Dancing in your sleep

Have you ever had those incredibly lively dreams where you wake up more tired than when you went to sleep? I have no idea what I dreamt last night barring that there was lots of music in the background all through my dream and it was loud and lively.

When I was little, I once woke up with my hands in the air and I distinctly remember that I'd been dreaming about doing ballet.
I also walked to my parents room on multiple occasions and woke up in the morning confused as to how I'd got there so I wouldn't be surprised if I was jumping around the room last night in my sleep.

Nothing, however, tops Alan. One night I woke up as he jumped out of bed and stormed out of the room. He then proceeded to walk into the room next door and dig through all our then unpacked boxes. He dug and dug and dug for ages and I wondered what he was looking for but left him.
Eventually the digging stopped and he didn't come back. I decided to get up and go and see what he was up to.
I found him sleeping on his 3/4 bed under the electric blanker that was just lying loosely on the bed. I leaned over and gently squeezed his arm and said "Al? Why are you here? What's wrong?" and he woke up very confused and didn't know how he got there.
He later told me how he'd once slept walked at his grandparents house and used their dustbin as a toilet to urinate! His grandmother realised what was happening and stood watching him and giggling as he lifted the lid of her dustbin and urinated in it and then courteously put the lid back down.

Hopefully we don't ever decide to sleep walk/dance/wee in the middle of the night when we have guests over for our wedding! ;)

"Has anyone ever told you that you're odd?"

I was asked this question the other day and yes, of course I've been told that I'm odd. I wasn't doing anything particularly odd at the time, just having a normal conversation but I suppose on occasion I do respond in an odd way to ensure that I'm understood correctly. There's nothing like email or sms or chat to add confusion to the conversation should you say something sort of different or ambiguous.

Are most of us not odd though in our own way? Those who roll their eyes and stare blankly or scorn when somebody does or says something vaguely different to what they deem as normal are more odd to me than the people they tend to find odd.

I'm finding that more and more people I know are becoming odd. Or should I say "odd." Odd seems to be the new normal and so it should be. I don't mean wildly odd like drooling all over your co-workers and eating all your stationery, although if you're really hungry, you could be excused. I just mean not being afraid to be who you are and express your ideas even if they're met with rolled eyes by some ignorant chop.

I'll never forget the day that my friend Melissa (the Mel post being about her) and Al and I were standing outside her house when somebody walked past her house and her dogs ran up to the gate and barked at him and ran up and down jumping up against the wall and pushing themselves off of it. I decided that it looked like immense fun and so I decided to join them. I even barked at the passer-by just to experience the full effect. Poor Alan looked horrified and so embarrassed while Mel was in hysterics. Now it is far more likely that Alan would be the one jumping and barking at people. Oddness rubs off and it's a good thing.

Why not let your oddness out of the bag today and rub it off on someone else? Your life will be much more fulfilling! :)

Crazy exploits of the dumped and depressed

It was a freezing cold Monday morning when I boarded the train and
spotted a familiar face sitting in the corner engrossed in a book. I
shuffled over and plonked myself down opposite her. She looked up from
her book and smiled at me. We did the usual "oh my word! I haven't
seen you for ages!" chitchat and she put her book away.
I hadn't seen her in almost 2 months and although we didn't know
each other very well, there was a connection that people have from
similar experiences.
The topic turned to men. She had been dumped, not for any particular reason other than "it wasn't going anywhere". She was now in the anger stage and was having vivid, angry fantasies about getting some novice cellists, or just anyone off the street would do,to pitch up at her ex's flat at 3am every morning for a week, and just practice.
I decided that I had to intervene. Not only would she most likely get into trouble with the police, but her ex was my neighbour.
We spoke a lot about how things change and how people change and in the
end decided that she should continue with her therapy and that I
should probably start.

So, next time you want to throttle someone, find someone else who's
been there and listen to how idiotic and hilarious in is in retrospect
and it may just save you from having to fix your dancing shoes from
frantic midnight escapades in the mud. Ahem.

Are the voices in my head bothering you?

A while ago I was helping my sister and brother-in-law with a project that they were busy with. We were taking a short break when my nephew came and sat at the computer on the dining room table where I'd been sitting and started to play a computer game.

After a short time, he started to moan about how the voices were irritating him. My sister and I looked at each other; We didn't hear any voices, the game's sound was off. We ignored the comment and carried on chatting.

After a while, my nephew got very agitated and started whining that the voices were really annoying him and that he just wished that they would stop talking.

My sister and I exchanged worried glances. There were no voices or noises from the game at all! Was there some strange dormant condition that this poor child was suffering from that had chosen to manifest itself now starting with delusions?

"Andy, are the voices telling you to do things?" I asked. This irritated him a lot "No!" he yelled at me, "It's not like that! They're just voices."

"Ands, what are they saying? Whose voices are they?" my sister asked.
"I don't know what they're saying! I don't know whose voices they are but they're irritating me!" He replied almost in tears.

We were getting more and more worried until we noticed that he had the ear phones draped around his neck and there was a very feint sound coming from them! The voices were the voices of Spongebob and Squidward from the game he was playing.

Later on, when we were having a late supper, I sat down at the table and was about to put my plate down when I heard creepy sounds coming from the table (which was shrouded in papers and books and homework) and, being rather anti-insects, I freaked out. I ran back into the kitchen yelling "There's a creature on the table, it's making a really gross sounding walk-ey noise!"

My sister went to the table and carefully lifted papers and books and homework and found nothing. I came back to the table and once again, as I was about to put my plate down, there it made it's creepy-crawl-ey noises again!

Once again, I yelled and ran for it and she came to have a look. This time, she very carefully lifted the table cloth and there it was...the earphones lying under the table cloth, the Spongebob game still on.

O.k, the computer monitor was facing away from me and I thought he had stopped the game but I felt like a real chop.