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Sleep Walking + Electricity

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned it in this blog before, but I’m a chronic sleepwalker. I had some very intense episodes when I was younger. My mom asked for possible ‘corrective solutions’ from my therapist uncle, but his input was absolutely useless. He regurgitated something along these lines: “it’s probably because he eats before he sleeps, it’s normal, don’t worry. He’ll grow out of it.”

Well, I never grew out of it.

At no time am I a harm to others when sleepwalking; it’s usually me waking up tormented in worry that there’s something out to harm me in my bedroom. Not sure what that ‘something’ is- there’s an abstraction to it.

An abstraction that becomes incomprehensible as soon as the sleep walking episode concludes.

Maybe in the future I’ll write about some of the incidents I had in high school/college, but for this blog I’m going to briefly write about something that happened here in Kuwait yesterday.

As per usual, I abruptly woke up in torment. This time around I was fearful that there was something in my room trying to electrocute me.

So, I quickly toss the blanket, run away from the bed, and head to the apartment door to exit in a desperate bid to save my life.

I don’t exit the apartment this time around. Instead, I decide to turn on the lights to reveal and face whatever it is that’s in my room trying to electrocute me.

But, guess what? The plastic light switch levers in my apartment were incorrectly wired, so I expose myself to electric shock if I turn them on/off with exposed skin.

For real, that’s how it’s been ever since I moved into this apartment. I need to switch the lights on and off with a towel or something. Otherwise, I’d get electrical injury. 

Unfortunately, I was sleepwalking, so I forgot the whole cover your skin with a towel part and the stupid switch lever electrically shocked me.  

The sleepwalking version of myself didn’t comprehend that it was the lever that electronically shocked me. Instead, sleepwalking me very fallaciously arrived at the conclusion that the thing that was trying to electrocute me managed to do so. I can’t explain it now that I’m sober.  

I eventually calmed down and then forced myself back to bed to sleep.

The worst part?

I’d wake again numerous times during the night, run to the exit in fear, decide to click the lever to expose the enemy, electrically shock myself, and then wrongly assume that it was the evil thing in my room that thrusted the blow.