Conference turris::womannotes-v3

    Relax.  You might want to look up hypnogogic (and hypnopompic)
    states.  I don't get into them much, but they are *really*
    weird.
    
    						Ann B.

    My husband goes through the same thing with me and it seems to run in
    the family.  My mother has been known to carry on entire conversations
    on the phone.  One time someone called to tell her that a good friend of
    theirs had died, she answered "That's nice" and went back to sleep.  A
    few weeks later she was talking to the same person, who again mentioned
    that this friend had passed away.  She asked why no one had told her
    about it and they said that they had told her, but her reaction did seem 
    a little "weird". 
    
    Janet
    

    
    What generally happens with me is I START drifting off to sleep and my
    imagination creeps into my brain.  If someone is near, or tries to talk
    to me, I may well assume they're IN the dream with me, and I begin
    trying to discuss it with them.  It comes out pretty humorous if a
    conversation results!
    
    My sister does the same thing, and even got up to sleepwalk once,
    claiming she was looking for her nailpolish because she had to polish
    her nails, and trying to get the people in the living room to help her. 
    She was told to go back to bed, which she did.  She didn't remember a
    *thing* in the morning.
    
    -Jody
    

    
    The same sort of things happen to me, but I've always found it amusing.
    I'm not sleeping with anyone now, but when I was, I regularly got reports 
    of what off-the-wall things I commented on the night before.  Most of the 
    time, what I say is (evidently) unintelligible, and I have been known to 
    get belligerent if the person with whom I am "conversing" does not respond
    the way I want them to (usually because they can't understand me.  But,
    then again, it was their choice to try to get me to converse.)  I can't 
    remember any specific instances -- unfortunately, because some of them 
    were pretty funny -- but I do remember one time having terribly hurt 
    feelings over some nonsensical conversation.  And my partner had no idea 
    what I was talking about!
    
    I can have coversations and not remember them, too, but this seems to
    happen less now than it did when I was younger.  When I get woken up by
    the phone, and it's not an emergency or a friend in need, I sometimes have 
    the wherewithall to say "I'm too groggy, call me back later."
    
    My sister and mother both chuckle in their sleep.  And, I've been told 
    that when I was a kid I walked in my sleep.  (I have a vague memory of
    trying to open a safe -- but it was really the linen closet door.)
    
    CQ

	My college roommate freshman year ("The Incredible, Indelible, Electro-
Stereophonic Bruce") sat bolt upright in bed one night and yelled "Money!
There's money all over my shirt!", then went back to sleep.

	I've carried on phone conversations while asleep, but mostly when I
was pushing myself to borderline exhaustion.  Friends told me I sounded pissed
at being awakened, but was otherwise completely coherent.  I didn't remember
a thing about the conversations afterwards.


					--D

    I've talked in my sleep for years.  When I was a teenager, my mother
    would hear me talking in the middle of the night and come to my room to
    see who I was talking to.  I guess I was lucky I was talking to myself
    because I don't think she'd have taken to kindly to me having someone
    in my room at 3 a.m. or being on the phone.  She said one night I was
    sitting up in bed just talking away.
    
    Now, my husband tells me about weird things I do.  One night he said I
    sat up and looked toward the center of the bedroom and asked who was in
    that car.  When he asked what car, he said I got a real nasty tone of
    voice and said, "That car right there," still looking toward the center
    of the room.  When he told me there wasn't a car, I lay back down!!  I
    know, I thought I was weird, too!!
    
    Virginia

    
    lauren does this all the time. (i never do, of course ;^)
    
    there was a great article in the 'atlantic' a month or two ago
    about dreams and some current theories about them, especially
    non-freudian. the main idea is that instead of our sub-conscious
    'forcing' us to dream to resolve inner conflicts, our brains go
    into 'dream state' spontaneously and our attempts to make sense
    of it all (which may be, but not necessarily, affected by inner
    conflicts) are dreams.
     

    The "weirdest awakening" I have ever had was many years ago when I
    woke up to find myself in the shower and washing my hair in the
    middle of the night.

    I have never been known to carry on phone conversations in my sleep,
    although I have been known to answer the phone when it's actually
    the alarm clock ringing and vice-versa (separating the two helped
    here).  An ex-roommate once claimed that in response to the alarm
    ringing, I answered the phone and started repeating my social
    security number.  I hate to think what this, if true, might say
    about my inner conflicts ;^)

	Sharon

    The only one I can remember (it's a second-hand memory, of course) is
    sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night, shaking my SO awake
    and saying in a very serious tone of voice 
    
                    "Isinglas is warmer than floors!"
    
    
    						=maggie

Rachael,

 Seems you have a lot of company.

 I've "played" here twice.

 After a 200 mile high school bus trip, with non-stop singing, I went
 to bed. My sister says she came in the room about 3 am and turned on
 a soft light, at which point, I sat bolt upright in bed and said:
 "Wow. She swallowed a cow."  Then fell back asleep immediately.

    
    I was staying overnight with a friend when I was about 14 and in the
    middle of the night she started talking.  Once I had woken up enough to
    ask her what she was saying, she told me very seriously "I've got an
    Easter Egg and it's melting everywhere!".  This was about September
    with no Easter Eggs in sight!!
    
    I've had a funny experience with dreaming before when I've woken up
    thinking that the dream was really true.  I once dreamt that my (now
    ex) boyfriend had broken off our relationship, and when I woke up I
    burst into tears convinced that it had really happened!  It took me
    about 15 minutes of seriously going over events of the previous couple
    of days to realise that it was just a dream!
    
