Stupid things you do while still half-asleep

[Terxpahseyton]

Recently I took a good gulp out of my big bottle of liquid washing agent.
The good news is: I am still alive!
The bad news is: I knew that it was a bottle of detergent. I fully knew.
More good news: But I am not crazy. Not the kind which makes you drink washing liquid.

It all started with a, as it turns out, bad decision. I let the bottle of detergent stand on my nightstand. Washed some cloths in the evening, planed to wash more in the morning and just did not bother putting the stuff where it belongs. I go to sleep. Awake (not really, as it turns out). And feel very thirsty. Often, I got a bottle of water standing on my nightstand. This morning, it is only the bottle of detergent. I recognize it as such, though. That is a washing agent, alright. However, just in this moment, I recall, that in some cultures/countries/social circles (don't recall the exact reasoning) it was a common custom to drink detergent. It is a quit normal thing, really, just hasn't caught on everywhere. The next thing I recall is that I always wanted to try. There must be something to it, if so many do it, after all. So I open the bottle and in it goes! OMG, I think. This is vile!. This is the most vile thing I have ever tasted. But... why? Why?! If so many people drink it, it should be A LOT better! This does not make sense. Holy... this is sooo nasty. I think I am getting sick. I think I have to throw up! What is wrong with this stuff?! How can anybody drink it... And while I am kneeling before the toilet, I realize what just happened, and am thinking "What the F just happened?!".

Never ever I have I done or thought something as weird as this when not fully awake / half asleep. Nor did I think I ever would....

The next best thing I got is my ex, which sometimes told me to shut up when barely awake (without me saying something), only to never remember a thing (but yes I believed it to be true) and my father, who is often pushed by my mother when his snoring is too bad and loud, to which he once responded "Yes, alright! I just have to pull out of the parking space."

What stories of the twilight zone between being asleep and awake have you encountered or heard of?

 

[Peuri]

Glad you are fine after that kind of a grade A idea.

My spouse is a literal zombie if she falls asleep while we are watching tv in the night. If I wake her up she is regularly hostile and totally disoriented for a while. After that she will function normally, like brush her teeth, wash her makeup and go to bed, while still being pretty grumpy or down right angry. Next morning she has no clue what happened. It was pretty creepy at first, but now I find it kind of funny. Laughing or smiling at her in that state of confusion though makes her think I have some sinister plan. All in all, she's a pretty funny zombie.

Edit:
I suddenly remembered another story about her. A few years ago I was playing on our PC which was located near our bed. She was asleep, and I turned around to look at her. She opened her eyes, looked at me and said in a creepy raspy voice "come". I froze, goose bumps allover and I almost wet my breeches, it was that scary. Like from some excorcist movie. Next morning she remembered saying nothing.

 

[Perfection]

Create bad self-referential jokes

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What stories of the twilight zone between being asleep and awake have you encountered or heard of?

I used to have the phone by my bed and one morning it rang, I answered, and it was one of my typing clients. I had a conversation, agreed on a time for the client to come over with the rough draft, and hung up.

And then I woke up completely and realized that I had no idea who I'd just talked to, and no idea when they were coming. So I got up (after only 2-3 hours' sleep) and when they turned up later that day, I was able to act like I'd known all along who to expect, and when.

After that I set up a proper schedule and asked my grandmother to answer the phone when I was asleep - not to set up appointments, but at least to get the names and numbers.


I've had other phone conversations when half-asleep. It just seems like a programmed response - always answer the phone. My phone is off the hook most weekends, though. I can't imagine anyone needing to call who doesn't also have my email address. The only exception is if I've ordered takeout. The intercom-door system goes through the phone, so it has to be working to let people in.

 

[Borachio]

The weird thing about me is that literally nothing weird has ever happened to me.

Though there was that dream about a German army uniform. But we won't go into that.

 

[luiz]

When I sleep in a new place I'll forget where I am in the middle of the night and take my usual route to the toilet, which has resulted in awkward interactions from time to time.

I also call my girlfriend by the name of my exes on occasion when half asleep, which is never fun.

 

[Terxpahseyton]

Create bad self-referential jokes

Stop posting before fully awake, then.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Reflexively jumping up in bed after being startled by nothing

 

[Borachio]

Now I come to think of it, I've done some really stupid things while wide-awake.

At least if I were half-asleep, I'd have an excuse for them.

 

[Lohrenswald]

I am always half-asleep

 

[NovaKart]

When I came back to Iraq from America after a 3-month stay, I arrived in the middle of the night. I then got to my apartment and slept. Afterwards I woke up and there was a 5-10 second period in which I had no idea what country I was in and was totally disoriented.

