Parasomnia Tales

Now many people have heard of the term “insomnia” but how many people have heard the term “parasomnia”? It is not as well known as insomnia but still as prevalent in our community today.
Parasomnia is defined as “any several disorders that interfere with sleep such as sleepwalking, sleep talking, night terrors etc.”

For example when a person is sleeping, there is a part of the sleep cycle called the REM stage that causes the body to freeze in order to protect itself. With parasomniacs this doesn’t always work which is why they walk or talk in their sleep. Parasomnia comes and goes as well. It is usually triggered by some sort of stressful event. School, a new apartment, any number of stressors can cause this disorder to come about.

I believe that I have this disorder. Or at least I think I do, based on the many tales that I have heard of from my roommates. I am a big sleep talker (apparently). Over the summer when I was rooming with Landon I would wake up in the morning and he would tell me some funny thing that I said to him that night. He would know and remember because he would stay up late a lot.

But one night in particular…I walked…and by walked I mean I thought I was some sort of secret agent or something. Now, most of the time I do not remember anything about the times that I walk or talk, but for some reason, I remember parts of this time. It all began that night when I started punching and kicking my wall. Landon asked if I was alright, no response. Then he told me that I “James Bond slid out of bed” and crawled into my closet. Once I was in the closet he asked me if I was awake. I did respond to this question saying that I was. He didn’t believe me and when I began to make my way to our door he told me to get back in bed. I guess my body understood this command because I did go back to bed with a quick stop at my computer to find something (which I obviously couldn’t find because there probably wasn’t anything to find). The next morning I woke up and was told what I did. It was embarrassing at first, but now it is really funny.

Now over the next few semesters I haven’t really had the opportunity to find out if I have walked or talked in my sleep. This is because my roommates would go to bed before me, which is fine, but I was curious as to whether or not I was doing these things still. Eventually Sterling began to sit by me while I would be sleeping during the day, just chilling at my computer. One day I sat up in bed, saw him there and said hi. I vaguely remember that part. But then I said something completely random and had no idea what I was saying, but after I woke up an hour later or so he said that I do that quite a bit. So I have still been sleep talking I guess.

My most recent exposure to sleep talking has happened fairly recently…as in last night. My roommate has insomnia, and even though he goes to bed earlier than I do, he wakes up in the night sometimes. The last few nights he has been woken up by us having conversations with each other while we are asleep. Last night (as he tells me) we were talking to each other and when he woke up he asked if I was okay. Apparently I yelled, “I’m not crazy Logan! I’m not crazy!” He said that it was okay and went back to sleep while I was still saying funny things in my sleep.

So there you have it. These are the funny doings of Matthew Rich at night. I sleep talk and sleep walk. If you ever want to get a few laughs at me (from something other than me being colorblind…) then come watch me sleep and you might just end up hearing something really funny come out of my mouth. So, I wish you all a good morning, because I cannot wish you a good evening while I am sleeping…um, never mind I got confused.