Sleep Walking - My Battle with the Mirror

Hi All,

Something happened last week that I am a bit freaked out about, and I think it may be related to my Lucid Dreaming thread that I made recently. However, it wasn't a dream, and I'm not sure exactly where it belongs, so I am putting it here in the Chit-Chat forum. [ETA: A Mod later moved this thread from General Chit-Chat to the Grey Area forum.]

Apparently, I got up in the middle of the night, and wandered right into a full-length mirror that stands in the corner of the bedroom. The mirror in question is one of those that rests on a stand that has a base with wooden supports on each side that support the mirror, and you can tilt it back and forth, like a see-saw. Anyway, I walked right into it and it fell over on top of me. My husband was awake at this point and talking to me, worried, asking what I was doing. I didn't respond, but kept wrestling with the mirror, until I got it back upright on its stand, which took some time. He was afraid I might have broken the mirror and might be hurt, but since I was not responding and was continuing to wrestle with the mirror, he was afraid to interrupt, in case it would make me more confused.

So anyway, I got the mirror back upright, and then I headed into the bathroom, which has my closet door at the end of it. I open up the closet door, go inside, turn the lights on, and proceed to rustle and rummage around in the closet for 5-10 minutes. The whole time, my husband is talking to me, trying to get me to come back to bed as we have to get up early in the morning. Eventually, I turned the light off and went back to bed.

I woke up in the morning and felt very out of sorts. I was disoriented and drowsy, and usually the shower wakes me up and I feel fine, but this time it didn't. While I was in the shower, I started shaving my legs like I do every day, and above my right ankle I noticed I had this huge blue/green goose-egg type bruise. About this time, my man is walking into the bathroom and he asked me, "Do you even remember walking into the mirror last night?" Um... no - I totally did not remember any such thing, but I played it cool and said something like "I was half asleep."

Later, we were on the way to work, and he brought it up again, and then I admitted that I didn't remember anything at all, and he described the full episode to me, tells me that he thinks I might have been sleep walking, and part of the reason he didn't get up and physically restrain me is because he has heard that sleep walkers can get violent. And then he tells me that this isn't the first time he thinks I have sleep walked. Wow. He said this was the worst, and he was really concerned I might have hurt myself - at first he thought I actually broke the mirror over my head and he was going to have to drive me to the hospital. Luckily, that was not the case.

So now, I'm freaking out a bit. Last week, I made that thread I mentioned above, about how I finally had a fully lucid dream - and I attributed it to the fact that I was so exhausted that even though I started to wake up, I did not wake up fully and so I was able to continue sleeping while becoming conscious. Now, here I have this situation where I was completely unconscious, and yet I got up and walked around and even engaged in this struggle with the mirror where I even bruised myself up pretty good, and yet I didn't wake up.

I looked up Sleep Walking and found the top factors are:

Sleep Disruptions - Check - I have on-call duty for my work where I am woken up at all hours of the night with no warning.

Lack of Sleep - Check - I catch up on weekends in-between, but some days I am quite low on sleep.

Stress - Check - That particular day I had spent the entire day on an interview panel, interviewing a bunch of people for a job they all really wanted, and I was stressing out in the evening about the choices we recommended to the hiring manager, the person who is currently filling the role, who no doubt would like to continue, and so on. The last time I interviewed others was prior to the recession, and the entire flavor was completely different - all of the candidates were HUNGRY for the job, so I really felt the pressure.

Anyway, I am wondering if anybody else here on ATS has been told they sleep walked, or to what extent this played out? I am going to try to make sure I get to sleep early enough, do more yoga for stress management, and I noted this episode in my calendar and will track any additional episodes. I asked my husband to tell me whenever he thinks it happens, so I can track it, and I guess if it happens a couple more times or gets worse, I should probably go see a sleep specialist? Please let me know what your experiences are...

Thanks!
Gwynnhwyfar

I changed my thread title from "Sleep Walking - Alarming Episode" to "Sleep Walking - My Battle with the Mirror" in order to lighten it up a bit. Please do respond if you have any experience with this. I am in my mid-forties, and this is the first time I have been told I was sleep walking, and I am looking for info from others...

Thanks ya'all!

reply to post by gwynnhwyfar


My first thought would be to ask you if you take any sort of sleep aid like ambien? Many of these drugs like lunesta and ambien have been known to cause instances of sleep walking and even driving a car without being aware that you were doing so.

The car driving thing happened to an elderly friend of mine who drove his car and woke up several miles from home in his pajamas behind the wheel of a moving car with no recollection how he got there at all!

Not saying this is what happened to you but if modern pharmaceuticals are involved, use care.

