Guest Post: An Extreme Dreamer's Roommate

My name is Shelby and I am Rebecca's (Becca sounds better) roommate second semester of college. Her and Kailee were the other two in the bedroom down the hall from Kelsey and I. We were obviously on the same soccer team which was the first thing that brought us together. We found out from getting to know each other that we had a lot in common. We had the best laughs I can every remember having in my life. We became best friends and were basically not seen without the other one during that second semester. We decided after getting close the first semester of college and that my Kelsey was movnig out that it would be perfect for us to move into the same room! I can honestly say that I did not even think about the sleeping freak outs she had, I was just excited to become roommates. We spent a lot of nights up late talking and all that random stuff best friends do. I do remember a couple times at the beginning that she would wake up and scream and honestly scare the crap out of me. I am a VERY light sleeper and would wake up to any talking/mumbling she would do. After the nights starting to multiply that I was waking up and not being able to sleep after being so scared and my heart beating so fast from Becca scarying me so bad, I decided to get ear plugs to wear at night. I can honestly say that was the best idea I ever had when living with her. I do not remember waking up from her after that and if I did see her get up, I kind of just let myself fall back asleep because I knew she would wake back up and come back to bed. I do miss the conversations we did have about the thigns that happened in our dreams and I know that no matter what I had to tell her went on in my dream that hers always topped. I am proud to say that I experienced an extreme dreamer and to call her my best friend!

What Happens When an Extreme Dreamer Goes to College?

July of 2010 I was ready to move away to Iowa for college. I was experiencing all of the expected emotions. I was excited, yet nervous. Luckily I wasn't going alone because my high school teammate Kailee was offered a scholarship as well.

Kailee and I were assigned to be roommates. We would be living in a two bedroom apartment with two of our teammates. There would be two girls to each bedroom so naturally Kailee and I decided to share a room. I honestly believe that it was a blessing to have Kailee as a roommate my first semester of college. She was my friend before we shared a room and was aware of my sleeping disorders. Although I don't think Kailee was fully prepared for the craziness, she took it all in stride. There were many nights were I would wake up yelling and Kailee would calm me down. Instead of resenting me for it, (I think) Kailee was always positive and understanding. She even dealt with my weird habit of sleeping half naked. (I was going through a topless phase. Sorry Kailee) Of course I could always hold over her head that she snored rather loudly and she was lucky that I could sleep through the noise.

That first semester I think I experienced some kind of "episode" almost every night. Unfortunately I was living in an environment where I was experiencing many triggers. I was in a new apartment, I was stressed about school and soccer, I didn't have a good sleep pattern, I traveled a lot for away games, etc. It was the most fun I had ever had, but it was also the most change I had ever experienced in my life. There were times when I wished I could be a normal eighteen year old girl who didn't have sleeping disorders. Hearing about what I had done in my sleep from Kailee could be really funny, but sometimes it was really embarrassing.

Of all the embarrassing episodes I had during my two years in Iowa, (and there were many) there's one that still makes me cringe to this day:

I wake from my sleep. This isn't out of the ordinary. I'm still trying to get used to my new room. It's super dark in here. I wish I could sleep with a nightlight like I did back home, but it would be rude because Kailee sleeps in here too. She's asleep on her bed right now. She's not snoring like she usually does. Something feels weird. I sit up and scan the room. That's when I see a dark face looking in the window. O MY GOSH IT'S A PEEPING TOM. There is a random man watching me sleep!

I've got to get out of here! I start screaming and scramble out of bed. I make a mad dash down the hallway and head for the front door. I'm panicking so hard right now. I can't stop screaming! I fumble with the lock and rip open the front door! Wait.... this doesn't look right. Why am I staring at my neighbors door? Oh... I'm standing in the doorway of my apartment. I have one foot placed on the cold cement and another back in my apartment. A horrible reality smacks me in the face.

I can't believe what I've just done. This is one of my worst nightmares. No wait, the peeping tom was one of my worst nightmares. Ok I've got it! It's like I've just woken up from a nightmare and realized I'm still in a nightmare. Only I can't wake up from this nightmare. I'm fully awake and have to deal with the fact that I just ran screaming like a psycho through my apartment. I slowly close the door and hope that if I'm real quiet, no one will wake up. I turn around. Crap, too late. My roommate Kelsey is staring at me with a concerned look on her face. This is awkward..... How do I explain this?

"Are you okay?" she asks.

"Yes. Bad dream," is what I try to say. I'm sure it came out sounding more like, "yuh, bea dram". (I tend to speak gibberish during my episodes)

"Oh well you really scared me," replies Kelsey.