    Sam
    

    re: .0
    
    Hi Rachael,
    
    As you can tell from many of the foregoing replies, your
    "symptoms" are normal.  But I don't think you're describing
    dreams.  Most dreams *do* occur during REM or rapid eye move-
    ment sleep, and the first REM cycle starts about 90 minutes
    after you fall asleep.  (The hypnogogic imagery mentioned in
    .1 usually occurs during the first few minutes of stage 1
    sleep.)  The overall cycle looks like this: 1-2-3-4-3-2-REM-
    2-3-4-3-2-REM...etc.  So, if you go to bed an hour or more
    before your husband does, by the time he arrives you'll most
    likely be in stage 3 or 4 sleep.  These stages are character-
    ized by delta brain waves.  Stage 4 has more delta waves than
    stage 3 and is deeper.  It is during these deep stages of sleep
    that sleepwalking and sleeptalking occur, which is what I think
    you're describing.  When you talked to someone on the telephone,
    didn't you move your arm to pick up the phone?  You couldn't
    have done that during REM sleep, because at that time your large
    muscles are temporarily paralyzed.  As far as I know, no one re-
    calls what goes on during delta sleep, whereas it is possible to
    remember at least some dreams.  
    
    Jeremy Campbell's book (paperback), "Winston Churchill's Afternoon
    Nap" has a detailed description of what researchers think is happen-
    ing - especially physiologically - during the various stages of sleep.
    
    Virginia
    

    When our son was around age 10 he had several instances of sleepwalking
    and talking in his sleep; he seemed to be alert and wide awake, but the
    conversation was really off the walls.  What worked with him was taking
    him back to bed and just talking softly to him until he settled down
    again.  We finally figured out that he was doing this when he had a
    fever; he did it maybe half a dozen times and then stopped entirely. 
    He had no memory of any of it.

Several people here have described "sitting bolt upright" in bed.

This is very characteristic of "dream traumas" which are neither dreams,
nor nightmares ... I've read a bit on the subject having experienced 
them myself now and again.  They are pretty frightening since when you
"wake" you continue to hallucinate the dream into wakefulness.  Your
pulse increases, and you experience quite a real sense of terror .

There was a court case in Amercia of a guy who strangled his wife during
just such a dream trauma, he was equitted on the grounds of diminished
responsibility. He thought he was defending himself against a Japaneese
solder during WWII.

Oh yes, and one usually lets out a loud scream which scares the s**t out
of your bedfellow/neighbours !!

Wendy

    About the loud scream:  I've sometimes dreamed that I scream so loudly
    that it echoes, but at that point I've been awakened by my husband who
    asks if I was having a bad dream since I was whimpering pitifully...
    
    aq
    

	This is fascinating!  A few sleep happenings that I remember (or got
	told about):

	o  Shortly after moving to a new apartment and arranging things for
	   our little black pooch, Jan told me I sat up in bed, put a hand
	   on her (Jan's) head, said  "NO!" in a loud, authoritative voice,
	   and went back to sleep.

	o  A college friend told me that his brother got up in the middle
	   of the night, walked down to the living room, and, before my
	   friend could stop him, urinated on the TV and shorted it out.
	   (Ha!  That's what I call a real TV critic!)

	o  On a slightly different note, someone I knew could visualize
	   a clock before going to sleep, and wake up within 2 minutes of
	   the time visualized.  He hadn't used an alarm clock since he
	   was 7.

	Ron

    Just last week my husband started talking to me in his sleep.  We had
    quite the conversation about mice being in the house - we have no mice! 
    The next morning he didn't remember a thing about it!
    
    "Honey there are mice in the house!"
    
    What kind of mice?
    
    "Grey ones."
    
    Where are they?                                      
    
    "Don't worry sweetie - the cats will get them."

    One night when I was married to my ex-husband I woke up to a loud thud
    and realized he had fallen out of bed.  :-)  I said, "Are you alright?"
    and he jumped to his feet, looked at me and said, "A pack of wild
    Dobermans are after me!"  Then, he hopped back in bed, rolled over and
    went back to sleep.  In the morning he couldn't remember anything about
    it.   (I thought it was wicked funny.)
    
    I am always having incredibly bizarre dreams, my favorite being a
    recurring dream of being picked up by Tom Petty while waiting in line at
    McDonalds.  But, I never seem to talk out loud.
    
    Although, my mother told me that once when she tried to wake me up for
    work when I was still living home I said, "Wait a minute.  I just have
    to finish this one dream."
    
    Re .9, Sharon, your answering the phone in your sleep by reciting your
    social security number reminds me that once last week, while wide
    awake, I answered the phone by clearly announcing, "WRKSYS::STHILAIRE".
    (that was briefly embarrassing - I couldn't believe I had said it)
    
    Lorna
    

    
    Thanks all.  I feel much better.  None of my friends dream much
    or do anything bizarre in their sleep.  (At least they SAY they don't!)
    I was beginning to think I was nuts.  I'm going to fo to the library
    to get that Jeremy Campbell book.  It sounds very interesting.
    Someone said they wake up and the dreams seem so real, they cry or
    have to recount their day to make themselves believe it's not real.
    I do that too!  
    Thanks again!!!
    Rachael
    

    I find that when I have late night snacks my dreams are much more vivid
    and wild.  I figure there has to be some connection between the
    digestion process at that time of night and brain activity.
    
    I too have talk in my sleep and have said some pretty wild things - the
    funniest I think was when I sat up straight in bed and heeded the
    warning, "Beware of the Bunny Patrol"...figure that one out!  I had no
    recollection of saying this though and found it pretty humorous when
    told about it the next day.

    on a slightly different note, there are many topics discussing dream
    analysis and the like:
    
    DEJAVU (currently at node ZENDIA)
    2   dream come true?
    10  aware of dreaming
    47  do you dream in colour?
    97  dreams seem real?
    235 dream control
    241 coding dreams/nightmares
    251 a strange dream
    263 my dream come true. why?
    342 lucid dream techniques in OMNI
    353 dreams, dreams, dreams
    362 end of the world dreams
    439 dream of murder
    464 how I remember dreams
    618 more on dreams
    693 strange dream!
    725 dreams
    796 dream - oak chest of drawers
    882 these dreams - I just don't understand
    891 time travel dream?
    892 dream meanings
    893 control of dreaming
    929 my dreams
    944 more on recurring dreams
    982 dream interpretation
    1033 dream level 1, 2, 3...etc
    1061 weird dreams
    1082 help! dream interpretation needed
    1085 dream interpretation needed
    1147 dream research - help wanted
    1151 a strange recurring dream
    
    there are others in the file, these just looked the most...topical...
    
