Nighttime Interloper

I was tired and I went to bed early: 8:30PM. About 5 or 10 minutes later a friend texted me to see if we could talk for a few minutes. I told her I had gone to bed. I rarely say “No” to someone who wants to chat with me, but I felt really tired. I went to sleep immediately after that.

Time passed and I awoke in darkness. I knew the electric power was off because the house was too dark. As I lay in bed, I saw a shadowy figure move silently past my bedroom door and enter the other downstairs bedroom which I use for storage. I couldn’t be sure he was real because the house was so dark, but then I saw the dark figure leave the bedroom and go back up the hallway toward the front of the house.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and stood up. I moved silently to the bedroom door, and I saw the stranger coming back down the hall toward me. When he got within range I threw a mighty punch at him. I connected only with air. The stranger had backed off and I had missed, but now he was aware of me. He came back toward me and I whirled a high kick at him—something you might see in a Kung-Fu movie. Incredibly, I missed again and whirled myself down onto the floor. Now what? The shadowy figure had the advantage. He was on his feet and I was on the floor.

And then I awoke for the second time. I was on the floor beside my bed. My dreaming body had thrown itself off my bed and I was on the floor with my bed sheet crumpled under me. I clambered onto the bed and switched on the lamp beside the bed. The time was 10:30PM.

The incident had really awakened me. I decided to get up for a while. And then, because I had nothing else to blog about, I decided to blog about this “nighttime interloper.”

It doesn’t happen often but it does happen. One night I was dreaming and I threw a powerful kick, and my dreaming body kicked the cast iron radiator beside my bed. That hurt! Another time I dreamed I was trying to reach something above me, and I jumped for it, with the result that my actual hand collided hard with the head of the bed. I’ve even thrown myself, along with my sheet and blanket, off the bed and onto the floor, so this wasn’t the first time.

Now I’m wide awake and it’s 11:15PM. Well, shoot. Might as well watch some YouTube. And I’m making a mental note: don’t eat chili dogs before going to bed.