Lifesavers for Latasha

Some people sleep walk. Some people sleep talk.

I talk and see things that are not there.

Mostly spiders. Lots and lots of black spiders of all sizes.

Sleeping peacefully one second, the next I open my eyes and see a huge black spider hanging from the bedroom ceiling, floating quickly down its invisible thread, straight to my face.

I scream and try to jump out of bed just as I feel its legs touching my skin. I blink and the spider is gone. What just happened? I think to myself as I try to calm my racing heart. I swipe my hand through the air to make sure nothing is there. I look around the room, and everything is still.

I slowly close my eyes and try to go back to sleep.

Another night of sleep. Another hallucination, but, this time, instead of one spider, there are hundreds of different sizes. All I can think is it’s the same spider from before, a mother, and this time she brought all her spider babies.

At my next doctor’s appointment, I mentioned these sleep hallucinations. I wanted to know if they could be a side effect of any of my medications. Of course, the doctor gave me a vague response that it could be a side effect of one medication or a combination of them. Well, that’s just great.

Have you ever watched any crime shows where something happens in the middle of the night and a person swears he or she didn’t hear anything? Well, that person would be me. I am a really deep sleeper. Thunderstorms, fireworks, any loud noises I may or may not hear. There have been several mornings when I have woken up to find there had been a huge thunderstorm and I didn’t hear anything. I just kept sleeping right on through it. “How could you sleep through that storm last night?” my husband or sisters or parents would ask me. But I would have no memory of any of it.

Chris, on the other hand, is a super light sleeper. Any noise wakes him up. After we got married, one night while we were sleeping, I rolled over and looked at the bedroom doorway. Staring back at me were two people. I whispered, “There are people in the house.” “What?” Chris asked me sleepily. I repeated, “There are people in the house.” “Now?” he asked quizzically. “Yes. They’re standing in the doorway,” I whispered matter-of-factly.

This sweet husband of mine didn’t tell me I was crazy and to go back to sleep. He didn’t tell me he didn’t hear or see anything. He didn’t even ask me how I can see people when I’m blind as a bat without my glasses on. He simply got up and went to walk through the house and, as he says, “clear it.”

Him getting out of bed and walking throughout the house riled up the dogs. I woke up then and wondered what was going on. When he got back to the bedroom, I asked him, “What are you doing?”

“I’m checking the house,” he said.

“For what? Why?” I asked.

“You said there were people in the house,” he replied.

“I said wh…oh, I thought I was dreaming,” I said as the realization hits me and I remembered something about people.

“You looked awake to me. You said there were people standing in the doorway,” he said.

“I am so sorry. It’s like the spiders again. I don’t know what is going on with me,” I said as he got back into bed.

At the next doctor’s appointment, I asked again if these types of sleep hallucinations were a side effect of any of my medications and got the same vague response. After a check of my pacemaker, though, the doctor saw where my heart rate was super low at night. After making some adjustments to ensure the pacemaker wouldn’t let my heart rate get that low again, he circled back to my question. He said it could have been a combination of medication, the low heart rate, and lack of oxygen that was causing the sleep hallucinations.

There’s certainly no way to know for sure. After all these years, I haven’t had another sleep hallucination about people. I do still have the spider hallucinations every now and then, though. I must be used to them now, because they don’t freak me out as badly as they used to. I’m able to just keep blinking my eyes until they disappear, because I either fully wake up or fall back into a deeper sleep.