    -Jody
    

    >once last week, while wide awake, I answered the phone by clearly
    >announcing, "WRKSYS::STHILAIRE".
    
    Thanks, Lorna, this is great.  You had me laughing so hard I cried.
    
    I've never done anything *that* bad.  I have, however, referred to
    people (including myself) by their nodenames.  (Which was bad when I
    used to be THRUST::CARROLL.)
    
    D!

    I have had weird slppeing occurrances since I was young.  I remember
    when I was about 4 or 5 I dreamt my famaily members and I were climbing
    these stairs next to a cliff.  First one parent then the other fell
    off...so I jumped off.  I was falling and saw the cliff flying by, and
    I woke up and had a double image: the moving cliff, and my room.  I
    thought it was neat.
    
    When I was about 17, I started a new job waitressing and Friendly's and
    it was making me tense.  I dreamt I was on the job, went over to the
    register to ring up a check, and I dropped a dollar.  I bent down to
    pick up the dollar - and also leaned over the side of my bed and began
    looking through tissue box, book, papers etc.  I "saw" these items, and
    it finally sank through...it was like I woke up s-l-o-w-l-y.
    
    The funniest thing I can ever remember happened only a few months ago. 
    I was dreaming a burglar was breaking in, and I yelled "GET OUT!"  And
    I really DID "yell" that...but it came out hoarse and low..I woke
    myself up AND my SO.  He heard this gutteral "GET OUT!" and thought he
    was sleeping with the excorcist!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HA HA!! We both laughed
    hard for 5 minutes!!!
    
    

    somewhere in my apartment i have a sound activated recorder,
    but i can't find it.  after a trip to visit a friend out west,
    i wanted to set it up to catch some of the meaningful things
    that i share with the world, seeing as everybody who was present
    agreed that i was pretty vocal about something, but nobody
    could understand.
    
    i talk most when i am over-tired.  me being exhausted tends to
    blur the lines between reality and dreams, making it easier for
    my dreams to slip out.

	I've been told a number of times that I talk in my sleep.  Usually
	it's pretty unintelligible, but occasionally I'm very clear.  For
	instance:
	
	When I was growing up, I used to fall asleep with the door to my
	room closed.  When my mom went to bed she'd come open up the door
	to let some heat in.  One night she went to my door, opened it, and
	found me staring her in the face.  I said, "Are those men gone yet?"
	She almost had a heart attack!  She told me to go back to bed, which
	I did.  I have no memory of that.

	More recently, I was sleeping with my SO and was absolutely convinced
	that he was dead (!).  He was sleeping on his back, I placed my hand
	about an inch above his mouth and nose, presumably to see if he was
	breathing.  Just then he woke up, saw this hand over his face, and
	just about jumped out of his skin.  I said, "I thought you were dead",
	rolled over, and went back to sleep.  I think he had a much harder time
	falling asleep!  

	Another time, my SO and I were tenting in Maine.  About 5 raccoons
	started attacking our cooler.  Mark immediately woke up and was
	shining a flashlight on them.  I merrily slept away.  I guess he
	tried a few times to get me to look out the tent, but the only 
	response he got was, "What if they follow the source of the light?"

	Also, my dreams are *extremely* lifelike.  I can see, hear, touch,
	smell, and taste.  Sometimes I dream about these INCREDIBLE desserts
	which I chow down on.  When I wake up, I can still remember what
	they tasted like, and I'm full!  

	Sue

    My first husband used to sit up in bed and talk in an unknown Oriental
    language.  I could recognize Japanese and CHinese and it wasn't one of
    those.  *He* claimed to speak only English.
    
    Briana 

    
    
    
    
    These stories are a riot! I can relate!
    
    One night a space shuttle was being launched, my dad told
    me to wake up my brother so he could see it. I woke him up,
    (at least it looked that way) and he climbed on top of the TV,
    raised his arms to the ceiling, and said, "Lift me up higher."
    Yep, ok, Bill. We all just looked at each other. WEIRD.
    
    Recently, my SO has been babbling up a storm! He talks about
    peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, fire engines, bicycles,
    you name it..... One night, we had been in bed for about 10
    minutes and he was already snoring, I was trying to fall asleep,
    and all of a sudden he says, "Be quiet Sam!" (Sam is his parent's
    dog who lives next door and who happened to be in Maine that night!)
    I said, "I don't hear anything!" So he keeps yelling. Then, he starts
    talking about this guy we know.....this guy I hate, so I start asking
    questions about this person, and got answers! These were questions
    that wouldn't have been answered truthfully had he been awake. I
    couldn't believe it! He couldn't believe the things I knew in the
    morning! Very strange. 
    
    
    
                    -Jennifer

    
    I have a friend who, when she was about 15, sleep-walked down the
    stairs, passed her parents in the living room, opened the front door
    and started off down the drive in her nightdress!  Her parents had to
    chase after her and guide her back to bed (I've heard that the worst
    thing you can do is wake a sleepwalker while they're sleepwalking).
    
    Also my sister, when she was very young, forgot to take her favourite
    teddy to bed one night.  About two hours later she walked down the
    stairs, grabbed her teddy and walked back to bed, all in her sleep.  I
    also remember one time when we were small - I slept in the top bunk of
    bunk-beds, and one morning woke up on the floor!!  I can't have falled
    out without waking up, and my mother's explanation was that I probably
    got out of bed to go to the toilet, came back and went to sleep on the
    floor - I don't remember anything!
    
    Sam
    

    I've been sitting here laughing for the past hour and the other people
    around me are wondering why i'm laughing so hard.  All the stories i've
    just read are too funny.  But, hey, I can relate!  So here goes a few
    of my own.
    