I don't remember if I responded to her after that. I just kind of stumbled back to my bedroom and climbed back in bed. Of course I had to face my roommates in the morning and try to explain what caused me to have a "freak out". Luckily they were pretty forgiving. They did manage however to tell our whole soccer team about my episode. I don't blame them for that one. I deserved it.

So what does happen when an extreme dreamer goes to college? Imaginary Peeping Tom's happen. And it's not pretty.

Bomb

By my senior year I thought I had a handle on my sleeping disorders. I knew my triggers, I was managing my stress, and my family knew how to respond to my night terrors.  Although it was annoying, I thought I pretty much had my night terrors figured out. Then I was contacted by Brad Silvey.

Brad Silvey was and currently is the head coach of the Women's Soccer Team at Iowa Western Community College. I got a call from him shortly after my senior season soccer ended. (Around October 2009) Brad explained that he was traveling through the state of Utah putting on soccer camps for potential future players. He asked me to attend the camp in St. George and it would be a try out of sorts for his college team. You can imagine my excitement when I hung up the phone. I loved playing high school soccer but I never dreamed that a college team would be interested in me. Even though the try out wasn't until January, I thought about it every single day. At first I only felt excitement when I thought about the try out. As time went on I started to get nervous and really stress out. This try out could potentially change my life.

By now you probably know where this is heading. Before I get into the "Bomb" incident, I want to explain my living situation. This incident occurred somewhere between late October and early November of 2009. My older sisters were married and out of the house. The only remaining children were my younger brother Eric, my older brother Marty, and myself. All of us kids slept down in the basement and my parents slept upstairs by themselves. Eric has always been a very heavy sleeper so he was never affected by my night terrors. Marty however could always hear me. He got very used to my routine freak outs. He would usually wake up to my yells/screams and wait for me to calm back down. Occasionally  I wouldn't stop and he would come in to calm me down. Other times I would run out into the hall and he would listen for my footsteps to return to my bedroom. We pretty much had a system, but we weren't prepared for the bomb.

I can see my house. I must be floating in the air because I am looking at the front of it, but I can also see the top of the roof. I know I'm inside sleeping. I can feel it. It's really dark and quiet. It's way too quiet. Something's not right. I hear a tiny ringing. That's when I see it. A giant black bomb. It looks exactly like a bomb you would see in a cartoon. It is suspended above my house. It's just hanging there. Why is it there? O my gosh it's been lit! And now it's falling! I've got to get myself out before the house blows up.

 

Suddenly I am back in my bedroom. I shoot out of bed. I know I need to get out of the house and fast. I haven't forgotten that there is a bomb about to drop right on top of me. I whip open my door and sprint up the stairs. I open the lock in record speed. Thank goodness I've undone this lock so many times. I am running down the porch steps in no time. Although I have only a large T-shirt and panties on and I'm barefoot, I feel nothing. My adrenaline is on full power. I am running like I never have before. I'm pretty sure I'm experiencing what they call the Flight or Fight response. And man am I flying! It's like my entire body is being propelled forward with lightening speed. As I sprint down the sidewalk I notice the other houses are dark and silent. Don't they know what's about to happen? Why am I the only one running? Wait... I'm alone. I LEFT ERIC IN THE HOUSE! I have to get back there and save him! I whip around and start sprinting back to the house. I'm running out of time! I don't know if I can get him out of there in time. I can't believe I left him. He has no idea that the bomb is about to drop. He's still fast asleep. I have to get in there! I am back in the driveway. In a few steps I'll be ..

****************************BECCA!!!!********************************

 

I'm staring at Marty. He has met me in the driveway. I look past him and see my mom standing on the porch. Wait... what are they doing here? Did I? No... Did I really run outside? I stand there for a few seconds. I try to comprehend what just happened. Marty leads me back inside. We all three stand in the entry way. We are all pretty shocked that I actually made it outside. After the initial shock wears off we realize the whole thing is pretty funny. I ran down the street half asleep in my underwear. What else was there left to do but laugh?

 

After that night we realized that my night terrors weren't as simple as we thought. I myself realized that I was worrying too much about the try out. I'm happy to say that come January I rocked the try out. I was offered a scholarship at IWCC and was ready to move to Iowa in the summer. I left for college ready for a whole new world.

 

I should have known my night terrors would follow me.



