At 0400 hours this morning, I had a dream that Zack was hurting me. I can’t remember exactly what he was doing, which is fine, because that’s not really the point. Best I can recall, there was a car involved, and we were traveling down a highway together when he told me he didn’t like the way I was driving. He decided that he was going to take over the wheel, then implemented his plan by jerking us all over the road, hurting me, and eventually ditched me on the side of the highway and drove away.
I was angry, hurt, confused, degraded, and angry. That’s angry x 2. I’m a pretty emotional dream person anyway, so you have to understand: double dream angry is a serious kind of angry. I was apparently so angry that, in my slumbering state, I double-foot donkey-kicked Zack right out of the bed.
I woke up screaming “DON’T TOUCH ME,” as my husband, who was jarred from sleep by my irrational outburst of midnight physical violence, tried desperately to get me to wake up without laying his hands on me (per my rather loud repeated requests).
When I finally came around, Zack gently explained to me that I had just kicked the ever-loving crap out of him for no apparent reason. I, in turn, felt absolutely horrible, because as I was recanting my dream to him I realized it was actually my brother David, not Zack, who had dream-bandoned me on the side of the highway and deserved to be dream-donkey-kicked off the bed.
Oops. Sorry, Zack.
Wow. I’ve never kicked anyone out of bed before. Wait…that doesn’t sound right… Anyway, my boyfriend says that I do “kitty cat punches” in the middle of the night when he’s too much in my face and I want him to roll over. Apparently, I make little fists and start hitting him really fast until he moves. Lucky for me, he thinks it’s cute/funny and also sleeps like a rock, so it doesn’t bother him. Also, I hit like a girl when I’m awake so I’m sure he barely notices when I have sleepy hands and can’t make a proper fist. By the way, now that you’re in nursing school, do you know what causes sleepy hands? I’ve always thought that was bizarre.
I assume when you say “sleepy hands” you’re talking about the weird feeling that we sometimes get when we can’t clench our hands all the way or can’t move (some people call it dream paralysis) while we’re (or just after we wake up from) sleeping. Most of your motor function is severely diminished during REM sleep, so it’s hard for you to move/make a fist/etc. when you’re in your deep/REM sleep. I imagine what you’re asking about is some residual weakness caused by normal sleep-impaired motor function.
Booyah. Using big words and stuff.
Sleep is still pretty confounding to most scientists, apparently. Honestly, the lecture that we got (in Fundamentals, perhaps we’ll learn more soon?) was almost exactly equivalent to this article I read in National Geographic. It explains a lot about what happens during sleep, etc. I found it incredibly interesting.
The professor told us that one of the reasons that narcolepsy is so dangerous (aside from the fact that you’re falling asleep all over the place,) is because by going straight from being awake to REM sleep, skipping all the stages that usually happen between the two, you find yourself experiencing ‘paralysis’ in some really strange predicaments. Often times, people with narcolepsy report an overwhelming feeling of weakness just before a sleep episode; that weakness is thought to be the beginning of the sleep-paralysis that happens during REM.
To illustrate the level to which sleep can impair our motor/nerve function:
During the deepest sleep we have as humans, even our reflexes are absent–and that’s the only time reflexes are absent outside of muscle or nerve damage. Even in a full coma, patients still have nerve reflexes, but they aren’t present in deep sleep. How crazy is that?
There you go. More than you wanted to know about sleep.
The obvious exception here would be those of us who treat REM sleep like a theater dress rehearsal, and can be found turning absolute flips in their sleep. I’m not sure how they explain that. But like I said, sleep is still a mystery.
Hmmmm…. the psychologist in me is thinking……
Thanks for all the sleep info! I thought the article in Nat Geo was really interesting too, especially the part about sleep deprivation (and resulting lower productivity) in Spain becoming a national concern. I was amazed when I was in Spain a few years ago to see that so many people seemed to stay out til 3-4 am and then still go to work in the morning. And no one actually takes a nap during siesta anymore, so I wondered how the lack of sleep didn’t seem to “catch up to them.” But I guess it has.
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