    When I first started at DEC I was on an 800 line.  Well I was pretty
    used to talking with people face to face, but the telephone was a
    different story.  We had a script to follow word for word.  Well I just
    couldn't seem to get the script word for word I used to use my own
    words instead.  All of this being done is training class.  Well I was
    the only one in the class who did this and yes, I got to be pretty
    funny, but yet emmbrassing to me.  Well it was towards the end of
    training and you were being measured by how well you did on the script
    so a couple of days before this I was having nightmare!  One night
    while fast asleep I start chantting the scipt really loud so that my
    brother came into my room and was wondering what I was saying. I said
    "Thank you for calling Digital Equipment Corporation can I take your
    order Pleeeease"  I kept repeating this so my brother decided to be a
    customer and start answering me.  So after I was all done I think I
    brought in about a million dollars for the company that night. 
    Needless to say he told me about this the next day and I was lauging to
    hard that the next day in class alls I could de was remember this and
    laugh.  Yes, I did manage to get through class.  I laugh everytime I
    think of this.
    
    
    Did you ever wake up at the end of the bed and bolt straigt up and
    wonder where the heck are you?  I did this once and nearly broke my
    neck because I fell out of bed.
    
    Speaking of falling out of bed.  Once I slept over a friends house and
    was having a weird dream when I reach over off the bed for something
    and proceeded to fall.  Well the bed was abnormally high and was made
    with the tightest hospital cornors I've ever encountered.  Anyway I
    readched out and fell upsidedown hanging from the bed.  So picture this
    a person is hanging upside-down whith the feet pinned to the lower park
    of the bed.  My legs where crossed so I couldn't even move.  I was
    hanging there 1st wondering where I was and 2nd how the hell am I going
    to get out of this?  Calling for my friend was no use because the
    person was not going to wake up even if we had an earthquake!  I think
    I hung there for about 15 mins when I finally wiggled my way free to
    drop to the floor on my head.  
    
    I'm laughing just writing about this!!!!!!!
    
    BTW if anyone ever falls out of bed its called: "Ceil-ly-wheel-ie
    
    Deb  

    
    I just remebered that once I fell asleep on my back with my arms above
    my head, bent at the elbow, with my fingers clasped behind my head. 
    This is not a good position for the arms to be in while asleep and
    while I was sleeping, my arms "fell asleep" too.  When I woke up, my
    arms had no sensation in them and for (what seemed like) a long time I 
    didn't know where my arms were.  Once I realised where they were, I
    had quite a struggle getting them down!  My shoulders ached for a day
    or so after.         
    
    CQ 

    There is an article on dreaming in animals and people in the current
    (NOV 1990) Scientific American.
    
    /s/ Jim WIlliams

I used to walk and talk in my sleep so often that I could start another 
notes file, so I'll just list a few.  I haven't done either since being 
married.  (Should that tell me something?)

When I was about 9 or so I slept over a friends house.  We were sharing a 
twin bed when we went to sleep but I woke in the middle of the night to the 
sound of crinkling plastic.  I turned around and found myself in her 
brother's bed.  (They shared a room) I felt very fortunate that he was only 
2.5 at the time.  I'm glad that it was his bed I ended up in. :)  It could 
have been worse!

When my sister and I shared an apartment I was in my room having a weird 
dream.  I was lying on my back and I looked up to the left of the bed. That 
side was against the wall, but I didn't see the wall.  I saw the old 
oriental man from Gremlins standing there staring at me.  I screamed, 
jumped out of bed and climbed under my end table.  I woke up just as I got 
under it.  Just then, my sister walked in and turned on the light.  She 
just stood there and laughed.  She was used to that sort of thing from me.  
We used to share a room!

The first time I recall sleep walking was when I was 3.  My parents were 
always downstairs when I was awake (expect for bathroom trips and such).  
So when I got out of bed and went to look for them *(while still asleep)* I 
headed downstairs.  I got down there and then woke up.  Everything was dark 
and there wasn't a soul around (they were all asleep).  I was terrified and 
started to scream.  It took a minute for them to find me and I'm sure I 
stopped their hearts.  They thought I was being murdered.  That incident 
was so traumatic for me that I can remember every detail that happened upon 
my waking up.  

I used to wake up in different clothes than the ones I wore to bed or with 
a bathrobe and slippers on.  At least I roamed the house dressed decently!

My sisters said I used to sit in the bathroom with them every night while
they washed up for bed.  I never remember it.  I always went to bed at 
least an hour before them.


A friend of mine "woke up" one night when he was around 7 or 8 and went 
into his parents room.  He saw a man murder them.  He screamed and ran out 
of the house to the neighbors house, woke them up and told them his parents 
were being killed, call the police.  Meanwhile, his parents were outside 
looking for him.  They heard him scream and run out of the house and chased 
after him.


My husband will talk in his sleep after playing a competitive board game 
with me.  Which he won't do often.  Once after playing Monopoly he had been 
asleep for about 10 minutes when he rolled over to face me.  He pointed to 
the knob on his dresser and said, "See that knob?"  "Yes"  "Well, if you 
have 3 of those, you can put a house on it."  "Is that so?"  "Yup" and he 
rolled over again!  I cracked up.

Then after Scrabble once, he said something like, "SKGLCKSJ.  That's a 
word, isn't it?"  "Yes! (while laughing)"  "Great, I used all my letters, 
that's bonus points!"  Rolled over and went to sleep.


Ln

  I was six years old and asleep.  Mom came in and heard me say, "You can't
  do that, God."  For as long as she lived she was fond of telling this story,
  adding, "If he'd argue with Jesus Christ, what chance do _I_ have?"

  JP

    This is too funny!  My Mother tells of the time when my brother, who
    was 3 at the time, sleepwalked from his bedroom into theirs, went over
    to their bed, picked up one of my Father's (they were made of felt,
    with perforations in them) slippers, and before she could stop him,
    'peed' in it! 
    
