A knight with no name and no past walks through eternal darkness, guided by some innate knowing of the predetermined path he cannot but follow. The armor draped over his body protects him from the dark presence looming over him, a presence spanning the entirety of the sky above.

The thought of waking up and not knowing where you are - or who - might sound like it would send you into a panic. But it didn't. The notion that I wasn't my usual self didn't even cross my mind.

Sometimes truth is indeed stranger than fiction. But teasing out the strangeness of that truth as it was experienced can be a tricky task. Should it be presented as an actual event or as make-believe? The choice between "true story" and "fiction" depends on what the writer wants to make you believe. All good stories are fictional to some extent. And good fiction points to some truth.

This is a true story in which I literally walked into a fictional world.

You might just call it sleepwalking, but that's a word that doesn't live up to the richness of this actual experience. Enjoy.

The Wonder Year

'88 was a year of imagination for me. I was in eighth grade at junior high school, and I had spent the entire year dreaming... of a computer. Not just any computer - the one I wanted was the Amiga 500. In those days, the Amiga was the computer of creativity and imagination. Timing is everything. There will never be a computer like the Amiga again.

So I worked my ass off delivering newspapers on three different paper routes covering a good portion of the small Washington state town I lived in. I saved every penny that came my way. I went door to door every month asking the subscribers for my $6.75. And finally, some time in the summer before entering high school, I had a beige dream machine enthroned on my bedroom desk. Imagination had become reality.

High school began. And of course I couldn't wait to tell my friends that I finally got an Amiga.

Party Time

And so we decided to have a party. My parents and sister were away for the weekend, so we had the house to ourselves to stay up all night playing Amiga games, as well as some D&D, while drinking Coke and eating Doritos.

I can't remember all of the games we played. The Three Stooges by Cinemaware was definitely one. Probably Blood Money by Psygnosis, still one of my all time favorites. And I'm sure we must have played some Barbarian, which ties in with the theme of what transpired.

And then at some point we started with the D&D.

D&D was new to me. But the group of friends I'd been hanging out with were really getting into it, and I was dragged along for the ride. By the night of the party, I'd only been playing probably around 4 or 5 months. So it had been occupying my mind alongside the Amiga for a short while.

But I wasn't really aware of the depths this game had reached within me.

This probably wasn't the first time in my life I had stayed up all night without any sleep, but it's the first time I can remember. I was hopped up on caffeine and felt ready to go. I remember my friends being surprised that I was actually going to deliver my papers after being up all night. But for me, getting those papers delivered was like a sacred oath. I couldn't let down all those people expecting their Sunday funnies.

A Meeting With Mischievous Elves

So at sometime in the wee hours, maybe as early as 3AM, I headed out to do my paper route, empty paper delivery bag slung over my torso. It was a long walk to the spot where they dropped off my papers, maybe an hour, which is why I left so early.

I walked alone down the empty main street of my small town, dimly illuminated by the streetlights. I don't remember the thoughts going through my mind, but it seems they were along the lines of wondering what kind of shenanigans my friends were getting up to back at the house.

So when I caught my first glimpse of them, out of the corner of my eye, following me, it wasn't' much of a surprise. I hadn't walked far yet, and my friends and I were always doing things like that, playing mind games and messing with each other. They were over to my right. Their mischievous giggling tipped me off, and then I could see them from the corner of my eye, sneaking around, parallel to me, hiding behind the hedges in people's yards.

I snapped my head to the right, trying to catch them before they could make it to the next hedge. They were too quick. I couldn't catch sight of them. But I knew they were there, quiet now, watching me, stifling their snickers, waiting for the opportune moment to jump out. I decided to just keep walking and pretend I didn't know they were there.

As I continued on, I could hear them snickering, like mischievous little elves, still scampering from bush to bush alongside me. What were they planning? When were they going to jump out and reveal their presence? Or maybe their plan was to catch me picking my nose or talking to myself, so they could give me shit for it later.

But it was getting to be a little too far for them to be following me. And it began to dawn on me that they might not actually be there, that it was my own mind that was playing games with me. But somehow it didn't worry me, alone on the dark streets of that slumbering lumber town. I guess the empty newspaper pouch covering me, and my mission to get the papers delivered, were some kind of charm against fear. I walked on, across the bridge, not knowing I was walking into another world.

I finally reached the place where they dropped off my papers. It was an apartment complex at the edge of town, at the point where the river emerged from the old forest and ran its course through the town and emptied into the harbor. That brown river with its muddy banks coming out of the woods always spooked me a little. It seemed like the kind of place where dark things lurked.

My papers were bundled up at the bottom of the stairs of one of the buildings that made up the apartment complex. I removed the banding tape around them and loaded up my bag. The Sunday papers were the thickest of the week, so my bag turned into something like heavy armor covering my chest and back.

I sat down on the stairs and probably looked at my watch. It was still dark, still early, and I was feeling extremely drowsy, so I decided to take a little nap right there on the stairs. The papers could wait.

I don't know how long I slept, but it was still dark when I awoke. But I use the term "I" loosely here, because it wasn't really me that awoke. It was someone else.

The Dark Knight

A knight with no name and no past walks through eternal darkness, guided by some innate knowing of the predetermined path he cannot but follow. The armor draped over his body protects him from the dark presence looming over him, a presence spanning the entirety of the sky above.

Propelled forward on his path, his body knows exactly where to go but his mind is but a passenger, a blank and unquestioning slave to his body. Where is he going? What is his mission? These questions don't arise. All he knows is determination, the drive to continue on toward something not yet illuminated, forever monitored from above by the dark presence, an unseen vision of oppression.

As he stands before the first door on his journey, his body knows what to do. There is no thought and no hesitation. His hand reaches into his armor, unsheathes a heavy blade, and lays it at the foot of the door. He has no idea why. Words and questions don't exist to him. There is just a vague sense that it has something to do with that watchful presence in the sky, that... murky overlord.

He walks on, somehow pulling blade after blade from within his armor and laying them on doorsteps of the townsfolk. Is he arming the populace for some kind of battle, perhaps against that presence in the sky? Or is it on behalf of the presence, for whatever dark purpose it has in mind? He doesn't know, and such questions don't cross his mind. He simply observes as his body does what it knows to do.

But whatever his purpose, whatever the purpose of the dark presence, whatever battles to come -- all of these particulars are lost to this world. For as he walks on, down one of the streets of the quiet village, dawn breaks. The light of day slowly fills the sky as he walks, the birds begin their morning song, and the dark presence in the sky fades away into the light of the Sun.

And as the light engulfs the knight, bombarding his eyes with a brightness he has never known, he fades away as well.

And I walked on, intent on completing my deliveries, now aware of who I was.

This is the only episode of sleepwalking I'm aware I've ever experienced, although I've had other weird sleep experiences. Would love to know if any of you have had any video game or other game related sleepwalking or dream experiences. I suspect they may be common with people who play a lot of games (and who don't sleep!). And it seems like it should become even more common as VR gaming increases in popularity and the line between fiction and reality becomes ever more burred.