EDITOR’S CORNER
Did you get a text from me that didn’t make any sense?
I may have an excuse, and so may a lot of us.
The New York Post has reported on a study undertaken by Villanova University on the apparently growing phenomenon of people texting in their sleep.
No kidding. I believe it because I’ve observed it in my own family.
And now there’s this study from Villanova which provides some scientific backing for what I’ve always believed.
Villanova means “new house” in Latin. That has nothing to do with texting; I just thought it was interesting. Something else that’s interesting is that Beaumont means “pretty mountain” in French. Really? Have you ever been to Beaumont.
Where was I? Oh yes, texting in your sleep.
Villanova interviewed 372 persons and found nearly a quarter of them reported texting in their sleep.
What’s really scary is that 72 percent of those sleep texters didn’t remember they had done it, only found out later when they were advised by the textee.
You think that could cause problems? Uh, yes.
Andrew Watson, a San Francisco employee of a computer company, recalled he once sent an email that closed out a million-dollar deal and awoke later with no memory of it.
Apparently he had done it while sleeping and only found out about “his” deal when it was brought up in a meeting.
It all turned out okay. Watson said he believes his unconscious self is “pretty frugal.”
Then there’s Madeleine Hamingston, a native of New York City, who would awaken to find she had texted her boyfriend “nonsense about pets.”
I would point out that everything said about pets is nonsense, but it would come too late for Madeleine’s boyfriend.
He married her.
But, talk about potential for real trouble.
Zach Edminster of New York City discovered he was sending angry texts in his sleep.
He later linked them to his dreams noting “if I’m angry at someone, and I have a dream about them, I will text them.”
Among recipients of those angry texts was his ex!
Now most sleeping texts are just gibberish, researchers said, sort of like all of my texts before I invoked that wonderful auto-correct feature.
It’s the ones that aren’t gibberish which may cause problems, according to researchers.
What if, for instance, your attorney or your physician, texted you with advice while they were asleep.
And Edminster awakened one morning to find out he had purchased stock in a publishing company while off in dreamland.
There’s an antidote to sleep texting, of course, but it’s one many members of the reigning generation simply refuse to consider.
How about not putting your phone by your bedside while you sleep? Many even keep it under the pillow.
Oh, horrors no! Be in a room 6 to 8 hours with a cell phone in a complete other room? Unacceptable.
Although one participant in the survey went so far as to wear socks on his hands as he retired for the night.
I don’t mean to make light of “parasomnias,” which is the correct term for sleep behaviors that include sleepwalking and sleeptalking. Those who know about such things claim 70 percent of us exhibit some form of parasomnia at least once.
Now, I don’t keep my cell phone by the bed, but my wife claims whenever I am to be master of ceremonies, or deliver a speech, I will rehearse while I’m asleep.
“When you were doing those Fourth of July speeches I thought I was sleeping with Thomas Jefferson,” she said.
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