    My husband tells me that I speak a strange, foreign language in my
    sleep.  He has also woken me a few times when I was wimpering and
    crying during dreams.  When I first started working at DEC, I used
    to dream my job every night!  I would wakeup exhausted from dreaming
    system mgmt all night!
    
    Carol

    God I LOVE this topic!
    
    re. sleepwalking....I guess anybody who knows s/he may do this should
    avoid sleeping in the nude...............???? 
    
    I just remebered when I was 4 we moved into a house (from an apartment)
    and so my 3 yr old sister and I got TWIN BEDS!  I remember my sister
    was always falling out of bed - but she never woke up!  I was a 4 yr
    old, sound asleep, then I'd wake up from hearing * T H U D *...I
    sometimes wouldn't even look over...I'd just yell "DAD!!!!!!!!"
    He'd come put her back in bad.  She never remembered anything! I still
    tease her!
             

    I was just talking to my SO about this, and he told me about his friend
    who one night fell asleep on one arm so IT fell asleep, and when he
    woke up, he couldn't even feel it...or roll over.  He managed to "flip"
    over...promptly SLAPPING his wife in the face with his sleeping
    arm..she woke up and started screamming "What??? What did I do???" He
    then  fell off the bed laughing.
    
    Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
    

    
    I know that I do weird things when I'm waking up - these have been
    known to cause a few..um...tense moments.
    I sleep very deeply, and although I will spring awake for an alarm
    clock I am very difficult for another person to wake, so I've been
    told.
    I've been known to roundly abuse, argue with, or say weird things to
    the poor person who's been kind enough to try and wake me up by
    bringing me in coffee, or whatever.....
    I've done this to a couple of people, both of which found it very
    difficult to believe that I wasn't conscious of what I was saying.
    'gail
    

    When I was a teenager, my friends and I had quite a few sleepovers at
    various friends' houses.  I suppose they could be called slumber parties,
    but I hesitate to refer to them that way considering how different they
    were from "real" slumber parties in our early teens.  On the sleepovers
    in High School, we typically went out in the middle of the night to
    drive around.
    
    One way or another, though, we wouldn't get much sleep.
    
    My friends had many stories of calling me in the late afternoon of the
    next day and having entire conversations with me in my sleep (that I
    did not recall later at all!)  I would answer the phone in my room and
    would chat semi-coherently for awhile until they realized I wasn't 
    quite there.  Then they'd laugh and send me back to sleep (and would 
    tell me about it later.)  
    
    As for alarm clocks, I've always had to struggle to wake up to them.
    I often wake up before the alarm goes off to see how close I am to
    worrying about waking up to it.  For about three years, I woke up
    immediately before the alarm so many times that I stopped using it
    altogether (without oversleeping even once.)  I thought of the time
    I wanted to wake up, then I would set my body clock on "snooze" to
    wake me two or three times before the time I really wanted to get up.
    It worked like body-clockwork for three years, then it stopped and
    I had to go back to using an alarm.
    
    If I sleep at an odd time of day, I wake up very disoriented.  I've
    often thought of writing notes to myself for reading when I wake up
    so I can avoid the momentary panic of not knowing what day it is
    and why I'm sleeping at that hour.  I'm not sure I'd remember to read
    my note, though.  ;^)
    
    Still, I'd like to try it one of these days.
    
    - Jaime

    
    I evidently went through a period of being very nasty on wake-up.  I
    remember my mother scolding me and having hurt feelings and telling me 
    NEVER to talk to her "that way".  I didn't remember a bit of it.
    
    CQ

    
    Re -1
    CQ,
    I'm so glad to hear of someone else who does this!
    I may print your note to show to my (occasionally) enraged SO! :-)
    'gail
    
    

    Well I recall waking up, and saying  I was cold, and having 
    the covers pulled lovingly up over me and being given a warm
    embrace and he never remembered a bit of it in the morning..
    
    B

    
    
    My SO talks in his sleep constantly. Sometimes he'll just babble, but a
    lot of the time he'll say a sentence that is totally out of context.
    Being the curious person that I am I'll try to hold a conversation with
    him (knowing he's not conscious). One time I replied "What?" and he
    said it back we kept going back and forth what what what what what for
    about fifteen minutes until I fell into a fit of giggles!
    
    When we first starting sharing the same bed he would sometimes bolt up
    straight and just sit there. A few times he did it and would ask "Who's
    there?" That was pretty scary! The other night I had a nightmare and I
    woke up very upset and I thought he was awake because he asked me what
    was wrong. I told him a little about the nightmare and he replied
    "Yeah, I know, wrapping paper will do that to you". I got so mad I
    really did wake him up. Ofcourse this was during the holidays.
    
    Now, I can usually tell when he is indeed sleeping. He has a real
    glazed look in his eyes and his lower lip protrudes just a little. Very
    cute!
    
    M

    
    This is funny.  I remember the night after we got home after a
    3-day weekend of rock climbing, I had a dream I was climbing
    rocks.  (Actually, I really needed to get out of bed and pee).
    
    Steve woke up to me lieing in bed, my head up, running my hands
    over the blank wall next to the bed muttering and moaning, "I can't
    find anything.  There's no holds!"  I was dreaming I was squenched
    up under an overhang, trying to find a hold just above the overhang.
    
    He took me in his arms, stroked me, and said, "It's okay, we're
    in bed, sweetie, it's just a dream."  I didn't believe him at first,
    and whined, "No, I can't find *anything*," still running my hands
    back and forth the bedroom wall.  But then I guess I must've opened
    my eyes about then, because I could see a dim light coming in the
    bedroom window, and I connected the whole thing.
    

    cheyenne, that was one weird guy.

RE: .47

Had you climbing the walls, eh?

	:-)
	-- Charles

    don't know if it's weird, but c. 5yrs ago I dreamed a complete story. 
    I am not in this dream.  It's the story of a gang of successful woman
    criminals, and their downfall.  I think it would make a great novel --
    now the question is, can I write?

    
    
    My housemate got up this morning and told me that he had dreamed that
    he had gone to our hairdresser to get a haircut, and Randy (the
    hairdresser) had given him the same haircut that I just got last night.
    
