Sleep Talkin' Woman

At Five this morning, I woke up to a very interesting situation. I was having a dream—a very lucid one—where I was driving on a highway that goes through a rural town. The speed limit reduced from something very high to something more residential, and I was in the right lane behind a semi truck. A very loud shrieking noise, maybe even a snap, caused me to slow down quickly, distancing my car from the semi, which was then sidewinding over two lanes and causing its now-malleable trailer bed to crack the whip toward my car.

The semi ended up missing me but crashed into a farmhouse at the edge of the upcoming town, and its occupants—along with the driver himself—were already on top of the truck’s hood assessing the damage by the time I slowly rolled by. The driver ratcheted something with a wrench while smoking a cigarette; they were all talking about how to get the truck back on the road. I’m that close to this group of people and also, now—for reasons I can’t explain—I’m no longer in a vehicle; I’m walking by the scene of the accident.

That’s when I Kate woke me up by talking in her sleep. She spoke very clearly, to the level where I thought she was messing with me. I couldn’t remember everything she said; she said a lot, about two minutes worth of material. But I’ve written down several lines.

Kate: So much. So much. SO MUCH…poo. SO MUCH. Kate. Kate. Kate.

Kate: What. What. What. Kate. Kate. Kate. (More chants that sound as if she adopted the persona of one or all of the clients where she works)

Kate: (I accidentally pulled part of the covers away from her shoulder) Burrrrr. What the what, yo? I’m half-cheekin’ over here, dude.

Me: (Cracking up) Kate, you’re talking in your sleep.

Kate: Uh-uh

Me: You’ve been doing it for over a minute now.

Kate: (Rolls over to face the other way) I definitely haven’t been. That’s part of the counter [work] at Jakeeno’s.

Kate: Ja-Kee-No’s shufflin’ (indecipherable, but sing-songy)

Me: Kate, wake up; you’re talking in your sleep.

Kate: No way. You’re pure evil. Pure evil.

At that point, I got up--I had to--and wrote as much as I could remember. When I got back into bed, Kate woke up and we talked about what had just taken place. She thought I had made the whole thing up; she would never say those kinds of things. This was, in her mind, my way of messing with her. Which I do pretty often, because she talks in her sleep every night. Usually, though, the words are mumbled and can hardly be classified as being words. It kind of freaked me out that what she had said was so clear and understandable.

I didn't think about at the time, not until I woke up a few hours later, but I probably shouldn't have tried to wake her. Can't that cause a person to go into shock or react violently? Or am I thinking about sleepwalkers? I'm sure it can be embarrassing for the sleeper to realize they've been communicating without knowing it, but that didn't seem to be an issue; she's a heavy sleeper and didn't even remember having the 5am conversation about her sleeptalking. (Also, I got her persmission to post this, proving she's pretty tough.) I'm wondering what she'll say when we're asleep tonight. Hopefully, I'll get to hear it again.