Dreaming

maybe I need one of these...

During my freshman year of college I learned many new things, but talking in my sleep was not a skill I anticipated acquiring as part of my higher education. My roommate at the time, Bethany, is infamous for her sleepwalking escapades, and her somnambulation seems to have rubbed off on me to some extent. While in the dorms together I once repeated to her most of my recent American history lecture on slavery in my sleep, and another time she says I was scrambling for the edge of my bed so fast she thought I was just going to fly off the end like Wily Coyote. I woke just in time to stop myself and crawled sleepily back to my pillow, saving us both a trip to the hospital for a broken wrist and a busted nose.

My sleep-talking didn't disturb anyone else's slumber until I got married. The first night of our honeymoon, Jordan and I got to our beach house at about midnight after driving for ten hours. We were both beat, so we went straight to bed. In the middle of the night I sat bolt upright and woke Jordan with my shouts of "hey, hey, HEY!" We were driving off the curving Oregon road and I thought we were going to smash into the side of a hill. Fortunately Jordan was so tired that I didn't alarm him too much this time, and he very calmly assured me we were safe and most definitely not driving into a mountain. Unfortunately, there would be many more nights ahead in which my shouts would scare the heebie-jeebies out of him. Like the time I was just positive that the stove was tipping over, and I had to catch it. Or the time I thought Jordan had learned telekinesis and he was moving huge pieces of lumber around our bedroom and was about to plow my face with one.

These episodes don't really compare with the one I had last night though. But this one wasn't funny, because I was dreaming that Jordan was dying. Not in a car accident or in a hospital, but right there beside me. He was gurgling and choking, and I knew that his heart was giving up and his face would be purple if I could see it in the dark. I woke up grabbing Jordan's shoulders and saying "no, no, no!" Jordan mumbled something incoherent in response to my shaking, shifted and then fell instantly asleep again. I wrapped my arms tightly around his slumbering body and waited for the blood that was pounding in my ears to calm, and as I did so I said a prayer of gratitude that it was only a dream.

Usually during these dreams I am somewhere else, or something completely ridiculous is happening, so it was far more alarming for my dream to so closely mimic reality. I hope that if Jordan is destined to leave me like that in the night, it isn't for many, many, many more years.