My sleepwalking stories these days have been few and far between. I still sleeptalk several times per week, but I don’t seem to be getting up and doing bizarre things as much. Last week, I did exclaim in my sleep, “I’m INFP, I’m INFP, I’m INFP, I’m INFP”, which I directly attribute to going on a Myers-Briggs reading binge before bed. But that’s not so bad– I didn’t act anything out, I didn’t get out of bed and make a chicken sausage, rearrange my furniture, or run screaming through the house because giant spiders were chasing me. I stayed put…until last night.

Usually my sweet, patient, and sleep-deprived husband, Isaac, is the target of my sleepwalking madness. In my sleepwalking history, I have been known to tickle him, tell him jokes, try to push him out of bed, and attempt to convince him that a female ghost was living in his abdomen.

But last night, Isaac lucked out. Our dog, not so much. Sometime around 1:00 AM, I was dreaming that Henri, our dog, was dying of hypothermia. It felt terrifyingly real. In a panic, I crawled to the end of the bed where she sleeps and laid my hands on her body, waiting to feel the rise and fall of her chest letting me know she was alive. I didn’t feel it. In my sleepwalking mind, she was not breathing and it was an emergency.

Now frantic, I grabbed Henri’s (in my mind) lifeless body and shook her. I shook her and shook her and was near a complete breakdown when she popped her head up and stared at me, 3 inches from my face. I know humans tend to anthropomorphize our pets, but the look Henri gave me was 100% MOM WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU.

Phew, she was alive. Relief washed over me and I knew what had to be done next. I had to prevent her from slipping into another hypothermia-induced catatonic state. I grabbed the blanket Henri sleeps on, placed her into the middle of it, and wrapped her as tightly as I could into a blanket burrito. She didn’t fight it.

Content with my life-saving measures and my burrito swaddled dog now safe from the arctic environment (our 70 degree bedroom), I crawled back up to my side of the bed and slept hard and motionless for the rest of the night.