Hi Annie –

Researchers tell us that, in order to remember being awake during the course of a night, we have to be awake for at least seven minutes! That’s a long time isn’t it? This means – if you were quick and tired – that you could get up and use the bathroom during the night and not even remember it – if you fell back asleep right away. A lot of people also tell stories of answering the phone and having conversations with people in the middle of the night – and not remembering a thing about it the next day!

What happened with you at camp is totally normal. You did have a confusional arousal – in that you “woke up” briefly – enough to sit up for a moment or two in bed – but then you plopped back down to sleep. Chances are that, even though you sat up in the bed, you never really were fully awake. During a confusional arousal – you never fully wake up.

I’ll tell you one other interesting thing about confusional arousals: They occur out of non-dreaming sleep. Essentially, it’s harder for us to wake up out of deep, non-dreaming sleep than it is for us to arouse from a dream. As you probably know from experience – sometimes you wake right up from a dream in the middle of the night. When you woke up at camp, I’d put money on it that you “woke up” out of deep, non-dreaming sleep.

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