Hubby’s talked in his sleep a couple of times in the past; you know, not a lot, but maybe twice in our twenty years together. Last Sunday night, we were headed home from Baltimore. It was about 8PM, and he had been up since 4AM that morning. We were about a half hour from home, when we were talking about looking something up in the TV Guide that comes with the newspaper. That got us talking about how unusual it’s become to actually look something up that’s in actual print on actual paper. So then, hubby says: “You know, when I was in 6th grade, we had to write a letter for our teacher. I forget why. So I reached into my pocket and pulled out my trusty squeeze bottle of mayonnaise and drew a little picture of the piece of bread that hadn’t been eaten by Jesus or his disciples” and I said “could you repeat that please? I must have missed something” and he said “repeat what” “You know; about being in 6th grade and having to write a letter to the teacher. . .” He said “Oh, I must have dozed off for a minute”. The biggest problem with this is that he was the one freakin’ driving the van!! another minor problem is that he’s an atheist, so what was Jesus doing eating his bread? I said “would you like to pull over and let me drive?” “No, we’re almost home now”. About 10 minutes later, we were talking about the c-section birth of our first child, and the difference between an emergency c-section in terms of “unplanned” vs. emergency c-section in terms of “something is horribly wrong and we have to get the baby out right now”, when hubby says “Well, the cops have to be looking right at you when you put your high beams on”! Shit! Twice, he lost all higher brain function while he was driving! And my kids an I were in the vehicle! So it was pretty scary (I talked to him the rest of the way home, about 10 minutes after the second event) to keep him awake, and the part about Jesus and the bread was pretty funny. And we got home safely. After we got home, he wanted to go back out and do some work on his computer server, but I wouldn’t let him. He said “It’s a short drive” and I said, well then, that’s what we’ll put on your head stone ‘it was just a short drive’. He went to bed and worked on his server the next day.
:eek:
That is pretty damn scary! If that ever happens again, no matter how close to home, I’d recommend INSISTING he pull over and let you drive. I’m glad you all made it home safely, but yikes!
I used to work for an inventory crew which did a lot of inventories in small towns scattered throughout New Mexico. Of course this required a lot of driving. A crew leader told us how once, when he was on one of these trips, the van was being driven by another leader who kept swerving slightly every few minutes. When he asked the driver why he kept swerving, the driver replied that he had to so as to avoid all those typewriters in the road.
Upon hearing that answer, the crew leader commanded, “Pull over. I’m going to drive.”
It’s scary to think how easily you can just doze off without realizing it, even when you’re performing a task that requires your full attention.
Geobabe, you are absolutely right. I should have insisted that he pull over; the reason I probably didn’t is his eyes stayed open the whole time, so on some level, he was obviously still “awake” (I didn’t say it was a good reason). Also, generally speaking, he’s pretty competent, and when he says he’s fine, usually it’s because he’s fine. I had been up since 4AM, as well, and was not thinking as clearly as I should have been, or I probably would have insisted he pull over.
KRC, many years ago, hubby worked the night shift at a job that was an hour’s drive from our house. One morning, when he came home, he told me he remembered leaving work at 7AM, and the next thing he was aware of was pulling into our driveway. He didn’t recall the drive at all. Downright frightening!
Kudos to you norinew for not letting him drive again until he was fully rested.
I do the talking while in the dream-state thing from time to time, but never while driving! My favorite one was when I was on the phone real late with a friend who had a problem. I was reeaaal tired. When she was talking to me I started to have a dream that she had been voted Queen of the parade, and was about to get up on a float so she could wave to all the people.
Her: “Yamirskoonir, what do I do?” <in reference to problem>
Me: “BUT WE HAVE TO FIND YOUR CROWN FIRST!!!”
Confusion, and – after I woke up — hilarity ensued.
A recent one was when I was laying in my SO’s arms, about to drop off to sleep. He asked me something about what I was doing the next day. I told him that the penguins were cold and we needed to find them some sweaters. 