    I believe he prefaced it with the word "petrifying!" ;-)
    
    
    kath

        I once had a dream that was a musical...this small group
        (maybe four) of strangers kept following me around
        singing at me.
        
        Dan

    
    I dreamed an entire song once, performed by my favorite musician.
    It's something I have never heard before.  If only I knew how to
    write music ...
    
    My dreams are often so real that the emotions I experience within 
    my dreamstate spill into my conscious life.  For instance, in the
    past I have had a romantic dream about someone that was so vivid,
    so real, that I was unable to cope with their in-person presence 
    without freefalling back into the memory of the dream and what we 
    had shared in the depths of my subconscious.  It took weeks.
    
    I love going to sleep so I can experience other realms of life.
    What's really exciting is when someone I'm close to (oh Cheyenne!)
    dreams something similar, or I dream something that happens in her
    life that very night.  These connections fascinate me to no end.
    
    Carla
    

    My father and I talked about this, and he told me the weirdest thing
    that had ever happened to him in dream-land...
    
    One of the crucial things about dreams is that you don't know if they
    have some relation to reality, or whether they are total creations by
    your mind.  Your concious mind generally believes one or the other
    (most people believe that they are total creations of their mind) but
    your *dream-self*, how does she know?  How does your unconcious know
    that dreams aren't real?
    
    Ever noticed how some details in the dream never seem to come into
    focus?  There are certain things you *don't* know, and so your
    dream-self doesn't know them either, and can't fill in the details.  If
    it filled in the details by guessing, that would prove that the dream
    was a creation of your imagination.  If it filled them in accurately
    with something that was externally testable...well...
    
    So my father told me about a dream he had.  It was at the end of the
    dream, when he started to feel himself drift towards conciousness (he
    and I both feel like we a swimming to the "surface").  As he starts to
    feel this he notices that he is standing in a hallway in an old school
    he used to go to.  There is linoleum on the floor, and on the tiles are
    a particular pattern, but he can't seem to focus on the pattern because
    he doesn't *know* that the pattern on the tiles are.  So in the dream
    (this discussion began with a discussion about how sometimes you can
    control your dreams) he *stopped* his swim to the surface of
    conciousness, and instead decided to test the "realityness of
    dreams"...he pulled out a magnifying glass (it was a dream, after all)
    and started to focus *closely* on the linoleum floor.  And just as the
    pattern started to come into focus, he heard a voice say "YOU DON'T
    WANT TO DO THAT".  The voice was huge, and filled him with utter
    certainty that if he managed to confirm one way or another that either
    he *couldn't* focus on the tile floor, or he saw the pattern, that he
    would never wake up.
    
    So he swam to the surface, woke up, and never did test his theory.  
    
    D!

    My twin sister and I are both very vivid dreamers, and have often
    slept-walked as well.  One time during college we were home at my Mom's
    house. In the morning, my twin woke me up and asked me to go check out
    in the hall and see if there was a pitcher of water on the telephone
    table. Needless to say, I was a bit freaked to actually find it there!
    She told me she'd dreamt that she'd walked downstairs, filled the
    pitcher with water and ice, and started back upstairs. Near the top,
    she remembers thinking she'd dump it on our other sister's head, but
    decided not to, and left in on the telephone table.  It gave both of us
    a chill.
    
    One of my earlier memories is around age 5 - I woke up with my Dad
    catching me just as I was about to sleepwalk/fall down the stairs. He
    happened to be coming up at the same time.
    
    

    I've had a couple of winners, too: one time I fell asleep on the couch
    beside the phone, waiting for my girlfriend to call. When she called I
    remember jumping up and answering really fast trying to sound awake,
    but then I fell asleep on the phone and started saying stuff like
    "Yeah, Kelly and Don are here." I don't know a Kelly or a Don.
    She thought I had a girl over and was *maaaaddd*. I didn't even 
    remember it in the morning.
    
    Some more wierd dreams I've had:
       o  I was playing soccer in my backyard with AC/DC.
       o  I was in the supermarket, and I came across Michael Jordan
          selling chicken with the Digital logo on it. 
       o  I dreamed the cast of "Star Wars" was on a mission to get
          a box of "Pampers" to Kings Island (an amusement park).
          Go figure.
    
    trickey

    
    I recently dreamed that Arnie Becker's kitchen appliances were
    situated on tiered levels, and that he was skipping to and fro
    preparing homemade dumplings for me.
    
    Carla
    

    	I've mentioned elsewhere, in passing, that I was a
    	crew member for John Ellis during this year's RAAM.
    
    	Every night for a couple of weeks after the event
    	I dreamed I was still following him in the pace van.
    	It was scary, too, because I'd look out the bedroom
    	window (I thought it was the van's windshield) and
    	not see John. Then, I'd panic and think I'd left him
    	to ride in the dark alone, which is dangerous and
    	against RAAM rules.
    
    	After about two weeks, I was beginning to sleep more
    	normally.
    
    	Sleep deprivation is weird.
    
    	Scott

        I dreamed I was at Steven Tyler's house, we were getting
        real cozy, and his girlfriend walked in.  I walked out,  
        and he followed me to the parking lot and tried to slip
        me some money. I was insulted, gave him a good slap 
        drove away, tires screeching.
    
        The wierd part is, I'm not particularly attracted to the
        guy.
    
        Kim

 LA Law fame. Divorce lawyer unable to keep his pants on.

    
    Andrew,
    
    Arnie Becker is the handsome, blonde, womanizing lawyer on L.A. 
    Law -- played by an actor named Corbin Bersen.
    
    Carla
    

    Oops -- my unfamiliarity with prime-time TV jumps up and bites me
    again... I didn't know about the black-{somethinged} weasel, either.
    
    					andrew

    I saved someone from drowning last night....that's all I can
    remember.  Must be because I watched Jaws 2 the other day....
    