Sometimes I also go into the kitchen at night and binge eat. Later I only half remember it. Like I'll think, why are there no M&Ms left? Oh yeah, cause I woke up at 1 am and ate all of them. But I don't tend to keep a lot of food at home so that doesn't happen much.

 

[Bugfatty300]

When I came back to Iraq from America after a 3-month stay, I arrived in the middle of the night. I then got to my apartment and slept. Afterwards I woke up and there was a 5-10 second period in which I had no idea what country I was in and was totally disoriented.

I used to have the phone by my bed and one morning it rang, I answered, and it was one of my typing clients. I had a conversation, agreed on a time for the client to come over with the rough draft, and hung up.

And then I woke up completely and realized that I had no idea who I'd just talked to, and no idea when they were coming. So I got up (after only 2-3 hours' sleep) and when they turned up later that day, I was able to act like I'd known all along who to expect, and when.

After that I set up a proper schedule and asked my grandmother to answer the phone when I was asleep - not to set up appointments, but at least to get the names and numbers.


I've had other phone conversations when half-asleep. It just seems like a programmed response - always answer the phone. My phone is off the hook most weekends, though. I can't imagine anyone needing to call who doesn't also have my email address. The only exception is if I've ordered takeout. The intercom-door system goes through the phone, so it has to be working to let people in.

Sleep drunkenness, I've only had it once and it lasted for few minutes. Someone rang and woke me up. I remember barely being able to answer the phone and a voice asking what the hell was the wrong with me. I was afraid that I had a stroke or something.

 

[Broken_Erika]

Reflexively jumping up in bed after being startled by nothing

I took out a TV doing something that....

 

[Valka D'Ur]

@Bugfatty300: Yeah, sometimes people have asked if there's something wrong - the usual question is "Do you have a cold?" (since colds usually make people sound weird over the phone). The next most common question is "Did I wake you up?" and since I tend to be pretty cranky and blunt when awakened by the phone, I say "Yes."

There's been a lot of construction outside and maintenance and other things inside the building I'm living in. The apartment above me, and the one next to it (where I used to live back in March) had to be half-gutted due to the mold in the walls. So management decided to just redo everything while the units were empty - not only new bathrooms and new walls, flooring, and carpets in the bedroom, but if I were to go upstairs and have a look now, I'd likely see new kitchen cupboards, new carpeting everywhere, new tile, new doors, new paint... hopefully for the sake of the new tenants they changed the screen on the balcony door where the neighbor's kitten climbed on it (she preferred hanging out at my place; I don't have 2 adults and 3 screaming children all making noise).

The noise from all this... has wreaked havoc on my sleeping. I'm a night owl, so my normal time to sleep is from about 4 am to noon(ish). Of course the hammering, drilling, etc. starts up at 8 am. and continues for the next 10-12 hours, minus their lunch/coffee breaks. At least the manager gave me permission to crank up my TV so I could hear my programs.


Waking up this morning was a bit different. I'd had a vivid dream in which I discovered not one, but two kittens in my apartment that hadn't been there the day before, and my dream-logic told me that the manager had just slipped the kittens in here when I wasn't paying attention - since she offered me a choice of kittens that her friend's cat had a few weeks ago (I still need to decide about that). So when I woke up I honestly expected to find kittens running around, and it was a relief when I realized it had just been a dream.

 

[NovaKart]

It's also happened to me a few times that I woke up in the afternoon from a nap and was panicked for a few seconds thinking I'm extremely late for work only to realize that it's the afternoon and I don't have to work that day.

 

[The_J]

My mom's ex also had that.
Although a bit longer, I had to tell him once after I woke him in the late afternoon up that it's not time for breakfast.

Once I kicked the wall with nearly full speed while being half asleep. I was fully awake afterwards.

 

[warpus]

I have a story from my first ever multi-day hike. My friend and I went off on a 5 day long hike through the Andes in southern Patagonia. We had a vague idea of what we were getting ourselves into and were not really ready.. Did all the right research and all, but until you're there, you just don't know.. The first day was spent hiking to a lookout point, we walked from 9am and were only back by our campsite at 10:30pm or so. It was tough, the last hour of the hike up to the lookout point was basically us climbing rocks to get there. Rocks of all sizes. We were definitely way out of our element.

