![]() GROSS: So what do you do to make sure that when you're sleeping, you're actually asleep now - I mean that you're not moving around? I hope I'm not bastardizing that, for doctors listening. whereas you don't have enough of that, so you are literally running from the monster. GROSS: So when I'm sleeping, I have dopamine, which is paralyzing my body, so I'm not running from the monster. ![]() ![]() They put the electrodes all over my body and observed my sleep, and I was diagnosed with REM behavior disorder, where people have a dopamine deficiency, which is the chemical that's released from your brain into your body when you fall asleep that paralyzes your body so you don't act out your dreams.Īnd people who have this are commonly running away from some kind of demon or wild animal, and people who have this, in rare instances, have actually killed people while remaining asleep. BIRBIGLIA: I was diagnosed not there, but I flew back to New York and saw a sleep physician. GROSS: So explain what your diagnosis was. GROSS: But they did give you a diagnosis. GROSS: But they see a lot of people who are crazy and are telling them things that aren't true. I feel like they see a lot at the emergency room. BIRBIGLIA: Yeah, they I was concerned that they wouldn't. GROSS: Did they even believe you at the emergency room? You didn't even have any broken bones, amazingly. GROSS: So you get to the emergency with shards of glass sticking through your legs. BIRBIGLIA: Sometimes when I'm staying at hotels, I'll bang on the windows to see could I go through this thing if, you know, if I ended up in a if I had a sleepwalking incident like this, but. GROSS: I mean, I don't think I could take a chair and break through that window. BIRBIGLIA: Yeah, I it's a very strange thing to explain to people, and I was at a loss. I don't even know how you managed to break the glass when you jumped through the window. I mean, I can't I can't imagine how you even survived jumping out of the two-story window or jumping through the window, for that matter. GROSS: Mike Birbiglia, welcome to FRESH AIR. So I jumped through the window, fell two stories, landed on the front lawn of the hotel, got up and kept running. So I jumped through the window, and this is the hardest part to explain because people who have REM behavior disorder are physically able to do things they couldn't normally do because they don't feel any inhibition or pain. ![]() I was like: You know The Hulk? You know how he just kind of jumps through windows and walls? That's kind of like me. That's how I described it at the emergency room. So I jumped through the closed window like The Hulk. There are two important details: One, I was on the second floor two, the window was closed. And I decided in my dream and, as it turns out, in my life to jump out my window. I'm Googling myself, watching the news and eating a pizza at the same time.Īnd I fall asleep, and I have a dream that there is a guided missile headed towards my room, and there are all these military personnel in the room, and I jump out of bed, and I say: What's the plan? And they say the missile coordinates are set specifically on you. MIKE BIRBIGLIA (Author, "Sleepwalk with Me"): So it's January 20th, 2005, and I'm in Walla Walla, Washington. This reading describes an incident in which he nearly killed himself while sleepwalking. Let's start with a reading from the book about Birbiglia's sleepwalking, which has gotten him into precarious situations. Birbiglia has also given us the birth and death of a romance, a portrait of his relationship with his father and a short course in various medical disorders," unquote. In a New York Times review of the show, Neil Genzlinger described it as, quote, "a circuitous tale loosely pegged to Birbiglia's troubles with sleepwalking, but like any good monologue, this one is about more than what it's about. His new book, "Sleepwalk with Me," is adapted in part from his one-man show of the same name, which was produced by Nathan Lane. He even has a website and a recording called "My Secret Public Journal," which he's described as a way of making his awkward situations even more awkward. He's really funny and his humor is often about painful or embarrassing experiences. Maybe you know my guest, Mike Birbiglia, from his stories on "This American Life" or from his specials on Comedy Central.
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