Maybe tether yourself to the bed for a while till you make sure this passes! Not even kidding lol.

Be safe and I hope this works out for you...

You should have a sleep study done. Seriously. My parents both did and it helped them tremendously.

Originally posted by Coopdog
reply to post by gwynnhwyfar

 

My first thought would be to ask you if you take any sort of sleep aid like ambien? Many of these drugs like lunesta and ambien have been known to cause instances of sleep walking and even driving a car without being aware that you were doing so.

The car driving thing happened to an elderly friend of mine who drove his car and woke up several miles from home in his pajamas behind the wheel of a moving car with no recollection how he got there at all!

Not saying this is what happened to you but if modern pharmaceuticals are involved, use care.

Maybe tether yourself to the bed for a while till you make sure this passes! Not even kidding lol.

Be safe and I hope this works out for you...

Thank you for replying! No, I do not take any sleep aids or use any pharmaceutical substances besides my daily allergy pills and vitamin D3 because I have collagenous collitis and from what I am told, we need extra D3 in our diet. It is an over the counter vitamin, derived from fish oil, I think.

Oh my goodness, if I ever find myself behind the wheel of a car with no recollection, that would completely freak me out! I am only 44, not elderly, so let's hope it does not come to that!

I honestly think it all has to do with the ongoing sleep interruptions from my current job, where I am frequently "on-call" and am paged at all times of the day and night - and my co-workers and I already work full 40+ hour weeks.

I have a theory that unplanned sleep interruptions are perhaps worse, in the long term, than sleep shortages that you can plan for with a litle notice.

I wonder if there are any psych majors doing any studies on this... I know they studied the military a long time ago, and part of their training involves rotating their sleep schedules... What did they find when they randomly interrupted their sleep schedules? Mine is randomly interrupted frequently. I find myself often feeling physically tired. I have only recently begun experiencing these sleep abnormalities. I thought the lucid experience was nifty, but now I am concerned because I think I may be having this sleep walking for the same reason, and that is not so positive.

Originally posted by LeSigh
You should have a sleep study done. Seriously. My parents both did and it helped them tremendously.

Thank you! I am considering it, should another episode occur.

May I ask, what were your parents' symptoms, for which they had the sleep study done?

I've had this happen quite a few years ago when I was staying with my mother briefly.I was doing all kinds of things in the early morning such as wondering aimlessly around the house walking into things.I was also told that I'd get up and make something to eat or drink then put it on the table or counter and head back upstairs to bed without touching it.There were even times where I just went right into the bathroom a few times and slept on the floor.All with no memory of it.Mom said she would try to talk to me but I'd just ignore her and keep on doing whatever it was I was doing at the time.She even found me one morning at about 4 am sitting in the rocking chair in the living room..she said she asked what I was doing but I didn't answer her.Just looked at her then went back upstairs to bed It got scary though,because there was a few times I'd try to leave the house.Luckily I could never figure out how to unlock the door though. This whole thing lasted about a month and it stopped.I attributed it to lack of sleep on top of all the stress I was going through at the time. It hasn't happened since or before.

reply to post by nightstalker78


Thank you for sharing your experience! So, you were under extra stress at the time, as well? I think this may be related. I am curious why our loved ones don't seem to have tried too hard to wake us up. Maybe we are just THAT unresponsive (although it seems hard to imagine, since lots of things wake me up at night) or maybe they are too interested in what we will do next. I guess I might be interested, if I were in my hubby's shoes. Or perhaps they are actually frightened at what we might do? That worries me...

reply to post by gwynnhwyfar


Yeah I was going through a lot of different things at the time,which I won't go into here. I think it's a little bit of everything as to why they won't wake us up. My mom said I just had this odd look in my eyes that scared her. I think it's also the possibility that sleep walkers can get violent and that's a scary thought. To unpredictable so it's better to let them finish whatever it is they're doing as long they're not going to hurt themselves.Before this all happened I suffered from sleep paralysis.That wasn't fun either.That happened on and off for a few years then stopped as suddenly as it came.

reply to post by nightstalker78


Thanks for the follow-up!

How very strange. I have never been in such a situation before, where I walked around and did stuff without being aware of it. My husband sometimes talks in his sleep though, and he sounds pretty freaky, so I can only imagine what we must look like when sleep walking!! No wonder they are afraid to interrupt us!

I hope it goes away and never happens again.

reply to post by gwynnhwyfar


My husband sleep walks a lot. I never wake him because he gets incredibly crabby

One particular incident stand out in my mind, and I still tease him about this sometimes.

