The terror

Over the past few months I’ve had several episodes of night terrors. Well, probably not the extreme textbook diagnostic instance but more a sudden shock, waking me up, and taking a minute or so to re-orient. I’m not sure what wakes me, but when I do wake I see someone floating or standing in the darkness. I panic and shake Lisa awake and tell her what I saw. She freaks, turns on the light, and we both have jacked up adrenaline for the next half hour.

I swear the first two instances when it happened a couple of months back happened to her and she woke me up. She doesn’t remember them, just me waking her and telling her she was calling out in a panic, and so the current episodes that are definitely me make those seem pretty suspicious. Am I remembering it completely wrong?

It’s happened enough that I’ve gotten to the point of needing to keep the door opened when we sleep to let some light in. I’m, as they say, a grown-ass man and yet here we are. I don’t feel more likely to see anything, just more ready to have it startle me in the middle of the night. It’s a weird reason to have insomnia.

Anyway, Lisa’s going out of town this weekend.