On the second day we had a rough day hiking and at least twice lost the trail. Day 3 was intense too, and at the end of the day we both agreed we deserved a break, so instead of busting out our trusty rented tiny portable stove, and spending a lot of time boiling a small pot of water on it and making rice, we went to the nearby refugio (which compared to our tent was very fancy) and managed to get a spot for 2 for a full homecooked dinner. These things have to usually be reserved ahead of time, but there was enough space for 2 more, so we were all over that. It also seemed like a good idea, because the winds were especially nasty at that location (from what I remember) and we had to find rocks to put on our tent so that it would be fully stable. I also remember the ground being especially hard and having issues putting the tent pegs in. Either way setting up camp that day was not fun.

The next morning we decided that our break should extend to breakfast as well. So instead of setting up our tiny stove, boiling water, making oatmeal, cutting up nuts, etc. we went in and ordered breakfasts of a much higher standard.

So it's really early, and I'm sitting there all dazed and out of it, half asleep, tired from the walk, and the food finally arrives. I get two bowls and some other stuff. Right away I pick up one of the bowls and empty its contents into the other bowl.

As soon as I did that the guy who brought the food was looking at me as if I definitely should not have done that with my bowls. My hiking companion was giving me that exact same look. I looked again down at my bowls and I dumped all my eggs into the porridge. I do not really understand why I did that, it's just what seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

There was a brief pause, the guy explained that I just mixed my eggs and porridge, and asked me if I wanted another serving..

I didn't really care to be honest, so I told him it's cool, I'll eat it my way, I was so friggin exhausted. He sort of walked away with that exact same look on his face, as though he was still trying to figure out what happened and how it made sense or whatever

So yeah that sort of became a running joke with my friend for a while and still comes up from time to time

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I have a story from my first ever multi-day hike. My friend and I went off on a 5 day long hike through the Andes in southern Patagonia. We had a vague idea of what we were getting ourselves into and were not really ready.. Did all the right research and all, but until you're there, you just don't know.. The first day was spent hiking to a lookout point, we walked from 9am and were only back by our campsite at 10:30pm or so. It was tough, the last hour of the hike up to the lookout point was basically us climbing rocks to get there. Rocks of all sizes. We were definitely way out of our element.

On the second day we had a rough day hiking and at least twice lost the trail. Day 3 was intense too, and at the end of the day we both agreed we deserved a break, so instead of busting out our trusty rented tiny portable stove, and spending a lot of time boiling a small pot of water on it and making rice, we went to the nearby refugio (which compared to our tent was very fancy) and managed to get a spot for 2 for a full homecooked dinner. These things have to usually be reserved ahead of time, but there was enough space for 2 more, so we were all over that. It also seemed like a good idea, because the winds were especially nasty at that location (from what I remember) and we had to find rocks to put on our tent so that it would be fully stable. I also remember the ground being especially hard and having issues putting the tent pegs in. Either way setting up camp that day was not fun.

The next morning we decided that our break should extend to breakfast as well. So instead of setting up our tiny stove, boiling water, making oatmeal, cutting up nuts, etc. we went in and ordered breakfasts of a much higher standard.

So it's really early, and I'm sitting there all dazed and out of it, half asleep, tired from the walk, and the food finally arrives. I get two bowls and some other stuff. Right away I pick up one of the bowls and empty its contents into the other bowl.

As soon as I did that the guy who brought the food was looking at me as if I definitely should not have done that with my bowls. My hiking companion was giving me that exact same look. I looked again down at my bowls and I dumped all my eggs into the porridge. I do not really understand why I did that, it's just what seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

There was a brief pause, the guy explained that I just mixed my eggs and porridge, and asked me if I wanted another serving..

I didn't really care to be honest, so I told him it's cool, I'll eat it my way, I was so friggin exhausted. He sort of walked away with that exact same look on his face, as though he was still trying to figure out what happened and how it made sense or whatever

So yeah that sort of became a running joke with my friend for a while and still comes up from time to time

Well, there are worse things you could have dumped into your porridge... like orange juice or coffee.

Bacon and porridge is a tasty combination, btw. It's one of my own experiments that worked (take small pieces of bacon and stir them into the porridge - add brown sugar or honey over everything and it's even better).

 

[Thorgalaeg]

I am never half-asleep. It is an on-off thing for me.

 

[warpus]

Well, there are worse things you could have dumped into your porridge... like orange juice or coffee.

Bacon and porridge is a tasty combination, btw. It's one of my own experiments that worked (take small pieces of bacon and stir them into the porridge - add brown sugar or honey over everything and it's even better).

Yeah, it wasn't horrible or anything. It was just everyone's reaction to what I did...