Talking in my sleep

I am told that I talk in my sleep. That could be worrying if I was the worrying type, but most of the time I am alone in my room, apart from Small Cat, so it doesn’t really matter if I do have conversations – or monologues – that Racine or Shakespeare would envy. But various friends and my mother have told me, with an enviably and staunchly maintained straight face, that I don’t say anything I should not, even when I am so fast asleep that I wouldn’t know which planet I lived on.

Perhaps the last time I heard about what I said was fairly recently. You did say that, the friend I had been talking to on the phone insisted. I knew that was not true, because there was too much of a grin on my friend’s face, a suppressed bout of hysterical giggles that could be easily felt over the telephone line. I had been tired beyond imagination and while I have no memory whatsoever of what I had allegedly said (in true journalistic style I always cover my back), I know I could not have said THAT. Or the THAT which could be inferred from the insinuations and exaggerated account of my very unlikely mumbling.

But I do know that I talk when I am asleep, or at least when I am far enough gone as to not remember whether I did speak or not. My mother always told me I had long chats with someone she would have loved to meet, since whatever I came up with was so full of giggles and madness, but she never quite managed to tell me what it was that she had heard. She was too busy giggling herself. But she did say that much of it was in French, which would have been marvellous if I had known any French at the time!

My friend Karen has also said that I talk when I am fast asleep. While by the time I knew her well enough to do sleepovers at her house I was over the constant babbling stage, I did chatter when I was really tired, but had things on my mind. The last occasion we spent time together, I was on a thick mattress on the floor in her room, her large cat ensconced comfortably on my ankles on top of the comforter, both of us chatting desultorily to my friend as she sprawled on her bed. I had just arrived in Denver after a trans-Atlantic flight and was not sure which way was up, but we had so much to say and were determined to say it. Of course, I was asleep mid-sentence, but continued the conversation for a long time before she realised I wasn’t quite an active participant. Pushing me over on to my side, she managed to shut me up. But, a few hours later, I sat bolt upright, flinging aside cat and comforter and bashing my head painfully on a knob on her dresser. “What time is it?” I demanded, and then curled up again, hugging my pillow and telling the cat to shut up, he would wake the neighbours. Of course, though I had a pretty severe headache in the morning, I hotly denied asking any such happening.

I still have no clue why I do this, though I know I do. Maybe I have too much on my mind, or too much to say about whatever is on my mind, I am not sure. Whatever it is, if I provide amusement to whoever listens to any of my burbling, I suppose I should be happy. Now if only I could find out just what it is I said….