I was reading about people who’ve been using the sleep drug Ambien and have been sleepwalking, binge eating, and even driving without being aware of it. And it reminded me of something that used to happen to me when I was a child.

I never used sleeping pills, but occasionally I used to get overheated at night and then sleepwalk around the house. It was a really disturbing experience because I would be in a kind of half asleep / half awake state. I sort of knew what was going on but couldn’t snap out of it. I remember I would usually have some strange delusional idea going on at the same time. Once I was convinced that someone had buried a bomb in our backyard and that we were all in danger. Another time I remember walking into my parents’ room without even knocking and my Mom screamed bloody murder. My parents turned on the lights and tried to calm me down but I was so disoriented that I had no idea what they were saying. Another time I dug out a bunch of board games and vaguely remember looking through the “Chutes and Ladders” box, imagining that I’d lost something terribly important and had to find it.

Eventually I would come out of it but it always seemed to take a while – maybe 30 minutes or an hour – and while I came to my senses I would be shaking and crying with this weird feeling of danger. Not pleasant at all. I think the last time that happened I was probably about thirteen.

Sigmund Freud’s Birthday. So then I was reading the Newsweek cover story about Sigmund Freud. As the article says, he was wrong about so many things, but had some major ideas that are still with us today – among them the idea of the unconscious and the idea that “human life is essentially conflicted,” that we all have wishes and impulses that we actively suppress. I’m always amazed at the inappropriate thoughts I often have – petty resentments and jealousies and desires for revenge. If we could all look into each other’s minds without any filters we’d all be so damned embarrassed that we could hardly function.

Dream Last Night. Speaking of the unconscious, I had a funny dream last night. I was back in my childhood home and this young couple were on the back patio gesturing for me to let them in. They told me a story about needing help, I let them in, and then the man pulled a gun on me. I said something like, “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding.” He pulled out a roll of duct tape and told me to put my wrists together. I told him, “Look, I’m always able to escape so don’t bother.” He paused a moment, looked at the woman, said, “Well, okay,” and then they just gave up and left without even trying to rob me. Weird.