Not long after Fadre and I moved into together, he woke me up in the middle of the night. I mean, he nudged me awake in the wee hours of the morning and said:
“Do you see all the kittens?” He was quite alarmed and I shot up straight in the bed to look around. I couldn’t see them so I asked where.
Fadre: They’re everywhere!
Me: I don’t see them!
And Fadre look me dead in the eye and says, “No, you can’t have one”.
(You see, I wanted a kitten at the time.)
I was, to say the least, a bit perplexed. I did not ask for one at that moment. The more I asked Fadre about the kittens, the more evasive he got, until he finally said, “Just forget it”. And he rolled back over and WENT TO SLEEP! After I took a last look around to look for the kittens (which were nowhere to be found), I finally went back to sleep.
It was that night I learned that Fadre has some severe nightmares. (Do people really have nightmares about kittens?)
We have been through many similar situations over the years. His most recurring nightmare involves spiders/bugs. Sometimes they run across the bed, sometimes they come from behind the pictures on the wall.
When it happens, I talk to Fadre and tell him there is no spider/bug on the bed. I argue with him a couple of times about yes there is/no there isn’t! Eventually he wakes up, gets embarrassed, rolls over, and goes back to sleep.
One time he woke me up for the spider discussion. He made me lift my head off the pillow and look for it. The VERY NEXT NIGHT he had the same dream, but this time he got up and turned on the light to look for it.
FOR THE THIRD NIGHT IN A ROW!!!!! he woke me up, turned on the light, made me get out of the bed so he could move it and look for that spider. UUUGGGHHH!!!! You know, frankly after someone has told you they saw a spider running across your pillow, it’s a little hard to fall back asleep because what if this time they were right?
Saturday night it happened. Fadre bolted out of the bed like it was on fire! He ran to the end of the bed and then to the bathroom doorway. He was just about to turn on the light when I asked what he was doing.
At that moment he woke up.
He said, “I am NOT waking you up to look for a spider” and he crawled back in bed without another word.
When I asked him about it on Sunday he said I have conditioned him to not wake me up. Apparently at this point, he’s only concerned about himself and will happily sacrifice me to the spider!
