Mike informed me the other night that I had another one of my dreamy outbursts. This is all hearsay because I don’t ever remember any of what Mike claims that I do or say. Apparently, I sat up and was laughing hysterically and declaring that “the letter R is so funny”. Supposedly, I even went on to say, “It even has on a tutu!” I asked Mike if he’s sure it was me and not Annie because that is totally something she would say. Annie’s teacher has started sending home nightly homework assignments for Annie to do such as counting to 20 or going through a list of letters on a list. I think that these constant practice sessions are causing my brain to get a little out of whack.

For those of you who don’t know the history behind my animated dreams and nightmares, I’ll give a little background information. Maybe I should’ve listed this as one of my quirks. I don’t recall having this little problem until I married Mike, but then again I didn’t have witnesses before Mike. It all started on our first night in our apartment after getting married. I woke up screaming and saying that there were ants all over the bed. As you can imagine, this freaked Mike out. He promptly flipped on the light and searched for the pests in our sheets. Mike soon realized that there were no ants, and I was already back to sleep. Similar events involving spiders, worms, and other disgusting insects happened for several nights after that, but Mike was on to me by the 3rd or 4th time. Eventually he just started telling me, “I got them all, honey. Go back to sleep.” The nightmares stopped after a few more nights, and Mike could soon sleep soundly. However, they started up again when I began teaching. The bad dreams were usually the worst on Sunday night. Hmmm, I wonder why? Sometimes I would just wake up screaming at the top of my lungs and then go right back to sleep. Of course, Mike was always stirred from his slumber, the poor guy.

My theory behind the nightmares is that they come when I’m under a lot of stress. So I believe the reason I had them right after Mike and I got married was because I wasn’t used to the whole marriage experience. Teaching always stressed the heck out of me, so I can understand the nightmares during that time. Sometimes when we’re traveling I will have outbursts which must mean sleeping in a bed other than my own makes me a bit nervous.

The most embarrassing experience was when we were staying at the Arnolds’ cabin out in the Black Hills. On our first or second night there I woke up screaming hysterically but went back to sleep almost immediately. The next morning during fishing Ryan asked Mike if everything was alright. Not knowing what Ryan was alluding to Mike just shrugged and said all was fine. So finally Ryan asked what the heck had happened the night before to cause me to scream so harshly and to freak Ryan and Shannon out. Mike just laughed and said that that happens sometimes. Of course, Ryan felt compelled to mention it front of the whole group making me painfully aware that I had caused quite a raucous the previous night.

Another event has become an inside joke among Mike’s family members. Mike had just left for Iraq, and Mimi was a fresh newborn. Mike’s ma was staying with us, too. That night I went picked up Mimi and walked into Kathy’s room. Here’s the conversation that followed:
Me: Kathy, I think we have a problem.
Kathy: What’s the matter? Is everything o.k.?
Me: Mimi has lost her snake.
Kathy: ?
Me: (kind of waking up and realizing what must be going on) Nevermind. Go back to sleep.

Thankfully, I had warned Kathy about my possible outbursts, so she wasn’t too freaked out. In fact, she found a lot of humor in the situation and promptly told all of her children who now remind me about it every so often.

My mom also claims to have witnessed some strange things from me while sleeping. While house-hunting with me in Beafort, SC she says that one night she woke up with me standing over her bed. She asked me what was going on and I said, “There’s someone at the door.” Mind you, this was about 3:00 a.m. My mom says she told me to just ignore it and go back to sleep. Supposedly, I then grabbed her arm with brute force and demanded that she answer the door. She said she was more afraid of me than whoever could be at the door, so she just opened it to discover nobody there. By the time she walked back to the bed I was already tucked in and back to sleep.

Sometimes I will wake up Mike (or my mom if the case is that she’s with me) and make bizarre statements such as there being a white animal on the overhead light, or that there’s dog food on the ceiling, or that someone is staring at us through the window. Mike says that I will usually make sure he’s fully awake and swear that I’m also awake and that whatever I’ve said is actually happening.

Wow, sorry to go on and on about this, but I just felt I had to explain.