    
    HRH

    All you Freudians can have a field day with this:
    
    Last month, on three consecutive nights I had three dreams, each very
    different but with the same underlying theme and "feelings" (the "tone"
    of the dream in parentheses.)
    
    - I make a new friend or friends (warm-fuzzy)
    - one tries to rape me (anxiety, anger, but no fear)
    - I turn the situation around and take charge (sexual pleasure)
    - I beat and/or kill him (anger, joy, loss of control, horror at what
                          I'm doing)
    - I get in trouble, run away, am chased by the law or friends of the
      perp or whatever (terror, running-though-molasses sort of nightmare feel)
    - repeat last step until I wake in a cold sweat, scared
    
    throughout both dreams, I am always accompanied by two people, one
    female who is "against" me (on the side of the rapist) and one of
    unknown/varying gender who is "with" me.
    
    Real disturbing.
    
    D!

    
    I woke up the other night hearing voices from the kitchen. At first I
    thought my husband must have come home, but that wasn't to likely since
    he was in another country at the time.
    
    The alarm clock went off. I realized I must have been dreaming... but
    then I hear these voices again. I get out of bed and leave the bedroom.
    There are two men in the kitchen and I can hear another person turning
    things over in the livingroom. Burglars. Very agressive. I run out of
    the house. I hear an alarm in a distance....
    
    
    ...then I wake up. For real this time! The place is wonderfully
    quiet...

    
    re: -.1
    
    How creepy -- am glad it was just a dream.
    
    Carla
    

    Reply .68 struck a chord of memory:
    
    "... [T]here are dreams of confusion that are not [amusing].  The most
    common and distinct are called false awakenings.  You dream of waking
    up but in fact, of course, are still asleep.  Van Eeden (1913) called
    these ``wrong waking up'' and described them as ``demonical, uncanny,
    and very vivid and bright, with ... a strong diabolical light.''  The
    French zoologist Yves Delage, writing in 1919, described how he heard
    a knock at his door and a friend calling for his help.  He jumped out
    of bed, went to wash quickly with cold water, and when that woke him
    up he realized he had been dreaming.  The sequence repeated four times
    before he finally woke up -- still in bed."
    
    						"Skeptical Inquirer"
    						Vol. 15, No. 4, p. 368
    
    Congratulations!  You have had a classical dream of False Awakening.
    
    							Ann B.

    I have vivid dream memories from when I was seven years old. One of
    the most frightening, was when I "woke up" several times, and each
    time found myself in a different bedroom. Finally, in sheer terror,
    I woke up in MY room, for real.
    
    Another one was, I woke up from a bad dream, and ran to my mother's
    room to wake her, as was custom. Only she wouldn't wake up, and the bad
    guy from my dream was after me.  then I really woke up, and ran to my
    mother's room for real.  Fortunately, she woke up for real too.
    
    Kim

    In some past version of =wn=, I'm sure I told this already, but:
    
    When Ryan was 2 1/2 years old, I spent some time explaining to him
    what it meant to dream (because I could see him moving in his sleep
    and wanted to know what he was dreaming.)
    
    It took weeks - I explained things like "You know when you think you're
    doing something, then you open your eyes and you're in your bed?"  It
    was a long process of getting through what I meant, but when he finally
    caught on - he started telling me his dreams!!!
    
    What a riot - I wish I remembered all the ones he told me!  His (not
    too often, thank goodness) "sad" little dreams were things like a
    balloon popping or someone stepping on his peanut-butter sandwich. :)
    
    His preschool teachers called me up one day to tell me that they were
    kind of alarmed at Ryan's naptimes at school (cuz he would run to the
    nearest teacher upon waking to tell her/him what he'd just dreamed!) :)
    
    I was so tickled I thought of doing it (and also, it helped him to
    realize that a scary dream wasn't real, in case he had one.)

    SO glad to hear other people having strange dreams and that on-the-edge
    stuff (hynogogic?).  I can close my eyes and go right into it when I'm
    really tired.  Came very close to embarassing myself in school several
    times, dozing off in class.  My eyes would be open sometimes.  I'd look
    down at my notebook and read scribble like "hot potatoes in
    September"...not exactly thermodynamics, ya know?!  
    
    Sleepwalking runs in my family--Mom, one sister and myself.  I remember
    when I was so anxious to meet the sister's new boyfriend, now husband,
    but had to go to bed before they arrived from college.  I can still see
    the view from the top of the stairs, down into the living room and
    around the dining room table until I identified "him".  From the top of
    the stairs I asked my mother where my hairbrush was and who knows what
    else.  I remembered when they told me the next day.  Boy, was she
    embarassed!
    
    My dreams are vivid, with all the color and detail of conciousness. 
    When I've dreamt of beautiful spring gardens and tea rooms with
    lace tablecloths fine china, it's been great fun and thoroughly
    uplifting.  On the other hand, the details of guns and hysterical mobs
    never leave my memory either.
     
    re: .67
    Wow, D!, sounds like my dreams...scary!  One of my recurring themes is
    Nazis.  When I'm not taking good care of myself mentally I end up in
    dream situations where some evil force has taken control and I can't
    get out of it or someone like my dad is there but won't do anything. 
    (Haven't figured that twist out yet, since that's a more likely role
    for a mother-figure with me.)  The other night I had a three-part Nazi
    dream--first I fell in love with a woman and they were coming after us,
    don't remember part two, but in part three I was married to a man and
    they remembered me from part one so they were coming to take my son
    away.  My husband had taken a drug like lsd and couldn't move.  I
    grabbed my son, jumped in the car that wouldn't start and figured some
    way to outsmart the bad guys as I woke up crying.
    
    I've had years on end as a child and as an adult when these dreams were
    an almost nightly occurence.  My mental life is a lot more stable now,
    so they're only occassional.  Sure would like to eliminate them
    altogether.
    
    Gestalt analysis teaches that you are everything and everyone in your
    dream.  When I've used this theory to untangle mine, I've gained some
    terrific, and terrifying, insights about myself.
    
