How I broke my hand in my sleep, and other sleepwalking stories.

I just realized that I started this blog exactly one year ago today. Happy Anniversary! A lot of sleep activity has happened in one year. O_o I'm glad I have this blog, otherwise I wouldn't quite know how prevalent it is.

It occurred to me that there are a plethora of sleepwalking stories that occurred before I started this blog, and I haven't dipped into them much. Here are a few:

I broke my hand while I was sleeping in early 2010. I think I dreamed I was attacked. I sat up in bed suddenly and punched in front of me very hard. Oddly, I punched with my left hand, even though I'm right handed. My bed at that time was next to two windows, with a solid wooden frame between them. I punched the frame, and fractured my forth metacarpal. I remember clutching my hand in pain, and yelling. But then.. I somehow went back to sleep. I don't think I completely woke up when it happened.

When I woke up the next morning, my hand was swollen and bruised, and I was very confused. I went to the doctor, and had to explain what had happened, giving basically the same explanation I just gave, feeling stupid.

No one at school knew yet about my sleepwalking habits. This was how everyone found out. When I came in with my hand in a brace, I told them the truth when they asked.
Interestingly, my father broke his hand while he was sleeping as well. He dreamed he was in a fight, and punched his metal bedpost. He and I don't talk much, and I have never lived with him. It is strange for this to be what we have in common.



When I was little, I sleepwalked a lot, but not as often as I do now. (at least, as far as I know...)
One of my earliest memories of sleepwalking was when I was 6 or 7. My two sisters, my brother and I were staying at my father's house. I fell asleep on the couch while my siblings were outside playing just after nightfall.
They came inside and told me, "Time to go to bed, Lizzy."
Without waking up, I open my eyes and say, "ok."

I get up and walk in the opposite direction. They all stand there watching me as I walk over to the fishbowl, stick my hand in the water, and swirl it around.
"What are you doing?" they asked, staring at me. I didn't respond.
"Bed is this way, Lizzy." my sister said.
"Oh ok." I said calmly. I took my hand out of the fishbowl and walked with them down the hall. They were silient, looking at each other incredulously.
"What were you doing?" my brother asked me.
"What did it look like I was doing?" I asked, annoyed. "I was playing with the fish."
Then I closed the door and went to bed.

My family still tells this story a lot. Strangely, my sisters have not seen me sleepwalk a lot. So this story is still vivid as a good example of my sleepwalking to them, even though it was so long ago, and I've done much crazier things since.

Sleeptexting: Deserters

So after the last time I texted my professor, I took his number out of my phone. But this semester, I'm filling out a lot of audition forms and applications, and I'm having to write his contact information as a reference on a daily basis. I was getting really tired of having to look it up each time.
So, I put him back in my phone, under the name "D" I was hoping my subconscious wouldn't think to text him if it wasn't under a real name.

I was wrong. My subconscious wins. It cannot be fooled by me.

Here's what I wrote to him last night:

"There is a sea of soldiers heading towards us. We can stay and fight for this madman, or we can take our chances and run. I need to know that I can count on you."


He assured me today that I can count on him.
I give up! I'm going to leave him in my phone. If he gets texts from me, so be it. Hopefully by giving up, my subconscious will stop caring. Also, hopefully I wont say anything worse than what I've said already.

Dream: The Slave Market

I dreamed last night that my name was Sarah Francis, and the year was 1855.

I was a very wealthy plantation owner in the south. I think I lived in South Carolina or Georgia. I was already from an old wealthy family, and marrying my husband and moving to his plantation made us one of the wealthiest families in the state. My husband died only four years after we got married, leaving me a 23 year old widow.
For several years I was courted by men of all kinds from all over the south. One young man even came from as far as New York to pay a call to my house. After a few years, however, it became clear that I had no intention of re-marrying. My disdainful treatment of these gentleman callers became notorious, and I was known as a mean spinster by the time I was 26.

I was a slave owner. My plantation was vast, and needed many many workers to maintain it. I had a small staff of hired white workers running the household, but I owned as many as 30 slaves at any given time.

I was somewhat of a hermit. I was known to collect books from all over the world -a strange thing for a woman to do. Other than the booksellers, and the slave traders, I rarely spoke to anyone. Rumors started to spread about me through the nearby towns. Rumors of disappearing slaves, of scandals that took place in my household, of bodies appearing in the nearby river. I became an urban legend, and people maintained their frightened distance.

In the nearby city, a slave market was held once per month. I never missed a market. It was well known that I went home with 5-10 slaves from every market. I was a favored customer of slave traders, but even they had heard the rumors.
I went through slaves. Even though I took 5-10 home with me, I generally did not have more than 30 at a time. Rumors grew more gruesome about what happened to my slaves. Some say I killed them for fun. Some spoke about frightening sexual scandals. Some said I was a witch who sacrificed humans to the devil, using their body parts in gruesome concoctions.


