Groundhogs

In a psychology class several semesters ago, I learned that the body goes into a sort of paralysis during REM sleep to keep us from sleep walking, acting out our dreams, or flailing about and hurting ourselves. Well... apparently no one has informed Sean's sleeping body of this fact.

Let me start by saying I am an extremely light sleeper; Sean, however, could sleep through a nuclear bomb exploding outside of our bedroom door and not even wince. So let me set the stage... the first time I discovered Sean's superhuman ability to move around while dreaming, we hadn't been married very long. I was peacefully sleeping on my side of the bed when I awoke to Sean staring at me... about 2 millimeters from my face.

ME: Babe... what are you doing... you're REALLY close to my face.

SEAN: you have a spider on your face

ME: WHAT THE !?! Quit staring at me and GET IT OFF!!

SEAN: Don't move

ME: GET IT OFF!!

SEAN: It's on your pillow now. It's HUGE.

ME: What the heck Sean. Quit staring at it and kill the freaking thing to I can go back to sleep!

Now I start looking around for this dumb, huge spider cause I'm already over it and ready to go back to sleep.

ME: Babe... I don't see a spider. Are you sure you saw a spider?

SEAN: Yeah... it's right there. (pointing)

ME: I don't see it.

SEAN: Right there! (pointing intensely at my pillow)

ME: Well I don't see it, so I'm going to sleep.

SEAN: IT'S RIGHT THERE!

I give up, roll over, and go to sleep. Sean lays back down mumbling something about me dying in my sleep and him not taking me to the hospital when it bites my face 'cause he warned me. Hmmm... that's kind of harsh, but it's the middle of the night so I let it go.

The next morning I casually bring up the conversation of the spider incident the night before and suggest calling the pest control people. He looks at me like I'm crazy, and says he doesn't remember anything about it. Hmmm... that's odd. Maybe he was just really tired and didn't remember waking up.

Well... a few weeks later it happened again. This time I woke up to him standing beside the bed yelling that a tree had fallen through the front of our apartment. I sprung out of bed and went running out into the hallway. Hmmm... nothing was out of place. When I turn around to look at Sean to ask him why the heck he got me out of bed for nothing, he says, with his hands on his cheeks, "What are we going to do?? It's a disaster!!" I spin back around... yep.... nothing. Am I crazy? I calmly say, " Ummm... I don't see anything..." to which he replies "Amanda... right there! Don't you see the branches all over the stairs and the broken glass... I can see right out into the parking lot." He was so angry at me for not seeing that I honestly though I was crazy for a second. After going up and physically touching the wall to reassure myself that it was indeed still there, I dragged my 6'4" hubby back to bed and made him lay down. All the while, he was protesting that he needed to fix it and it couldn't wait til morning. "How can we just go back to sleep with a tree in our house" he kept asking as he slowly drifted back to sleep. Oi.

The dreams haven't stopped.... at least once a month I wake up to him getting the insulation from under my pillow or to him trying to get dressed or make a phone call or to him trying to find my bosses wife's car keys because she called him and said they were in his pants pocket???? Last night it was groundhogs. More specifically a dead groundhog hiding in our sheets. Now I don't even buy into it anymore. I barely open my eyes and just tell him he's sleeping and to go back to bed. He just looks at me wide-eyed and says "Do I look like I'm sleeping?" Sadly, no... he doesn't look like he's sleeping at all, so I have no rebuttal. I just hope a catastrophe never happens in the middle of the night because you know what my reply will be.... "Tornado... there's no tornado....You're sleeping go back to bed." :)