    See you in my dreams ;-)
    Nancy

    I had a dream recently with a sense of humor.  I recently watched the
    Masterpiece Theatre presentation of "Summer's Lease" in which John
    Gielgud plays the lecherous old father of the main character.  Anyway
    a few weeks later I had a dream in which this lech and I were getting
    off an elevator together and as we did, two tall beautiful Vanity Fair
    type models were getting on.  Sir John nudged me, winked, and said "I would
    have introduced you, but I remember their addresses, not their names."
    
    Anyone suggesting that Sir John represents the lecherous side of me
    will be ignored.
    						- Vick
    P.S. I don't care if you ARE right.

    
    On false awakenings:
    
    When I was a little tyke and still occasionally wetting the bed, I'd
    dream I got up, walked in to the bathroom, sat on the toilet and went.
    Only to wake up with soggy jams.  :-(
    
    I dreamt last night that I shot either an ex- or the woman he was
    with.  It wasn't weird but full of angst and I had a hard time waking
    up from it.  When I did wale up I remember thinking 'Oh, good... I'm 
    awake... it was a dream.'
    
    CQ  

I dreamed I was north of San Francisco and could not find my way back to the
bridge so I could get home.  I drove around all night last night...and I'm
tired today!

    Re: .73
    
    >that on-the-edge stuff (hynogogic?)
    
    Hypnagogic (currently my favorite word)

    re.75 Cheyenne!  That dream was before our conversation!  I am sure the
    next one will not be so mild. #-}  Gaaaaaaaaack!
    
    I had a dream once about a now ex-lover; I sneaked into his house, and
    was listening to his answering machine messages. I got caught!  I woke
    up feeling scared, then realized it was a dream.  But I felt guilty
    for days.  
    
    what a fun dream--Ninja turtles bouncing on the bed!
    
    Kim

Justine will love this dream ....

I dreamed I spilled gallons of cranberry juice all over the gray living room
carpet. When I started to clean it up, my wife said, "That's OK -- it's for a
good cause."

Bruce

And if you don't know why Justine will like this dream, I'm not at all 
surprised.

I think I've been working too hard lately. This morning, Mike told me that he
heard something last night and thought I was crying. He asked me what was wrong,
to which I replied, "BUT THE RECORD WAS SKIPPING!", at which point I disolved 
into hysterical laughter.

I think I need more sleep, or less chocolate before bed:-)

Is it almost Friday?

dee 

    I think the Are There Bad People?  topic in womannotes inspired a
    nightmare I had a couple of nights ago.  
    
    I dreamed I was at a large outdoor assembly, a combination
    concert/political rally, and there were thousands of people in
    the audience.  While one man was on stage the Devil entered him and
    took over his body.  (It was very weird.)  This was supposed to be how
    Evil was let lose in the world.  This Devil began infecting other
    people who also turned into Devils, and went around turning even more
    people into Devils, so Evil was quickly overtaking the world.  People
    who realized what was going on or resisted were horribly killed and
    mutilated unless they escaped somehow.  I spent a lot of the dream
    running and watching mutilations in horror.  Finally, the Good people
    realized that they had to stop the spread of Evil.  We decided that the
    only way to do this would be to go back in time (I don't know how) to
    that fateful day at the concert when the Devil entered the man's body
    and change events so that it wouldn't happen.  Then, we had to decide
    how to change things so that it wouldn't happen again, and I decided that if
    we gave everyone who was at the concert free slices of pepperoni pizza 
    that Evil wouldn't be able to enter people and the world would be safe. 
    I thought it was sorta weird.  It was unclear how the pepperoni pizza
    would stop the spread of evil but, in the dream, I felt sure it would
    work.
    
    Lorna
    

Re: <<< Note 509.81 by MARLIN::IPBVAX::RYAN "Make sure your calling is true" >>>

>>I think I need more sleep, or less chocolate before bed:-)

Go for more sleep.  *NEVER* the latter...

                                 Roak (A confirmed Chocoholic)

Sandra Boynton on a chocoholics:

	"...the select millions who like chocolate..., using 'like' as in
         'I like to breathe.'"

	From "Chocolate, The Consuming Passion" by Sandra Boynton 

re: .82 Lorna, are you sure that you don't (subconsciously, of course) think 
rock music is inherently evil and immoral, and are just looking for a 
justification to eat junk food?

	Sharon

    re .84, well, Sharon, if I subconsciously think rock music is
    inherently evil and immoral, it's *very* subconsciously, because
    consciously I love it!  (Unless, subconsciously, I like it *because* 
    I really think it's evil and immoral....)
    
    I do eat a lot of junk food so, maybe, subconsiously, I feel guilty
    about that...or maybe subconsiously, I think junk food is inherently
    Good.  :-)
    
    I hope Tom Petty doesn't turn into a Devil tonight at the concert!!!
    
    Lorna
    

>    I thought it was sorta weird.  It was unclear how the pepperoni pizza
>    would stop the spread of evil but, in the dream, I felt sure it would
>    work.

	Hey, it makes sense to me.


	*A*

um, Lorna, were there any talking turtles, with the names of Rennaisance
artists, in this dream?

    No!  I've never even seen those movies and didn't even get your
    reference til a friend just sent me mail about your reply!  No, there
    were no turtles.  They were all human in my dream.  :-)
    
    Lorna
    

    well Lorna sorry to have been so obscure.  I'd just as soon *not* know
    about the Heroes on a Half Shell, but I've got a 7 year old boy :-}
    The TMNTs do have *some* redeeming social value, but liking pizza is
    not any of it. :-)
    
    Sara the unAmerican (don't like pizza, gasp!)

    re.89 >don't like pizza, gasp!
    
    Sara, pizza is nature's perfect food. ;-) 
    
    Dana the pizzaholic

 Oh no, Sara just dropped half a notch! Doesn't like Pizza? <groan>

    Besides, the TMNTs like anchovies (yuch) on their pizza, not pepperoni!
    
    ginny
    (who's got 6 nieces & nephews)