The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was research my sleeping problems. It is something I have been meaning to do since I got to California.

As a child I always talked in my sleep, sometimes sleep walked, and even woke up terrified and screaming.

Since I’ve been out of my parents house the only person I had to report instances of me acting out in my sleep was my girlfriend who occasionally slept over. The worst instance I remember was one night when I screamed an obscenity at her and physically punched her in the face.

Since I have been single no one has been around to notice my sleeping problems. All I knew was that I was tired all the time. This made sense because I was depressed and because I was working quite a bit and had an irregular sleeping schedule. But since my move to California I have had a better sleep schedule and my sleeping activites can be heard and seen by my sister and her boyfriend who sleep in the same room as I.

In the week or so that I have been here, I believe I have talked in my sleep almost every night and have acted out vivid dreams on multiple occasions. One was a dream where I was fighting. A flying kick in the dream resulted in an actual hole in a divider that stands next to my bed. Another incident resulted in me spitting.

As you can imagine, I and my roommates are not too happy with my sleeping problems.

Because the fact that the dreams are so vivid, I can easily be woken up from my dreams, and the type of actions that I am doing while sleeping, it looks as if I have what is known as REM sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD).

I of course cannot positively diagnose myself and will be checking with a doctor when my medical insurance is approved.

My main concern is that RBD is linked to Parkinson’s disease. This is usually diagnosed later in life so it is unlikely that I will be able to test for this. It is something I will discuss with my doctor.

I found all my information on: www.sleepeducation.com/Disorder.aspx?id=29