It's around 2 or 3 in the morning and my husband jumps up out of the bed..well flies is more accurate
Anyway, I ask him what he's doing and I just get a mumbled gibberish response that gives me a bit of a giggle. He walks out of the bedroom and down the hallway. I hear the front door open, which worries me a little because I know he's asleep so I get up and follow him down. The front door is standing wide open and it sounds as if it's raining outside so I peak my head out to tell him to come in before he catches his death....it's at that moment I realize it's not raining. My husband is peeing in our trash can with a huge goofy grin on his face. I let him finish, grab his arm and quietly lead him back to bed. He doesn't remember any of this

My point? Sleep walkers can do some really odd things. I wouldn't get too worked up over it.

reply to post by gwynnhwyfar


What did you do durring that day or the day before.....of note. Had you been somewhere new or someplace you had not been in awhile, meet someone new ect ect?

Originally posted by U4ea82
reply to post by gwynnhwyfar

 

My husband sleep walks a lot. I never wake him because he gets incredibly crabby

One particular incident stand out in my mind, and I still tease him about this sometimes.

It's around 2 or 3 in the morning and my husband jumps up out of the bed..well flies is more accurate

Anyway, I ask him what he's doing and I just get a mumbled gibberish response that gives me a bit of a giggle. He walks out of the bedroom and down the hallway. I hear the front door open, which worries me a little because I know he's asleep so I get up and follow him down. The front door is standing wide open and it sounds as if it's raining outside so I peak my head out to tell him to come in before he catches his death....it's at that moment I realize it's not raining. My husband is peeing in our trash can with a huge goofy grin on his face. I let him finish, grab his arm and quietly lead him back to bed. He doesn't remember any of this

My point? Sleep walkers can do some really odd things. I wouldn't get too worked up over it.

edit on 16-10-2012 by U4ea82 because: corrections

Oh boy... It's bad enough fighting mirrors, I don't want to wake up one day and learn that I've relieved myself somewhere inappropriate!

Thank you for the story.

Originally posted by Logarock
reply to post by gwynnhwyfar

 

What did you do durring that day or the day before.....of note. Had you been somewhere new or someplace you had not been in awhile, meet someone new ect ect?

I had spent the whole day on an interview panel. I have been on lots of interview panels, but this one was very difficult for me for several reasons, and I was stressed out about it and obsessed on it that evening, before bed.

reply to post by gwynnhwyfar
There you go then. Better try to nail it down while its fresh and dont suppress.

Originally posted by Logarock
reply to post by gwynnhwyfar

 

There you go then. Better try to nail it down while its fresh and dont suppress.

Yeah, so now that I am accepting that the sleep walking episode actually happened... What do you mean by nailing it down? what am I supposed to do about it? I wasn't trying to suppress anything in the first place...

reply to post by gwynnhwyfar
We dont think we are suppressing but we may be. And it can be hard if ever trying to figure out what it is that bugs us.

If you dont mind me asking, what was it that you found difficult about that day?

reply to post by Logarock


All the candidates really wanted the job. Of the ten we interviewed, the panel ended up recommending 4 to the hiring mgr for a second interview. Of those:

2 were very qualified and deserved the job.
1 is already performing the job as a temp, but did not interview well and, while very nice, is nowhere near as qualified as the first 2.
1 was someone who worked for the department for years and was RIF'd. That one had a bunch of references from friends, and the worst interview - in and out in ten minutes, didn't really answer the questions, not as technical, etc.

I had not been expecting to have to interview the one who is a temp because I thought they were not able to apply for the permanent position.

I feel like it's a lose/lose situation. Either the most qualified candidates may not be getting a fair chance because of the temp who is already here, or the temp may end up losing his job because although he did well enough to get in as a temp, he's really not the best candidate. If the RIF gets it, that stiffs all three of the others who are all more qualified but don't have the pity factor and old friends in the dept.

I sure am glad I was just on the first panel and not the second one.

I don't know if this is close enough to sleep "walking" to be mentioned, but I'll add it anyway.

My wife occasionally takes a night shift in order to get a little extra cash. She'll come to bed at 5 in the morning or so and have whole conversations with me that I almost never remember.

It's not as funny as peeing on the garbage cans

Actually, I remember one real-ish episode. It was when our first born was still waking us up a million times a night for feedings and such. I remember "waking" up with my wife asking me what I was doing and mumbling something about the baby crying and needing to be changed. She told me, the baby has been dead for 10 years. Where did I get the diaper from, then?

I'm just kidding. The first part is real, but she just told me that the baby didn't cry and I must have been dreaming. Talk about stress and irregular sleep schedules; Yikes!

If you dont stop stressing about this it can occur more because worry for another occur is also stress, going to bed thinking about it aint a good idea.