Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Another Sleep Related Post

For those of you fortunate enough to have slept in the same bed as me, Owen, for extended times, you may know that I occasionally wake up screaming with horrifying nightmares. Not often, just about once a year or so, I get a really bad one and bolt awake in a cold sweat screaming and clawing at the covers, trying to leap out of bed. Well, I had one last night, and the super-sympathetic response I got was, "Chill out." mumbled half heartedly from the side of the bed with all the covers and my wife on it. So this morning, I mentioned that I had woken up screaming with nightmares, and the response was, "Nightmares? I thought you were screaming at me for waking you up." Apparently Jenn had been woken up by the violent shaking and moaning which happens before I start screaming and trying to escape, and was in the process of waking me so that I would stop disturbing her sleep. She assumed that the incoherent terrified screaming was in fact me yelling at her for waking me up.

Two problems with this theory:

1) When someone wakes me up, I do not have the energy to start screaming, you'll be lucky to get, "Mrmhghmmmmmrhtphhh." before I roll over and go back to sleep.

2) If I have enough energy to scream at you, I won't just go, "Aaaaaaauuuuuuuugggghhhhh," I'll really tear a strip off you in an overly verbose manner. I use my words like a big boy.

Hopefully future night terrors will be met with more sympathy than abuse. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

1 comment:

Suz said...

Being woken from sleep does funny things to one's sensibilities. I can't say that my perception of the situation would have been much different than your dear wife's!