Triggers

As the years went on I began to recognize that I had certain triggers for my sleeping disorders. For example, if I was more stressed than usual or had a big event coming up, my night terrors would become more frequent and intense. If I was lacking in sleep I would wake up yelling. If I took afternoon naps I would experience Sleep Paralysis. There were (and still are) many triggers, but I think the most annoying trigger was sleeping in an unfamiliar environment

For years I couldn't handle sleeping in hotel rooms. I would undoubtedly sleep walk around each one. If you ask my older sisters about our trip to Cancun in 2003, they can testify that I tried to escape our room almost every night in my sleep. Although I hardly remember freaking out in the Cancun hotel room, I do have many memories from other hotel rooms. I have a very distinct memory of my waking up in a hotel room in California. I was probably about age 13 and I was sharing a bed with my mother. I awoke because my mom had yelled, "I hate that you do this!" and it had jolted me back to consciousness. I was standing across the room and from the look on my mom's face I could tell that it had been a rough night so far. I still don't know how many times I got up and slept walked that night. It's still a touchy subject when I bring it up to my mom.

Sleeping over at a friend's house is another story entirely. I used to have to warn my friend's families that I might start randomly screaming in the middle of the night. Luckily by the time I was 12 I had a core group of friends that I spent the night with. They became used to my sleep walking and talking and took it all in stride. In fact in the beginning they thought it was hilarious and couldn't get enough. As the years went by, they figured out how to easily talk me into going back to bed once I started sleep walking.

Now that I'm older (22, so old) I am better at recognizing my triggers and trying to minimize my incidents. I wish I could say I have it all figured out but I don't. Even though I know I will experience Sleep Paralysis, I still indulge in afternoon naps. I try to manage my stress, but sometimes I let it get the best of me, even though I know it will result in night terrors. I know it sounds risky to take afternoon naps and that I'm living on the edge, but hey, I am a 22 year old after all!

The Shrinking Pyramid

I wish I could say the "Sentinel" incident was a one time thing. Well it wasn't. It was just the beginning. As I hit puberty, my night terrors became more frequent. Although they weren't as dramatic as the Sentinel incident I did have them a couple of times a week. My older sister who slept in the room next to me said my night terrors were like clock work. They happened shortly after I fell asleep which was usually around midnight. Apparently I would start with short, quiet yells that would eventually turn into loud screams. Most of the time my screaming would abruptly stop and other times it was followed by a mad dash down the hall, rifling around the room, or on occasion an escape attempt out of my brother's bedroom window. 

One particularly bad incident involved a dream about a shrinking pyramid....

I was in an Egyptian pyramid. There were gold statues, jewels, old papyrus, and beautiful antiques all around me. It looked like a scene right out of the movie "The Mummy". For some reason I was all alone. Why was here? I couldn't remember. I got the sinking feeling that I wasn't supposed to be in this pyramid. 

That's when I heard the sand. It started out quiet but increasingly got louder. I looked down and realized the sand around my feet was rising. Soon it was to my ankles. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from, but I was smart enough to know that I needed to find my way out of this pyramid before it filled to the top with sand. I spotted a staircase in the corner of the room and started to make my way over to it. It was really hard to move my feet because the sand was already at mid calve. I was halfway to the stairs when I heard a new noise. It sounded like stone scraping against stone. Oh no! The walls were shifting! They were moving towards each other! The room was shrinking and I was going to be crushed to death!

I made a mad dash for the stairs! Suddenly my feet felt lighter and I could easily move through the sand. When I hit the stairs I took them two at a time. Luckily I ran up the stairs in my home two at a time so I was really good at it! The staircase was only about fifteen steps long and I was at the top in no time.I looked up and saw that the new room I had entered was shrinking as well. I had to get out of here! Somehow I knew that the exit of the pyramid would be immediately to my right. I slammed into the door hoping that it would bust open. No luck. It was locked. I looked down and realized the lock and handle looked exactly like the one on my front door at home. How convenient! I knew exactly how to open this door! I turned the top lock at record speed and was reaching for the handle

***********************BECCA!!!!!!!!**************************

I nearly jumped out of my skin! In a bright flash the pyramid around me vanished. I was standing in the dark entryway of my home. That's when I realized I was desperately trying to escape out the front door. I looked to my left and saw my dad standing in his undergarments. All I could say was, "You scared me Dad". With which he replied, "You scared me!". Apparently I caused a great commotion as I was running up the stairs. I felt pretty dumb and mumbled a quick sorry to my dad then walked back down into my bedroom. Without a second thought I climbed back into bed and went to sleep. 

