There’s a spider in my room!

I was woken at 1am by Rosemary screaming ‘There’s a spider in my room! Help!’ I rushed through, to find her standing by her bed, with the covers on the floor, shaking. I sat on the bed and picked her up, cuddling her and saying ‘It’s OK. It was probably just a dream,’ at which point her whole posture changed and she laughed and said ‘Oh yes. Silly me. Or maybe just some shadows.’ She had a drink of milk, lied back down on her pillow and asked for her covers. Of course, I shook the covers out thoroughly before putting them back on her, just in case, though no sign of anything. Said the goodnight stuff ‘Goodnight, sleep tight, sweet dreams,’ shut the door and got back into bed and didn’t hear a peep out of her until 6.15 this morning.

I really hope she hasn’t inherited my weird spider nightmare problems. Mine have lessened considerably since Rosemary was born and I’ve gradually become inured to the threat of spiders (apart from the big scuttly ones – they still freak me out), though they still appear every couple of weeks or so.

They happen when on the cusp of sleep, sometimes when going to sleep and sometimes when drifting out of sleep. I will be awoken with the absolute conviction that a spider is coming down on the line of web from ceiling. It is as though I have already woken and it is happening and real. I will jump – sometimes all the way out of bed – and switch a light on. Sometimes I will shout ‘Arrgh! Spider!’ Sometimes Chris will ask what’s wrong and then I will spend five minutes convincing him that there was a spider. Sometimes we have to take the covers off the bed and shake them out. Usually, after a few minutes, I realise that it wasn’t real.

The thing is, though, it feels completely real. Not like most dreams, which have a surrealness to them that tells your brain that they absolutely are not real. The setting is exactly my bedroom (or hotel room, guest room, wherever I am), with every detail correct, apart from the presence/absence of spiders. Often, even the time will be accurate, so I assume I must have my eyes open, yet somehow still be in dream mode. It’s scary and weird. Over the years, I have come to the point where I can usually recognise it as a dream spider pretty quickly and call out or jump out of bed much less. But it does still happen.

Every now and then I wonder if I should ask a doctor about it, but then think that would be silly. After all, they’re just nightmares. Is it reasonably normal, though? Has Rosemary caught it off me? Chris doesn’t do it and I don’t know anyone else who does.

One of the reasons I worry about it, is that I have a cousin who has a type of schizophrenia that means she is unable to recognise the difference between fantasy and reality. Everyone daydreams, about marrying the guy down the road, having children, buying that lovely house round the corner… She does too, but these things are all real to her. She thinks she’s done them. All her dreams and fantasies. And people are constantly telling her that she’s wrong. That she doesn’t own any houses. That she isn’t married to her old school boyfriend. Can you imagine how completely impossible it is to live like that?

So, whenever I have one of my spider nightmares where, for a few minutes, I am unable to separate fantasy from reality, I wonder and worry if I maybe I might have a crossed wire or something in my brain that works (or, more to the point, doesn’t work) in the same way as my cousin’s. I wonder and worry if one day I won’t be able to realise that there was no spider. And I wonder and worry that this inability to distinguish between fantasy and reality might grow to the point where I cannot function properly in the real world.

And, last night, after Rosemary had gone back to sleep, I lay awake for a while wondering and worrying that I might have passed this crossed-wire on to Rosemary. I hope not.

So, do any of you have spider nightmares or similar? Do you worry about your children picking up on any of your irrational fears? Do you worry about passing on anything to your children?