It’s 3am. A normal Tuesday night. My housemates are asleep, all is quiet and dark; no one stirs. Except, apparently, me. My 23-year-long sleep talking problem was never something that bothered me, but that was until I started recording my nocturnal monologues and heard the kind of things I was saying. Such as tonight’s snippet, in which my normal cheery voice is replaced by some kind of hoarse monster from Paranormal Activity. “Why are you dead?” I snap, in the actual dead of night. It was – if you’ll excuse the pun – a bit of a wakeup call.
As I say, my sleep talking was generally something I was at peace with. My school reports said I nattered all day, so it made sense that I did the same thing at night. Plus, it seemed to be a crowd-pleaser when I told everyone about my fun fact in the pub. But it perhaps isn’t so peaceful, or funny, for the other people. In September, my best friend and I visited New York for seven nights, where we shared a double room to keep costs low. Apparently, I talked non-stop all night – but not to her; she was trying to sleep. Not only were we both jet lagged, but when my friend had tried to sleep, she couldn’t because Ellie Big Mouth Muir over here wouldn’t put a sock in it. And then there was that awkward time I muttered “I love you” to a guy I’d started dating, which was way too early to be dropping the L bomb.