One sunday, I had made my way all the way to Charleston to attend the slave market. I hardly spoke to anyone, but everyone knew who I was, and they maintained a curious, superstitious distance. A new shipment of slaves had arrived in Charleston a few days before. One group of slaves huddled together. There were 9 of them total, an older man, a young couple, and six kids ranging in age from infant to 12 years old. They were going to be split up. I told the slave trader that I wanted to inspect them. I looked them over, even holding the infant myself after it was taken from its mother.
It bought them all. Word of my purchase spread through the market, with fascinated speculation about what I would do with the children.

They were brought to my plantation. I ordered to meet them in my private sitting room, with my three usual strong guards keeping them together.
I closed the door and turned to the terrified family.
"I am so sorry. I am so sorry for what your family has been through. I am going to help you." I said to them. They stared at me.
My maid stepped forward and spoke to them in their language, translating what I had said. The adults eyes widened in surprise. The young woman turned to me and said "My children and I speak English."

I was relieved. This would make things easier. I told them the truth.
I had spread the terrible rumors about myself. I was an abolitionist, doing what little I could for individuals and families. The slaves who worked on my plantation, I explained to them, were paid workers. I attend every slave market, choose as many as I can without arising suspicion, and help them to find their way to a better life. Most stayed on my plantation for a while, doing a little work for a generous wage, while planning where they can go to be free, and a way of getting there. I helped them as best as I could. I was in contact with the underground railroad. I took a yearly trip to new york, bringing as many as I could to "sell" them to potential buyers, while really setting them up with as much as I could give them.
Many have decided to stay with me permanently. It wasn't a bad life on my plantation, and better than the risk of trying to make a life up north.

I explained to the family that if anyone found out what I was really doing, I would be stopped. But having them think I was a brutal murderer kept them from stopping me. Such was our society.

Sleeptexting: Sunken Ship

This was a weird one.

Me: I do not see how we can get in there. I can swim down that far but we would have to break a window to get inside.

Lexi:Then we have to break a window --we don't have another choice.

Me: Well, we can choose to walk away. But then we will never find out what's in there. And if an official finds out that this ship wrecked here, it will be salvaged and all that money wasted on the government.

Lexi: We can't walk away without trying. Think of how we might use that money!

Me:Besides, that's quicksand under there. It might be that no one else finds it before it sinks.

Lexi: Buy are you sure you can reach the window before it starts to sink?

Me: I can reach it fine. But the problem will be breaking it. I can use the old iron canon as a battering ram. But I don't know if it will have enough force underwater.

Lexi You should be able to move it easier underwater, but if it's stuck in that quicksand, we could really be in trouble. Are there any canon balls left? That might be too good to be true.

Me:Of course not. You know how old it is and you can't shoot a canon underwater anyway. It will be easier to move underwater but the force behind the impact will be greatly lessened. It will be like trying to break a window with a wet sponge.

Lexi: I meant to hit the window with... That damned trigger probably couldn't fire under the very best conditions. I can't believe there aren't any rocks around here. Do you see any?


I have no idea what that was all about. I think there's a bit of a miscommunication between us, because it only kind of makes sense.
I read a short story last week about a sunken ship. I haven't thought about it since, but obviously my subconscious was thinking about it. It may be the first time that a sleeptexting session has been a pretty direct reference to something in my life.

Sleep...falling.

Next to my bed is a small table. Sitting on it is my old desktop. The keyboard is separate, and huge, and gets in the way a lot. It was sticking out rather far towards my bed last night while I was sleeping.


At some point during the night, I fell out of bed dramatically. I hit my FACE on the keyboard, knocking it off the table and onto my head. I have a cut on my face where I hit it!

Ow!

Sleepwalking: Force shield

In the middle of the night last night, I sat up and turned to the window next to my bed. As far as I can remember, I tried to put my hand through it. It probably woke me up partially, because I remember my hand vaguely hurting and saying "..some sort of force shield."

Then, as usual, I looked around in a confused manner for a while as I slowly rose towards consciousness.

When I woke up this morning my window was wide open. I must have opened it after the force shield incident.

Dream: Weddings Gone Wrong

I don't think about weddings a lot. I don't often think about myself getting married. But for some reason, I had nothing but wedding dreams last night. I had maybe ten weddings. And they were all disasters.

I got stood up at the alter.
I found my finance kissing another woman in the dressing room right before the ceremony.
I was getting married to a girl, and only realized that I wasn't gay while I was walking down the isle.
Someone told me at the reception that my new husband was, unbeknownst to me, my cousin.
I got splashed by a car on the way to the chapel, a wave of mud and water going over me in my wedding dress.


There was one highlight. My sister was at one of these weddings, and she had given each of the guests a handful of purple rocks. The guests were to throw them in the air at the opportune moment, after nightfall. They threw them all at once. It created rainbows in the air, and started raining popcorn. It was kind of awesome.
One guest was confused and put the rocks in her mouth, thinking it was candy. I saw her do it, and immediately went over to her and smacked her across the face to get her to spit it out. She got most of the rocks out of her mouth, but she was still spitting rainbows for hours.