I too cannot relate to the driving part, but I CAN relate to the quickly nodding off and saying something odd…
I was staying at a friends house because her husband had recently took off to Iraq. We were getting ready for bed- I was sleeping on the couch. I laid down and she went to her bedroom to go to sleep. I apparently started dreaming (although at the time I thought it was real) about my friend coming me out to where I was and asking me how to turn off the computer. In reality she came out and asked me if I had heard noises outside… you can imagine her confusion when I kept insisting that she “press enter!!”. I didnt wake and realize that I was dreaming until after she shrugged her shoulders and went back into her room…
The second incident…
My boyfriend and I had stayed up till about 2 am watching movies. We finally decided to go to bed… I fell asleep. I dreamt that my boyfriend and I were staying at a friends house, we were laying in bed and he started complaining that he didnt have any food to eat before he went to sleep (in reality he likes to have a snack right before he goes to bed). Apparently I was sqirming in my sleep and boyfriend was staring at me… At the very second he was complaining about the food I woke up (not realizing I was awake). I looked up at him and said sensually, “I got something for you to eat.” He was like, “WHAT???” We laughed for hours!!!
Yamirskoonir, the first time hubby ever talked to me in his sleep was over the phone, and we weren’t even living together yet. I called him, he picked up the phone, and the coversation went like this:
Him: Hello?
Me: Hey. You wanna get together tomorrow night?
Him: You should try the Diet Pepsi.
Me: What?
Him: Everyone knows a moving target is harder to hit.
Me: Are you awake?
Him: No.
Me: I’ll talk to you later.
The next time it happened, he actually woke me up to talk to me. He needed to tell me that he hated when I made sandwiches upside down, like when I put on the lettuce and tomato and then the hamburger; that’s upside down, and he hates it!
I’m going to push the topic here a little bit. . .
One night, my roommate and I went out for drinks as we frequently do. We returned home, drunk enough for a good-night’s sleep. At some point in the middle of the night I walked into her bedroom (which is on the other end of the hall from mine). I opened the door and sat down on her bed. She woke up, sat straight up in her bed and said, “What’s up, dude?” I gave her a look of disgust, as though she was invading MY space, got up and walked out. The next morning, I didn’t remember any of it. She brought it up to me in an e-mail by thanking me for the naked visit in the middle of the night! Apparently, I had stripped before going to bed and then sleep-walked into her room. 
My girlfriend and I have these conversations all the time. I go to bed way after her, so I’m treated to her dream ramblings.
“Mrrmrr…”
“What?”
“HARRY POTTER!”
“Huh?”
“We need more Harry Potter.”
“…Ok, we’ll get those, go back to sleep…”
“Ok.”
twitchtwitchmurmur
“Are you ok?”
“…I died.”
“You died?”
“Uh huh.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“I fell off the building.”
“You’re not dead, honey.”
“But…I died.”
“You’re not dead. Go back to sleep.”
My secret shame can now be revealed!
For years my friend Beth has been teasing me about the time she called me, midafternoon, and I answered the phone sounding perfectly alert. She asked how I was doing, and I replied, “It will be fine once Rick’s brother’s balloon is over.”
She then took over the norinew side of the conversation (“You’re not awake, are you? I’ll call you later.”) Several hours later, she called me back and started quizzing me about balloons, and I asked her (politely) if she’d lost her everlovin’ mind.
The scariest thing to me about this is that “Rick’s brother” is my husband. I have no idea why I would refer to him that way, even if I was asleep.
Weird; I’ve only ever heard of people doing this on being woken, which I myself sometimes - once when I was a lad, my mum woke me for school, but I thought she’d been drinking paraffin(kerosene), so I told her “You’ve got to stop drinking that stuff mother”.
Another time, my alarm clock failed to go off and my brother in law (with whom I was living at the time) thought he’d better wake me up; he came in and said “don’t you have to go to work today” - I sat up, looked him in the eye, and said “I don’t know, do I have to go to work today? Do I? Hmmm? Do I? - You tell me - DO I?!?” - he backed off and I went back to sleep for an hour, then, remembering none of it, complained that he hadn’t tried to waken me.
