Friday, October 26, 2007

Ben's Sleep-talking


I had heard this from his roommates before, but since Ben and I got married, it has been confirmed to me that he talks in his sleep from time to time. It doesn't happen every night - probably only once every few weeks or so - but what is so amusing about it is that he usually speaks very clearly. It's not just this semi-conscious, unintelligible mumbling; it's very distinct words or phrases. I first experienced this during our honeymoon. Ben sleep-talked at least twice in that eight-day span, and being new to this phenomenon, both times I was faked out and thought he was actually saying something to me. I kept waking up and replying, "What?" and upon getting no answer, I realized he was just talking in his sleep.

It happened again last night, so I was inspired to blog about it. (Don't worry - I made sure it was OK with him.) Here are some examples of what he's said so far, along with a little background on each:

1) "But we already got a cutting-in-line pass!" - this was during our honeymoon at Disney World, where we often took advantage of the "Fast Passes" that allow you to come back to a ride at a certain time and get in a faster line. Once again, though, they are called "Fast Passes," so I'm not sure what prompted Sleeping Ben to refer to them as "cutting-in-line" passes.

2) "Um-ba-rella" - yes, just like the Rihanna song "Umbrella." This also occurred during our honeymoon. We had been at a beach earlier in the day where another group of people nearby was playing that song on their sound system.

3) "Help put Rachel in my situation" - wow. This was quite telling, because it happened on a night when we had just had a fairly lengthy argument. Don't worry; we had resolved it before going to bed, but I guess he still wasn't sure if I understood him? Or perhaps he was knowingly using his habit in a sneaky way? Hmmm... :)

4) The one that happened last night - I'm going to cite the whole "conversation" we had, because it was more interactive:

Sleeping Ben: "It was almost like one-zero...could be five thousand-zero!"
Awake Rachel: (snickering somewhat uncontrollably)
Half-Conscious Ben: "What?"
Awake Rachel: "Do you know what you were saying? About numbers?"
Half-Conscious Ben: "Something about thirty thousand?"
Awake Rachel: "Uh...yeah...sort of."

I asked him about it in the morning, and he remembers being half-conscious but doesn't know why he said what he did. I haven't figured it out, either. My first thought was that we had been watching the World Series Game 2 last night, where the score was 1-0 for a while...? And then maybe something to do with the fact that Game 1 was 13-1 - a blowout similar to a score of 5,000-0? I don't know.

Does anyone else have interesting stories of spouses or other people you have shared sleeping quarters with (for appropriate reasons) talking in their sleep? I would love to hear them.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

one time my mom heard me say: "Pikachu protector" or something. The Pokemon craze was outta control!
-Jon

Heewoo Han said...

hilarious. :)

Mitzi and Jerry said...

Jerry sleep talks from time to time. Sometimes I engage him in conversation and then tell him about it the next morning. And other times he cannot hear me, but I still tell him about it the next morning. And yes, it is pretty hilarious.

mommapao said...

When I lived at home after a long day of working at my mom's sandwhich shop in the med center (called Food Transfusion) I fell asleep on the couch. My mom told me the phone rang and I popped up, put my hand to my ear and said "Good afternoon, Food Transfusion, can I help you?" Then laid back down.
John doesn't talk in his sleep, but he does jerk his arms. He has hit me a few times hard enough to wake me up and bop him back so he also would be rudely awakened. When he falls alseep in the car he will jerk both arms up in the air. Once in an attempt to prevent that from happening, he crossed his arms - but he jerked his crossed arms up. I busted out laughing and woke him up.