The Sleepwalker

Bart is a sleepwalker, I’m certain of it. Almost every night he gets out of his bed and makes his way to our bed. Nothing strange about that… lots of kids do it. What leads me to believe he’s sleepwalking is that he comes to the end of our bed, makes absolutely no eye contact, positions himself between us and promptly goes back to sleep. On occasion, we hear him get up and walk around his room, pick up a book, brush his teeth, etc. and then crawl into either his bed or ours. If we try to speak to him, he just gives a grunt, or moves his mouth like he’s speaking, but it just comes out as gibberish.

Last night, he came into our room, stood in the middle of the bed, jumped about three times, then crawled in between us, without one word, or smile or even a nod in our direction.

Now, I have limited experience with sleepwalking. My sister’s friend was brought home by some neighbours down the street when she slept over at our house and walked down the street in her jammies. One of my roommates in university would get up in the middle of the night and cook a full meal and not recall that he had done it the next morning. I met The Sleepwalker several years ago through his sister. I had no idea he was “that guy” until she said in a whisper “he’s the brother, that, you know…”. No, I didn’t know. I bought the book that night and read the whole thing. It was horrendous that a seemingly normal, kind person could do that in his sleep.

I don’t think Bart is headed in that direction. But, to be safe, the knives are all kept out of his reach and we take the doorknob off the front door at night (having a house that is falling apart has its advantages). Anything I have read says he will grow out of this phase. Until then, I'll sleep with one eye open!