| Author | Message | ||
     Des (Des) Username: Des Registered: 06-2008 Posted From: 86.145.36.243 |
Finished my review of 'Somnambulists' today. What an experience! http://weirdmonger.blog-city.com/somnambulists__by_allen_ashley.htm Does anyone here actually sleep-walk, write about it or have examples of it in fiction? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
Both my wife and son suffer from somniloquy, and let me tell you it's a real bunch of laughs. My wife has also been known to have the occasional bout of somnambulism - the last time at a friend's house, where she tried to leap down the stairs in her sleep. My son also has night terrors; we're regularly summoned to his room by his sleeping screams. The other night, when my wife went in to check on him before going to bed, she found him standing and pointing before the boiler cupbaord, which's he'd opened. While still asleep. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 212.74.96.200 |
I had two occurances of sleep walkign when I was a kid. Both before school trips. Never had it beofre or since. It's a strange experience. I woke curled up naked on the living room carpet, static whispering from a TV set. Odd. My brother had night terrors. He'd "wake" staring into nothing, convinced he couldn't see, even though he could. | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.197.136 |
I've never sleepwalked (but I'm a big sleeptalker, or so I've been told), but I had a neighbour who did, when I lived in Germany. She'd get up and go through her ballet exercises, apparently. Her husband had to rearrange the furniture before going to bed, in case she pirouetted into it. Night terrors sounds harrowing. My mum had this when she was a child, and she also experiences sleep paralysis occasionally (I've had this too, and it's terrifying). | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
My wife used to, Des, but I don't believe I ever have. The fictional example that immediately comes to my mind is "The Haunter of the Dark". | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.87.217 |
The fictional example that immediately comes to my mind is "The Haunter of the Dark". I recall vividly the horror I felt when I first read that as a boy, when the main character had escaped the church only to sleepwalk back to it and wake up inside it... | ||
| John (John) Username: John Registered: 05-2008 Posted From: 82.24.1.217 |
I'm told that I used to when I was a kid. According to my mum she'd find me sitting on the floor of the bedroom, playing with my toys, eyes wide open but otherwise unresponsive. In my teenage years (when I was 'otherwise unresponsive' regardless of the time of day) I would lash out a lot in my sleep - frequently woke up at the exact moment my first would hit the wall, or to see my thrown pillow hit flump on to the floor. But nothing since I was 17/18 or so. A good fourteen years or so. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.221.61 |
Nearly four years ago I was diagnosed with sleep apnoea, a condition that leads to persistently broken sleep because breathing is obstructed – you stop breathing, half wake up, breathe again, go back to sleep, stop breathing... I was doing that every few minutes. It's been estimated that 75% of road accidents oin the UK are caused by sleep deprivation resulting from undiagnosed sleep apnoea. Why is this relevant? Well, in the two years before I was diagnosed, I walked in my sleep several times. Twice I woke up on the bedroom floor – once having removed items from under the bed in order to make space for myself – and once on the living-room floor. In retrospect, this must have been my mind trying to escape from the sleep apnoea, not aware that the bed was not causing it. The bottom line is that without a medical study of your sleep patterns (which you can carry out at home with NHS equipment) it's not easy to say whether the causes of sleepwalking and other disordered sleep activity are psychological, physical or a mix of both. In fiction, I think one of the young women in DRACULA sleepwalks to remove the garlic and open the window. You could say she was out for the Count. [joke copyright Carry On Screaming] | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.24 |
What do vampires make sandwiches of? self-raisng dead. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.24 |
For the love of an edit button.... | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.24 |
All joking aside I can't think of anything more terrifying and whatever the cause I hope it never happens to you all again. It's bad enough waking and feeling disorientated without having to go through all that. | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.83 |
I've only ever had one incident of sleep-walking. When I was in my early twenties my father stopped me in our front garden at around 2am. I was dressed in just my undepants. In the dream I was having at that moment, the rock band Genesis had hidden a cache of gems in the glovebox of my car and I was going to recover them. I kid you not. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.14.107 |
Say, wasn't Phil Collins in a long ago, long forgotten vehicle, where he played a jewel thief...? Indeed, I just looked it up - BUSTER, 1988. Had you just seen that movie, Steve?...  | ||
| Huw (Huw) Username: Huw Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 218.168.189.69 |
Joel, is sleep apnoea something that can be treated? It's a frightening thought, that you can stop breathing while asleep. Take care! I've been having some very odd symptoms lately when I'm sleeping (or half asleep) in which my heart rate seems to change drastically (slow down, speed up, stop for a few beats) but I don't know if it is sleep-related or a cardiac thing, or linked to anxiety or even my acid reflux. Other times I get a feeling that I can only describe as a spasm, or a sort of little earthquake going off in my chest/throat area when I take a deep breath. I try not to think about it too much, but it gets scary sometimes. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.241.143 |
The mother of an old friend of mine died unexpectedly from sleep apnoea. Her husnband simply woke up one morning, found her dead next to him, and had to then go and tell their two kids. Horrifying and tragic. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.37.199.45 |
Sleep apnoea is very dangerous if untreated – especially as ignorant GPs often prescribe sleeping pills for it, which makes it worse. It's sometimes corrected by surgery, but far more often by the use of a CPAP breathing machine that forces air into your airway while you're asleep. Not fun, but you quickly become reliant on it – a night without it is a night without decent sleep. I've been using a CPAP device for nearly four years now and it makes a huge difference. It's like having 80% normal sleep as opposed to 10%. Huw – I wouldn't presume to guess what might be causing the problem you describe, but I'm sure it needs looking at. Take care. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.63.24 |
Sorry to hear about that Joel and your symptoms Huw. I've just been reading up about sleep apnoea in more detail and is sounds very complicated and indeed quite frightening. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.163 |
Huw it sounds like acid reflux. I had a similar condition which I had checked up recently by two specialists. The doctors said that it was time to quit all the coffee, cigarettes and soda. I looked at the doc- 'No coffee- no life!' And not smoking now (after one relapse) is just not cool at all. And Joel good to hear that it helps you with the apnoea. Regarding the sleepwalking my sister wandered around the house at night when she was young. It was scary... | ||
| Steve Bacon (Stevebacon) Username: Stevebacon Registered: 09-2008 Posted From: 90.211.103.83 |
Joel, my dad suffered from sleep apnoea, and he often used a CPAP machine when he was in hospital - he used to say it helped him sleep but I couldn't see how it could, because of the way the thing worked! Craig, I think I preceeded BUSTER by about a year. Maybe they stole my dream, or perhaps it was a mundane prophecy?... | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
When I was about 8 years old, still fast asleep, I walked downstairs, lay on the sofa and recited the opening monolgue from the Six Million Dollar Man in its entirity, then stood up and urinated on the cushions. My mother just sat there watching me in shock. I actually wrote this episode into a story many years later; everything is meat for the fiction. :-) | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 80.167.124.163 |
 Was about to tell a similar story about my sis about sleep walking and trips to the bathroom...Why use the bathroom when you can walk into the living room in your sleep... | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 129.11.77.198 |
>>>When I was about 8 years old, still fast asleep, I walked downstairs, lay on the sofa and recited the opening monolgue from the Six Million Dollar Man in its entirity, then stood up and urinated on the cushions. I'm sure you did this in Nottingham, too. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.122.108 |
Would that be something that happened before I joined you both for breakfast - Fantasycon 2006 by any chance? |