The Beginning of the Extreme: The Matrix Sentinel

As a kid I thought I was normal. I went to bed at night. I fell asleep. I dreamed while I was asleep. I woke up and could still remember my dreams. Sounds pretty normal right? Oh ya and I occasionally talked in my sleep and slept walked around the house. I figured it wasn't a big deal. My older siblings would sleep walk from time to time and even my mom had a history of doing silly things in her sleep. Since my family slept walked I thought most everyone does it. I even found it sort of funny and loved to hear about the crazy things I was doing in my sleep.

It took me a few years to realize I was different. I started noticing when I was old enough to have sleepovers. I would often wake up to a bunch of laughing girls who would tell me that I was saying funny things. Other times I would wake up in a different room than the rest of the "slumber party" and instantly look like a weirdo. It sometimes bothered me, but most of the time my friends and I found it really funny. 

Now I know what you are thinking. Children all over the world sleep walk and sleep talk. Big deal. They eventually grow out of it. What makes you so different. What's different about me is that my sleeping disorders didn't stop, they progressively got worse as I got older. Around the time I hit puberty, my nighttime adventures were at an all time high. There were no major incidents, just silly sleepwalks and sleepy conversations with my family members. 

Then I watched The Matrix movies and that's when my extreme dreaming began. (Please ignore the fact that The Matrix series is rated R and that I was only about fourteen when I saw them.) Now if any of you have seen The Matrix you will be familiar with Sentinels. For those of you who have not, basically picture a machine version of on octopus/squid. Here's a picture of what they look like.

Pretty Creepy Huh?

** It was the middle of the night. I woke up terrified. Something was wrong. It was coming. I could feel it. I knew it was right outside my window. I was paralyzed with fear and I knew that if it came through my window it would kill me. I tried to scream but I couldn't make a sound come out. I needed help but my voice wouldn't even make a peep. I saw the shadow getting bigger and I struggled harder to make a noise. Why couldn't any sound escape my lips? I knew I was screaming but for some reason it was like I was on mute. AAAUUGHHH!! There I got one out! AAAAUUGGGH!! And another one! Finally I was able to scream at full volume! Even though I was finally making noise the creature was getting closer. As it slid through my bedroom window I was finally able to see what it was. IT WAS A SENTINEL! It was sliding closer and it was coming right for me. Although I wasn't quite sure how, I knew the sentinel was going to take my life. At this point I start screaming for my life. I need someone, anyone to hear my and save me from this horrible creature. Suddenly I feel cold hands around my shoulders and hear someone call my name. 

  

*****************************BECCA!!!!!!*************************************

I'm awake... I'm sitting on my bed. My mom is starting at me with a look of terror and concern on her face. I look around my room and see my entire family. (Minus my oldest sister away at college and my younger brother who is sleeping upstairs.) Everyone is in their pajamas/undergarments and looking at my like I'm crazy. My heart is beating about a thousand miles an hour. It feels like it's going to explode out of my chest or seep out of my ears or both. I can't seem to catch my breath and simply just fall into my mom's arms. 

My mom asks me what's wrong. I try telling her about the sentinel but I can't make my words come out right. My tongue feels like it's twisted and my mouth is extremely dry. All I can muster out is the word "mosquito", over and over again. I knew very well a mosquito wasn't trying to attack me but for some reason I couldn't find the word for sentinel in my brain. 

A few minutes pass  by and I am finally able to explain to my parents what had scared me. I eventually calm down, catch my breath, use the bathroom and go back to sleep like nothing ever happened. 

So there you have it. That was the beginning of my extreme dreaming. You think that was intense? You have no idea what's coming. 

Introduction

My name is Rebecca and I'm an extreme dreamer. Now you probably think I'm talking about aspirations, goals, wishes, that sort of stuff. I'm not. I'm talking about real dreams, the ones you have when you are asleep. For me, real dreams are a huge part of my life.

Some people claim they don't dream, or that they simply don't remember their dreams. This is a foreign concept to me. Ever since I can remember, I have had dreams. I dream during the night, I dream during naps, I can even dream while I'm dozing off. Okay big deal I have dreams. What's so extreme about that? Well the extreme part isn't that I dream, it's what happens when I dream.

I have a few sleeping disorders. These disorders range from night terrors, to sleepwalking, to sleep paralysis and so on. Thanks to these disorders my nights are pretty interesting. So interesting that I have decided to start documenting my nights in this journal.  Why? Well here's a list of reasons:

• I want to make a few people laugh
• Get my dreams on record so I don't have to forget them
• Maintain my blogging hobby
• Hopefully help future/present extreme dreamers realize they are not alone

Ok that last point is a little ambitious but hey maybe someone somewhere will discover my blog and find it helpful.