A Significantly Scary Experience
A Significantly Scary Experience
We live in a modest and entirely conventional two-storey house set on a hillside in the city of Yokohama, with views across the city to the distant horizon where, if weather conditions are favorable, we can see Mount Fuji (though only from the upper floor, the second storey.)
This is a small house, though significantly bigger than a rabbit hutch. It is definitely not huge. However, during the night of Monday 29 October, for some reason (which I cannot now remember) I went for a wander, with only my damaged brain as company, and ended up getting totally lost in a huge cavernous space upstairs. It seemed to be an abandoned movie theater.
Once there, I could not find my way out. I explored, looking for an escape route, but found none. What I did find was a wall with doors which folded inward to give access to a cavernous space stuffed with hanging coats, very much like the wardrobe in the CS Lewis book THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, the said wardrobe being a door into an alternative reality, the world known as Narnia.
I also found a window with a gulf of blackness beyond it, and I found a balustrade with various items sitting on top of it. Beyond the balustrade I had the sense of an empty auditorium sitting, waiting.
I blundered about, finding seats, and some places thick with huge layers of dust, and eventually, somehow, I accidentally stumbled on a staircase which led down. Ultimately I arrived downstairs, and found my wife doing some night time preparation before heading to bed.
Today, in the cold clear light of day, I looked for the theater but did not find it. It does not exist. I ended up concluding that I must have been sleep walking, and must have blundered into my wife's personal room.
If you put out your left hand with the palm down, then the palm is the landing on the upper floor, at the head of the stairs going to the second storey. The thumb is the door to the room where the three of us nightly sleep on futons, and the fingers, working round anti-clockwise, are the doors to 1. my wife's personal room, 2. my personal room, 3. the start of the stairs going down and 4. the upstairs toilet.
On checking out my wife's personal room I found that, yes, the doors to her wardrobe push inwards, just like the ones in my "I am lost" dream, and, yes, there are coats inside. I also found the expanse of glass - the French doors to the balcony - which I encountered during my perambulations. And one of the window ledges is lined with oddments, and this could have been the balustrade that I felt while I was asleep.
If, before this, you had asked me if I ever sleep walked, I would have said, no. Never have, never will. But, on the balance of probabilities, it seems quite likely that I did.
We live in a modest and entirely conventional two-storey house set on a hillside in the city of Yokohama, with views across the city to the distant horizon where, if weather conditions are favorable, we can see Mount Fuji (though only from the upper floor, the second storey.)
This is a small house, though significantly bigger than a rabbit hutch. It is definitely not huge. However, during the night of Monday 29 October, for some reason (which I cannot now remember) I went for a wander, with only my damaged brain as company, and ended up getting totally lost in a huge cavernous space upstairs. It seemed to be an abandoned movie theater.
Once there, I could not find my way out. I explored, looking for an escape route, but found none. What I did find was a wall with doors which folded inward to give access to a cavernous space stuffed with hanging coats, very much like the wardrobe in the CS Lewis book THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE, the said wardrobe being a door into an alternative reality, the world known as Narnia.
I also found a window with a gulf of blackness beyond it, and I found a balustrade with various items sitting on top of it. Beyond the balustrade I had the sense of an empty auditorium sitting, waiting.
I blundered about, finding seats, and some places thick with huge layers of dust, and eventually, somehow, I accidentally stumbled on a staircase which led down. Ultimately I arrived downstairs, and found my wife doing some night time preparation before heading to bed.
Today, in the cold clear light of day, I looked for the theater but did not find it. It does not exist. I ended up concluding that I must have been sleep walking, and must have blundered into my wife's personal room.
If you put out your left hand with the palm down, then the palm is the landing on the upper floor, at the head of the stairs going to the second storey. The thumb is the door to the room where the three of us nightly sleep on futons, and the fingers, working round anti-clockwise, are the doors to 1. my wife's personal room, 2. my personal room, 3. the start of the stairs going down and 4. the upstairs toilet.
On checking out my wife's personal room I found that, yes, the doors to her wardrobe push inwards, just like the ones in my "I am lost" dream, and, yes, there are coats inside. I also found the expanse of glass - the French doors to the balcony - which I encountered during my perambulations. And one of the window ledges is lined with oddments, and this could have been the balustrade that I felt while I was asleep.
If, before this, you had asked me if I ever sleep walked, I would have said, no. Never have, never will. But, on the balance of probabilities, it seems quite likely that I did.
posted by Hugh Cook at 10:59 AM
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