I’ve been reading about sleeping (yeah, researching). I’ve always been one to fall asleep quickly and easily, in almost any location. I’ve gone to sleep in waiting rooms, cars and aircraft (military and commercial), and tents during a typhoon. One of those times in the typhoon, my wife was with me. She claimed that the tent was blowing away and I was dead asleep. Coincidentally, after that trip, she declared that roughing it required a hotel room and a chocolate on her pillow. On another occasion when I was a teen, Dad and his wife (yeah, my step Mom) awoke me to take cover in the living room floor because of a tornado. I went in there and went to sleep. According to my step Mother, so did Dad. She couldn’t believe it.

Then I came across the claim that people don’t fall out of bed while sleeping.

News to me. I’ve fallen out of bed twice in my lifetime. Both happened in my early teens, and in my usual bed. I was stone sober, I swear! Didn’t drink nor indulge in drugs then (as if drugs and are regular pals now – we’re not), and wasn’t sick. Just floomp. Out of bed and onto the floor.

I decided to cast a wider research net and leaped to the web. Research revealed that this is a REM Sleep Disorder. Ohhh, okay. They went on to talk about people acting out their dreams.

That’s another thing I’ve been known to do. The book claimed that people experience paralysis during sleep to keep them from thrashing about and hurting themselves or others. Tales are circulated around my family about me thrashing in my sleep. Three immediately spring to mind. Once, I came down to breakfast. Taking a look at me, Mom asked, “What happened to your eye?” I didn’t know what she was talking about. My sister said, “He hit himself.”

Wearing a mystified expression, Mom naturally went, “He hit himself?” I stared without comprehension about what my sister was saying. Sis went on, “I heard noises coming from your room so I went in. You were fighting with your pillow.”

“Fighting with my pillos?”

“Then you swung at it and hit yourself.” I scoffed, of course. I didn’t remember any of it. Sis swore it was true.

During a second night thrashing, my cousin was sleeping over. We were sharing a bed. He awoke to discover me on my hands and knees beside him. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Looking for worms.”

As he said, “Worms,” I lunged forward with a shout, “There’s one,” and managed to hit him. That’s when I awoke and he told the story.

Third time was with my wife. We’d been married a few years when she woke me. “What are you doing?” I asked. “Why’d you wake me?” I was pretty cross about being awoken out of a solid sleep.

She replied, “You were moving around, and then started swinging your fists. I was afraid you were going to hit me.”

All this time, I had no idea that I have a mild sleep disorder. I wonder if it’s in any way associated with my ability to sharply recall dreams. I’ve deliberately curtailed remembering dreams to a significant degree. Making efforts recalling dreams ends up eating a chunk of time because I remember — or tell myself that I do, perhaps — a great deal. Besides that, the dreams show recurring patterns and get boring, like watching movies with different titles but interchangeable plots. I enjoy driving dreams, thought. I’m usually driving sports cars like Ferraris, BMWs, or Porsches, and I’m often driving them through snow, but enjoying myself.

That’s probably the best aspect of dreams that I recall. Many make little sense but through them all, I seem to enjoy myself. I rest easy with that.