The Indistinct and Indecernible World of Sonambulism

Being in hospital, being on anesthetic and sedation, made me reassess my sleepwalking habits.

Often they come back to me as a dream may during the day, a random synapse firing makes me recall opening doors, turning lights on or off, cats and rooms that are just routes on a mission.

When they took me into hospital, I warned the nurses, identified that my night time habits are made worse by stress and medication.

Bearing in mind my sleepwalking is usually my unconscious or subconscious mind "foraging" for what my conscious mind denies it, being in hospital and being nil by mouth makes me extra vulnerable.

I'm delighted to say, having a drip (whom I named "Fred"), had no effect whatsoever on my sonambulic habits. Fred came with me for a walk on the ward, to the charming bathroom (not the Ritz) and then into two other bays before giggling nurses returned me to my bed.

My recollection is mainly fabricated but I have a faint memory of seeing the nurses leaning over their station watching me and giggling.

Another thing I did do in hospital was consume all the nice chocolates from a box of roses. I don't like fruit or sloppy chocolate - just solids and toffee. And lo, it seems I can locate them in my sleep.

Yes. Well.

Somnambulism and the Strange Things I have Done

Here's a brief introduction to the things I have done in my sleep;

1. Drank nail varnish remover
2. Opened tinned peaches and consumed with a fork
3. Wrapped a vaccum cleaner around myself and climbed into a wardrobe
4. Made tea
5. Buttered Crackers
6. Gone out to the car. Naked. For chocolate.
7. Removed everything on the coffee table and placed it on the floor
8. Tipped a bowl of cereal and milk into the bed
9. Attempted to climb up the wall above the headboard on my hands and knees
10. Walked repeatedly into a overhead cupboard until I cut my forehead open. In a friend's house.
11. Drank out of a hot water bottle
12. Put a suit on and got back in to bed
13. Started to have a shower
14. Woken up a dormitory of girl guides calling out to be rescued
15. Lined cans up in size order on the kitchen side

This is why a blog seemed like a way to raise awareness of the obvious pain I put my husband through on a regular basis!

Incidently, I'm sure all of these things cause and cure cancer according to the Daily Mail!

Marzipan and Cat Biscuits

The latest episode in my ongoing sleep eating issue.

I have been trying to leave the cigarettes in the lounge at night so I won't smoke in my sleep in bed. For obvious reasons.

However, my ever controlling subconscious likes to ensure that, what ever I deprive myself of when awake, is consumed/undertaken when asleep.

Last night I (potentially consciously) went down stairs for a cigarette.

It appears, from the trails in the morning, that I went into the kitchen and opened the tin we keep cake stuff in. There in lay a packet of marzipan. I also tipped the peppermint essence and blue food colouring on to the floor, left the cupboard open and tin unlidded.

I would deduce that the cats were bugging me as I was down stairs, as I then decided to provide them with some biscuits in their bowls. But I missed some of the bowls, instead scattering cat biscuits around the room.

The marzipan ended up on the arm chair and my cigarettes and the book I am reading came back to the bedroom for my waking time of 6am.

Stranger things have happened.

And then there was Aled Jones

Recently I had a diagnostic operation that involved partial sedation.

This seemed like a preferable option to no pain relief at the time, when in fact, it made the entire thing seem like a demi physical nightmare I couldn't escape from.

I emailed a friend afterwards;

I had to have an endoscopy, a camera down the throat. They sedate you, but not completely. The theatre nurse was called Princess and dreadfully astringent, I'd been nil by mouth for three days and was stressed out and the doctors were playing the song from the Snowman when they wheeled me in. This makes the experience laughable retrospectively, but I keep remembering it and shuddering.

Princess was around 5'4'' and the sort of clean brunette that reads Heat Magazine and gets her nails made from acrylic. Just the sort of person to calm you down as you go in to an operating theatre.

Then imagine a russian doctor who looks like a young Jean Luc Pickard but talks like John Malcovich on drugs playing with an old stero in the corner. All of a sudden, Aled Jones's voice launches out of the speaker system and the lights get dimmed as they inject your canular with something that makes you think of comedy.

And while ubiquitous symphonic Christmas music launches from the stereo they stick a tube down your throat and you can barely pull yourself out of a narcoleptic frenzy as they hold you down.

You see the reason I was traumatised.

I keep telling myself that relaying the incident is cathartic. It may be, but it may also be reminiscent of Freud's lectures on Intellectualisation.