Honest You Honor, I Was Sleepwalking!

My son is a sleepwalker. He gets it from me. My parents tell me stories of them sleeping soundly in bed and hearing the basement door slam, only to find me walking down the driveway or the sidewalk.

Sleepwalking is an interesting thing. We have all heard the saying "Never wake a sleepwalker." This is because when you are the person doing the sleepwalking-what you are doing is making perfect sense to you, and if you are woken up it could cause confusion and even anger. I guess I always wanted to leave the house when I slept walked. I do recall one night when I was in high school going to the front door to open it and walk out. My dad was snoozing on the couch and heard me and yelled "What are you doing?!" Now, this woke me up-and I was really ticked off that he did not understand that I was simply walking out of the house... because in my sleep induced state, all of my actions (walking out of the house at 2am in the middle of winter) seemed logical to me.

Interestingly enough, the last time I slept walked (that I can remember, I guess I can be sleepwalking every night and heading out to the bars and leading a double sleep life full of beer nuts and cold drafts... but I doubt it.) Anyway, the last time that I slept walked was when I was in fact pregnant with my son.

He is a big-time sleepwalker... but he is the zombie type of walker. The kind that will walk into my room and hover over me until I jump out of my skin when I wake up with a person standing over me with their eyes wide open. It is the stuff that great horror movies are made of, and the reason why stores sell waterproof pee pads for beds. When this happens, I just simply guide him back to his room and tuck him back in bed.

One thing I have learned is that his sleepwalking episodes come after a vivid dream. In the past few weeks he has had a reoccurring dream that has sent him walking often. He dreams that the planet earth is forcing it's way into his room and it starts to fall apart and he has to work hard at putting it back together. It is very distressing to him-and very frightening. I figure this dream is either telling him that he will grow up to be a missionary and try and save the world, or a politician... one of the other.

Last night he was standing in our doorway when I woke up. He then walked around our bed a few times looking for a hammer. This is the second episode in a week. I think I may need to tie a bell around his big toe or something every night so that I hear him long before he hovers over me and puts me into labor. I do have one question... why does he always hover over my side of the bed and not his fathers?!