Adventures in sleep

As a kid I sleepwalked. (It's common, ok? And by kid I mean until age 24). Usually it was just innocent little forays into my parents' bedroom to say something unintelligible, but sometimes I did other things.

When I was seven, I wandered into the bathroom in the middle of the night, took off my nightgown and underwear, and put them in the toilet. Then I went and got my three year old brother's t-shirt and underwear and put them on and went back to bed. I can only imagine my mom's confusion when she got up in the morning to use the bathroom.

Another time I peed on a stack of books in my parents' room. Books, toilet. It's all the same when you're asleep. I was probably three.

Once when I was in high school, I stumbled down the hall and stood at the railing above our stairs, most likely with a glazed look in my eyes, partially because I am blind without my glasses and partially because I was sleeping. My dad looked up from the computer quizzically. "Hi Kiwi, what are you doing up?"
"I have to do my Arab notes," I answered, dead serious.
"I see," he said. "I don't think you're fully awake right now." I denied this vehemently, convinced that I had simply to do some notes real quick. Arab notes. Arab notes? Wait a minute...
"Hey Dad?" I said, once I was back in bed, "I was totally asleep just then. Sorry."
"Mmm hmm."
As I said in a previous post, my parents and brother are quite used to my quirks. Every time I deny being asleep until I'm back in bed and awake. The funny thing is I mostly remember what I do, I just am firm in my belief that whatever I am doing at the time is totally normal.

Adam bought shelves for my plethora of books and we installed them over our bed. One night at about two a.m. I sat up and ripped the shelf off the wall, sending about 20 books tumbling into my lap. Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. Ow. Ow ow ow. (That was the landing of the books. Somebody please, remove these libraries from my knees). Adam woke up, startled by the crashing and his wide awake (now) girlfriend sitting there staring blankly at him. "I ripped down the bookshelf," I confessed. "I was asleep though. Sorry."
"Why...why exactly?"

Who knows. Probably because I'm crazed. One time at a hotel (most often these episodes occur when something is different. Like a new shelf or something, you know, big life changes), my dad discovered me walking repeatedly into the corner of the room. He didn't so much discover me visually, because he is absolutely blind without contacts, but probably heard me banging into the wall and saying, "I have to get out."

Multiple times I have gathered all of my blankets and placed them in a neat ball over in the corner of my bedroom. I then return to bed (I guess) and wake up freezing with a vague memory of carrying a ball of blankets across the room for safekeeping.

I spent the night at my friend Liz's house when I was about ten, and once I stood up from my spot on the floor and walked around the room a little. She asked what on earth I was doing and I apparently explained that I didn't want to wear the dress with the puffy sleeves and went back to my sleeping bag.