SOM-NAMBULIST I AM…

As a kid from around age eight or nine to twelve or so  I was told I did unusual things while sleeping…like taking all the sheets and pillows off my bed and opening the front door prepared to go outside…other times I was told I acted out going to the kitchen and start taking things out of the refrigerator ready to cook something or opening the door to our basement to put more coal in the furnace…

Hi, I’m Pete and I walked in my sleep…

Lately I researched this dastardly disorder discovering sleepwalking may have a genetic tendency but if I had parents or relatives who did they kept it a secret…I kept it a secret too until I was married…it’s said that walking in your sleep can be triggered by fever, general illness, alcohol (I didn’t start drinking until later on)…, sleep deprivation or emotional stress…

I prefer to think it was the emotional stress caused by living in a very cold winter city and with a foreign born father and French Canadian mother… they drove me nuts at times like most parents… I like to think I was preparing to go on a long vacation… I almost remember looking under my bed for my passport…even tho I didn’t drive and had no money…

Before getting married my parents and I told my fiancé about the sleepwalking to warn her that I may wander at times…yes, it’s my current wife of 46 years…after marriage I remember only once getting out if bed in the middle of the night, putting some clothes on and walking out to the front of our house…it seems there was a loud explosion outside that woke us both up but I have no memory of it...

Now when I get up in the middle of the night she says: “Where in the hell do you think you’re going?”