10 Things You'll Only Know If You Sleepwalk

As a chronic sleepwalker since childhood, Marie Claire Beauty Editor Suzanne Scott knows a thing or two about being tired. But the nightly antics of the Sleepwalker can, on occasion, be humorous. Here are the things you only know if you’re a sleepwalker...

1. You know your ‘trigger’. TV shows, movies, music, funny pictures, even some animals! The Walking Dead? Certifiable trigger right there. Shame it’s too damn good and worth the overnight sleepy efforts to barricade yourself from the herd of angry zombies.

2. Which leads me on to... your family are totally used to your irrigational fears either during or following an ‘episode’. I say this on the other side of a teary 3am call to my dad because I realised I don't have an air raid shelter and I will most certainly need one when the army of the great undead come a’knockin’ on my front door. But it’s okay; parents of sleepwalkers get it.

3. You’re likely to be amazing at locks in your sleep, like seriously amazing on a David Copperfield scale. Windows, doors, hinges, they’re a breeze when you’re sleepwalking. It is for this reason that you shouldn’t sleep naked. Ever. 

4. Your room looks like Tony Hart decorated it. Every LED light on the TV, the alarm clock and every. Single. Plug socket. Has to be covered with a wad of blue-tack. To allow even the tiniest shard of artificial light in your vision is to resign yourself to wandering around your house in the wee small hours doing such courageous things as diffusing bombs (aka plugs, lamps, remote controls). Sleepy You is multi-talented. 

5. You know that a hotel room that’s not on the ground floor is just plain bad sense. Balconies are the nemesis of the sleepwalker and this is coming from experience; I once almost plummeted to death after ‘seeing’ my T-Shirt blow over a balcony. When you sleep walk you think yourself invincible. News flash, you’re not. 

6. The iPhone App, sleep talk is both your best and worst friend. It’s funny to listen to your nightly ramblings but also disheartening to wake up thinking you slept the whole night through only to hear that for a hour in the night you were trying to climb through the once inch gap behind your wardrobe to get to a meeting you’re late for.

7. Having someone sleep over for the first time is interesting. Maybe you’ll kick them in the back thinking they’re an intruder, maybe they’ll breathe on you funny and you’ll try escaping the room in a panic by climbing through a mirror (if you’re staying in a hotel, supplement the mirror for the spy hole in the door). That’s romance right there.

8. You can’t sleep with a light switch of any kind within reaching distance because you wake up at least eight times in the night thinking someone has come into your room and turn the light on. It’s hardly restful. 

9. Same goes for lamps, if a lamp is near your bed, you think it’s a bomb and you’ll remove the plug and stick your finger in the electric outlet (as you do) getting electrocuted in the middle of the night is a bitch. 

10. You don’t bother having tidy drawers – ever - because during an ‘episode’ you’re bound to go hunting for something (something you’re already wearing or bomb) and the contents of your drawers will be all over your room come morning. Hence, being tidy is a complete waste of time.