I have been having disturbed sleep patterns the last 3 weeks or so. Sometimes I only sleep 2 or 3 hours. No idea why.
So, last night I go to bed around 01.00, have to get up at 06.00 for work.
03.00 : I get up, exit my room stark naked and without my glasses, walk out of my room and notice a strange little landing where the stairs used to be. 2 steps down to a landing with a pointless arch in a dead end a few feet along.
Then I recall a kind of tumbling thumping sensation, followed by a feeling of great pain and the realisation that I was sprawled at the foot of the stairs and I was hurting a lot.
I shrieked like a little girl “AAAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEE”.
Then I went back to bed.
I am fine apart from a few aches and grazes and a stiff neck.
I am so happy that I am not in a wheelchair now.
I presume that because I was asleep I was very relaxed and therefore in a low risk category as far as falling down the stairs goes.
Damn, haven’t done that since I was a child and saw a blue-haired naked lady in the bath when I was a toddler (I am currently 41). There was no naked lady this time, which is annoying since I took the trouble to fall down the stairs. If I am going to injure myself gratuitously then I think that throwing in naked ladies (hair colour negotiable) would be a basic common courtesy.
IMO the universe owes me a naked lady.
Ah, that brings back memories.
My husband and I were staying at a friend’s flat in central London (very central - the Cromwell Road, a very busy road) was right outside). I was trying (in my sleep) to find the toilet, managed to get halfway down the interior stairs before deciding I had found the bathroom. Sadly, it wasn’t the loo, it was just the stairs. So I finished having a wee, and continued downstairs to the front door - still asleep, of course.
Things are a bit hazy after opening the front door - I managed to wake up before wandering into the road, tho I’d been locked out of the building. Needless to say, I was not dressed for the occasion. Skimpy lil nightie, not big comfy flannel pjs.
Eventually, after ringing the bell for ages, my husband buzzed me into the flat. He opened the door, wondering where I had been in the middle of the night, and why I wasn’t dressed … so I hit him. Yup, right fist to the eye, resulting in a huge shiner for him.
Somehow, from waking up outside on a major road in London, to getting upstairs to the flat we were staying in, I’d decided the only reason I would be out that time of night, is that he’d thrown me out.
Small wonder I’m divorced now.
Glad to hear you’re okay TPWombat.
In the future, if you feel the need to fall down stairs you might try simulating it with Stair Dismount.
WOMBAT! High five from a fellow stairs-faller-downer! :: Slap ::
Unfortunately, I wasn’t asleep but half-asleep – staggered to the biffy, stepped into space (into what I thought was the bathroom door) and pitched down the stairs.
Naked – check.
Scream like little girl – check.
Injured – check (two broken toes and a turned ankle).
Grateful not to be in wheelchair/dead – check.
Maybe I was your karmic naked lady, just a few weeks early and on the wrong continent. 
I’m glad you’re okay.
I did it fully awake (although groggy) the other night. I didn’t actually fall all the way down; I just thought that the third step from the bottom was the bottom step and slid the rest of the way. I got a weird scrape on the back of one ankle - just the very top layer of skin peeled away and the spot looks like a bad sunburn.
I’ve managed to stumble and fall down six steps before, but I was completely awake, it was daylight, and I have no excuse whatsoever for doing it, except that I’m clumsy.
A friend in college told me how he dreamed that there were snakes in his bed, so he jumped out of the top bunk, landing with the back of the chair in his crotch, and giving himself a wonderful area bruise.
While in college himself, his dad woke up on the tennis court in his underwear. What really worried him was that he had been dreaming that he’d been walking through the women’s dorms.
This reminds me of the time my husband and I stayed in a bed and breakfast for the first time.
There were two double beds in the room and we choose the one the furthest from the bathroom. I woke at 2:00 or 3:00am on the first evening to use the bathroom. Two things did not occur to me at that time: I was not home, and the bed in the room was at least a foot higher than my bed at home.
As I stepped out of the bed I assumed my feet had touched the floor sooner than they actually did. I fell face first onto the other bed, bounced a bit, slid down the side and landed face first into hardwood floor.
According to my husband, I cursed, went to the bathroom and climbed back into bed. I recall getting out of bed and the feeling of falling but I do not recall anything else. I didn’t even hear him laughing. I ended up with a nice bruise on my forehead, but was otherwise unharmed.
I haven’t sleepwalked in a long time, probably ten years, but when I do, I’m totally out. I start in one place and end up in another. Once I made it down two flights of stairs and woke up curled up on the tiny loveseat in the kitchen.
-Lil
My sister, in fifth grade, tried to crawl down the ivy outside her (very high) second-floor window – there was no ivy, just a slate patio. Broken wrist, broken jaw.