Mangetout, both your stories remind me of something James Thurber would write. Hilarious.
I have the same types of conversations with my wife that GMRyujin has with his girlfriend. The have decreased in frequency somewhat since our son was born. Maybe we are both so sleep deprived she is too tired to talk.
My husband used to do nutty stuff like that all the time; making strange comments while he appeared to be wide awake, etc. I just egg him on, and finally he’d wake up and get all disgusted with me.
One time, however, he scared the ever livin’ shit out of me. We had gone to bed for the night and had both fallen asleep. Suddenly, I woke up with him sitting on top of me, trying to strangle me! His eyes were wide open and he looked scared and crazed at the same time. He was having some horrible nightmare and he was trying to fight off whatever the thing in his nightmare was. He didn’t realize, of course, that he was actually physically fighting me! I was punching him, and trying to yell at him to wake him up. Finally, with some superhuman strength I managed to wrench my body to the side and throw him off of me and onto the floor. He cracked his head on the night stand and that’s when he woke up.
He could not figure out what he was doing on the floor and why his head hurt. I explained what he had done. He absolutely freaked out and couldn’t stop apologizing.
While I knew he was asleep for all intents and purposes, he scared me enough that I refused to sleep in the same bed with him for a couple of days. We laugh about it now, but it sure scared me then. :eek:
This thread is cracking me up! And Taters, thats some scary stuff :O!
Anyway, here’s some good ones from an ex. He’d often fall asleep while at my house and I’d have some hilarious conversations with him after I tried to wake him up.
Incident #1: After gently nudging him awake, I got greeted with the oh-so-sweet reply of “THE BALL HAS NUMBERS ON IT!”
Incident #2. Trying to wake him up resulted in this delightful conversation:
Me: wake up, you need to go home
Him: I didn’t want to go ALL THE WAY BACK THERE!
Me: All the way back where?
Him: I didn’t want to go all the way back there to get your report card!
Me: I don’t think you know what you’re talking about
Him: I’m sorry about your spedometer.
Oh wow! Something like this happened to me once too. I thought I was the only one.
I once woke up to the sound of my ex-husband (err…pre marriage actually, when we were dating) screaming “I’ll kill you!” as he literally put his hands around my throat and began to strangle me. I freaked out and started hitting him, pushing him and generally trying to stop him. Once I figured out that he had been asleep I calmed down, but I was crying and very upset. (my ex is a body builder and getting him off of me was not easy…and more than a little scary.) When he was coherent, he explained that he was having a dream that a group of men were attacking him, to try and kidnap me and he was fighting them off. I didn’t sleep well for a few days afterwards.
On a lighter note, when I was a teenager my best friend spent the night with me once. We were in my room giggling and talking while slowly falling asleep. I muttered “the sun’s down, let’s press charges!” At this point, my friend started giggling really loudly and trying to wake me up. I was having some sort of dream about the “Wild West” which I couldn’t remember once I was awake again. But really, in the dream it made perfect sense!
~J
My sister and I used to compete to see who would get to sneak into my mom’s room while she was napping.
The most hilarious time was when I came in there one afternoon so she could give me directions to the doctor’s office. First she insisted that I get her a candy bar before she’d say anything at all. Finally she sat up and started eating the candy bar, the only problem was every few seconds she would drift back asleep and try to lean back and lie down. At that, her dog, who was sitting behind her trying to steal her candy would growl and my mom would sit back up, dropping the candy long enough for the dog to grab a bite. All along she kept mumbling, “The dogs, you know, they kept them in boxes, and they can’t get out!”
Apparently the show on Jack Russell racing had affected her more than she realized. After a while I gave up and got the directions from my dad.
-Lil
Yea, I’ve apparently wandered out and said some bizarre things to my girlfriend while I’m still asleep, like “Talking frogs and Garfield ghosts” and “They took the Fascists at their word!” And all I remember is getting really annoyed that she JUST WOULDN’T UNDERSTAND ME!! It was SO simple!