The problem with sleepwalking

Of off the odd things I do, sleepwalking is the one that I worry about the most. In winter, I wake up in the front room of my home looking out of a large window. In summer, I find myself sitting on the steps of my Jacuzzi. I sleepwalk three or four times a month; more when I’m under stress, like when I travel. The worst episode took place while traveling in France about ten years ago. I woke up on a park bench about 500 yards from my hotel. I was in shorts and a t-shirt but barefoot. A police officer shook me awake and then walked me back to my hotel. He told be to lay off the sauce. Since then I take precautions, like barricading the door with a chair and my luggage.

I did it again last night. My dog treed a possum in the backyard and was barking loud enough to wake my wife. I slept through it.  She asked me to take care of it, I was apparently rude enough in my response  to her that she wanted to talk about it this morning. I apologized and told her I did not remember a thing.

I had a dream though. I dreamed I walked into my backyard with a hose in hand and tried to play whack-a-mole with my dog. My dog, being a yippy little minpin, bounced around and ran back into the safety of the house. I turned the hose on the possum instead. It flew up over my roof into the clouds. That is all I remembered until this morning when my wife spoke to me. I had said something like, “But I don’t love the neighbors” in response to her comment about the dog barking loud enough to wake the neighbors. I am sure I was rude or surly or both. I don’t know because I don’t remember.

When she asked, I took action. I got up and went into the backyard. I turned on the garden hose and sprayed the dog and possum with water. Apparently, I also visited the restroom and the refrigerator before retuning to bed. Pieces are coming back to me, but dimly.

I worry about sleepwalking, but I have doubts about people who use it as an excuse to cover a crime. In all the years of sleepwalking, my actions have always been a mirror of simple things I do while awake. In my case, I walk in the middle of the night to relieve leg craps. In winter I walk in my front room, in summer I walk in the back yard. I tend to do things that I normally do, but without waking up. Chasing a possum away with a hose is something I’ve done dozens of times.  Even my adventure in France was normal. I used to walk the park at night to work off steam after a long day at work.

People I talk to who sleep walk do the same things as I do. That’s why I have my doubts when sleepwalking is used as a defense for a crime. Like the case of a Scott Falater, a devout Mormon who stabbed his wife 44 times and then claimed sleepwalking as a defense. It was BS and he went to jail as he should have. I think sleepwalkers functions at a level that does not require consciousness decisions. You have to think about killing somebody and then hiding the evidence. Right?

I was wondering, does anybody else sleepwalk? And if so, do you do anything more complex that walking to your fridge?

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