "I could've broken her neck."

Another guy had a dream he was playing football. He got out of bed and tackled his dresser. I think there was another guy who woke up standing on his dresser, ready to jump off, not quite knowing why.

That's some creepy stuff, honey. I've never done anything like that before, except last night with the elbow. I don't think it will happen again, but maybe you shouldn't sleep so close to me at night.

Have you ever heard of that syndrome where people sleep for days and days at a time? If I have to have a sleeping disorder, that's the one I want. I mean, I'm tired and could use the rest, and it sounds like no one would get hurt.

One time I was camping in Montana and this guy wigged out and started flopping around in his sleeping bag and screaming in the middle of the night. When we told him about it in the morning, he said he was having a dream that he was flopping around in his sleeping bag and screaming on purpose in order to scare us. It worked.

Paul Lundgren is a newspaper columnist and a very nice man. His e-mail address is paul [at] geekprom.com.