I clearly remember making my dad fetch me from friends’ houses close to midnight after I’d arranged a sleep over, and making up excuses why I couldn’t sleep out.
I’ve grown out of this, to some extent. Travel being a perk of my job, I do spend a few nights a year sleeping in strange beds. And when I travel, I do sleep. I’m not so messed up as to suffer from insomnia if I can’t sleep in my bed. But it’s when I get back home that things get interesting.
For the first two or three nights after returning from a trip, I have weird dreams about being at a party and deciding it’s time to go home. Then I sleep walk to gather my keys and get into my car.
I haven’t actually ever made it as far as the car, but I did get to the back door once and woke up just in time to stop setting off the alarm.
Clearly my subconscious takes a while to catch up to reality.
The best cure I’ve found is to chant a little mantra as I’m getting into bed. “This is home, no need to roam.” (The poet in me can’t resist a bit of rhyming.)
This weekend A-Friend and I spent two nights on KZN’s South Coast for the launch of a new Camelot Spa at San Lameer. I was ecstatic to be getting out of Jo’burg and I was promised a day of pampering at the spa. It didn’t quite happen that way, but the weekend was still completely relaxing and enjoyable.
On returning home I forgot to chant my mantra as I readied myself for bed. I was completely buggered on Sunday night, so there was no problem. But last night I half woke up and remember wondering what strange place I was in. I think I even opened the curtains to check outside. It was after midnight before I was able to convince my subconscious that everything was okay.
I still can’t figure out why it happens when I get home and not while I’m away. But I’m getting used to being odd , swimming upstream, going against the grain – it just seems to be my way.
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