Sleepwalking

By Reed Heath

Image from Lindsay Love

I haven’t sleepwalked since I was a child. I was never an avid sleepwalker, but I did have a few memorable experiences. Most notably, one night I wandered into my parents’ room, made my way to my mom’s side of the bed, and just stood there. She woke up, immediately recognizing the state I was in with her motherly instinct.

“Hey buddy, let’s get you back to be—” she began.

Before she could finish, I started peeing all over the side of the bed. She sighed, accepting that what had begun could not be stopped. And the moment has lived in infamy ever since.

As I got older, sleepwalking became a distant memory—something I only saw in movies. Until the other night.

I came home around midnight on Friday after grabbing a drink with a friend. My roommate, Sam, was already asleep with his door closed, so I quietly got ready for bed and fell asleep. The next thing I knew, I was in Sam’s bed.

According to him, I had opened his door and stared at him until he woke up. Then, without hesitation, I walked up to him and said, “We are good on that exam,” as I climbed into his bed. Naturally, he was confused.

“What exam?” he asked. “And why are you getting into my bed?”

I fumbled my words incoherently for a moment before finally managing to say (and this is where my memory starts to come back a little), “I get it now. Just let me sleep for a minute.”

Sam, exhausted from a long day and unwilling to argue with me, sighed and said, “Sure.” He let me sleep there for 30 minutes before finally walking me back to my own room.

What did I learn from this? Maybe we should all sleepwalk more often. You might wake up feeling better about that exam you’ve been stressing over. You might even get some unexpected quality time with your roommate. I’m just saying—sometimes good things happen when you let your dreams become reality.