Jodie Plume (pictured) has suffered from a sleep disorder all her life, it causes her to hallucinate during the night, believing that her dreams are real . Jodie Plume stood at the end of her bed in the darkness, trembling from head to toe with terror. The scene before her was surreal — yet she didn’t question it for one second. There, looming in the shadows, like something out of a horror movie, swung a large bubbling vat of acid, poised precariously over the bed and its sleepy occupant, her partner Josh. It seemed clear he was about to be scarred for life. ‘Josh, Josh!’ she screamed, pulling at the bed sheets. ‘Wake up! They’re going to pour acid on you! Get up now!’ But Josh didn’t flinch. Instead, he slowly got out of bed, sighed deeply, and led Jodie gently back to her pillow. ‘There’s no acid,’ he murmured. ‘Go back to sleep. I’ve got to get up in an hour.’ Josh was all too aware the vat of acid didn’t exist because, on a nightly basis, he’s woken by Jodie’s terrifying hallucinations that can include burglars, objects floating around the room and even spirits. She suffers from a rare form of parasomnia — or sleep behaviour disorder — which occurs halfway between sleep and wakefulness, in what’s known as the ‘hypnagogic state’. When Jodie gets out of bed at night, she is not acting out her nightmares, since technically she is not fully asleep. Instead, she is hallucinating — and she feels the adrenalin rush of very real fear. Released from the usual muscular atonia, or weakness, of sleep, Jodie can walk around, talk, gesture and scream. She is not fully conscious, but instead reacting to a dream-like world, conjured from the depths of her half-asleep brain. But it’s no laughing matter: the true awfulness of the condition lies in the regularity with which it happens. For Jodie, who’s 30 and a doctor’s receptionist from Thurmaston, Leicester, these scenes occur every night — and sometimes up to six times an evening. Each episode lasts several minutes, and occasionally poses a real danger to her and her long-suffering partner. ‘One night, I woke up to find Josh pulling something out of my mouth,’ she says. ‘He’d turned the lights on and looked absolutely terrified. He told me I’d woken him up and informed him in hushed, appalled tones that there were robbers in the house who wanted to steal my jewellery. I’d then grabbed all my rings and stuffed them in my mouth. Josh had to fish them out to stop me choking. I’ve never seen him so frightened.’ Jodie is with her partner, Josh Adcock (right). Jodie's condition can be incredibly dangerous, she attempted to swallow her rings one night and was saved from choking when Josh realised what she'd done . Other forms of parasomnia include sleep-eating; sleep sex, in which sexual acts are carried out by a person who’s asleep; and somniloquy, when someone talks aloud while sleeping, even making long speeches. Some disorders, like Jodie’s hallucinatory somnambulism (sleepwalking), are associated with partial waking up — and many are thought to have a genetic component to them. Indeed, Jodie’s mother and aunt suffer from the condition, too. Jodie was four when she first remembers it happening. ‘I had tonsillitis and a fever. I woke up and saw yogurt pots and spoons marching around my bedroom,’ she says. ‘I screamed out to my mother and she soothed me back to sleep. She told me it was just a bad dream.’ All children suffer nightmares, of course, and some experience night terrors with a sleepwalking element to them, particularly when they’re feverish. But Jodie’s parasomniac episodes didn’t stop there. They increased in frequency and intensity, until, by the time she reached her 20s, she was suffering night-time hallucinations many times each night. If it happened when she was alone, she would barely remember it the next day. But when friends came to stay, they were in for an eerie shock. ‘I once had some girlfriends over, and got up in the night believing they were trapped in nets or plastic bags,’ she says. ‘I ran over to them, screaming, trying to “free” them from suffocation.’ Jodie took to warning boyfriends of her ‘dark side’. ‘At night, I’d see all sorts of things — burglars, people standing in the room, floating objects, police coming to arrest us. Some boyfriends would be understanding. Some not so much.’ By the age of 24, she was at her wits’ end, and at last went to her GP, who prescribed sleeping pills. ‘I tried one brand and it did diminish the hallucinations a little,’ she says. ‘But I’d wake up so groggy and exhausted, it was counter-productive. I was as tired as if I’d been up six times as usual.’ Over the years, Jodie has tried various pills but none stopped the disorder completely. Often she’d be so exhausted she couldn’t focus at work. In her late 20s, she was referred to a sleep clinic, but to her disappointment, found no answers there either. Jodie (pictured aged 2) remembers her first experience of the condition aged four . ‘I hoped they’d analyse my sleep patterns but they didn’t,’ she says. ‘The consultant simply told me I would “grow out of it”, which I found strange as I was already an adult.’ Children do grow out of some disorders associated with the hypnagogic state. The form of sensory distortion known as Alice In Wonderland Syndrome, for example — where people feel as though parts of their body shrink or grow — is thought to affect far more children than adults. Yet other parasomnias affect those of any age. Some are associated with anti-depressants, or with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, stroke, or narcolepsy, where the brain’s ability to regulate a normal sleep-wake cycle is seriously compromised. It’s believed that up to 10 per cent of the population suffer a sleep disorder at some stage of their lives. It is thought that Jodie’s (pictured aged 12) hallucinatory somnambulism could be genetic, both her mother and aunt suffer from the same condition . A year ago, Jodie began dating Josh, who’s also 30 and an engineer. It was love at first sight, she says — yet her excitement was tinged with anxiety. ‘I know it sounds a cliche,’ she says, ‘but I knew he was “the one” almost immediately — and that terrified me. ‘There was a cloud hanging over me: my night-time episodes. What if my sleep disorder ruined everything and scared him away? I was so afraid of it that I put off spending the night with him.’ Before they did, she resolved to sit Josh down and tell him just how freaky her night-time behaviour could get. ‘I told him I suffered from a sleep disorder and that it could make me do all sorts of strange things,’ she says. ‘But he just smiled and said I wouldn’t get “night terrors” with him there. I hoped he was right.’ Before Jodie and Josh spend the night together for the first tine, Jodie sat him down to explain her sleep disorder as she was so afraid that it would put him off . Remarkably, for a while, he was. For a few days Jodie didn’t suffer any hallucinations at all. ‘Josh even joked that he’d cured me,’ she says. ‘I almost dared to believe him.’ The lull didn’t last, and over the next few weeks, Josh witnessed everything: ‘Me screaming that I was naked in a see-through bed. Grabbing his face in the dark to check it was him and not an intruder. Telling him things were falling from the ceiling; screaming that someone was about to pour acid on him. All of it.’ A shift-worker who sometimes has to get up at 5am, poor Josh spends much of his day exhausted. ‘But he’s so supportive,’ says Jodie. ‘He just holds me and tries to calm me down until it passes. He’s used to it by now, and he won’t let me sleep in the spare room. Some nights he finds me dusting off his face and body because I can see ants crawling all over him. He just rolls over and goes back to sleep.’ Jodie and Josh are thrilled to be expecting their first baby together, but Jodie is concerned that the child may inherit her condition . Jodie and Josh have since taken precautions, such as removing all sharp objects, including nail scissors and files, from the bedroom and ensuring the windows are closed. They’ve also removed mirrors, since reflections of light seem to trigger Jodie’s episodes. Together, they even came up with a comic name for the ‘other’ Jodie that emerges each night — TEJ: The Evil Jodie. Thankfully, TEJ isn’t always in evidence — and now Jodie and Josh are expecting their first baby. ‘I’m thrilled we’re about to start a family but I’m also frightened about how I’ll cope with the baby and my sleep disorder,’ says Jodie. ‘Will I constantly be waking it? Or worse, what if I get up and drop it? Josh says he’ll have the baby on his side of the bed, which will be safer. ‘I could always make light of my sleep disorder before. In lots of ways it was a nightmare, but I could joke about it. ‘But now that our baby’s on the way, it’s different. Most of all, I really worry that he or she will inherit my condition.’ Yet there is no one better qualified than Jodie to help a child through the disorder. No one who knows exactly what it is to crave the simple pleasure of a good night’s sleep.
Jodie Plume, 30, suffers from a rare form of parasomnia .
It puts her in a ‘hypnagogic state’ which causes her to hallucinate .
She is not fully conscious but can walk around, talk, gesture and scream .
Jodie Plume (pictured) has suffered from a sleep disorder all her life, it causes her to hallucinate during the night, believing that her dreams are real . Jodie Plume stood at the end of her bed in the darkness, trembling from head to toe with terror. The scene before her was surreal — yet she didn’t question it for one second. There, looming in the shadows, like something out of a horror movie, swung a large bubbling vat of acid, poised precariously over the bed and its sleepy occupant, her partner Josh. It seemed clear he was about to be scarred for life. ‘Josh, Josh!’ she screamed, pulling at the bed sheets. ‘Wake up! They’re going to pour acid on you! Get up now!’ But Josh didn’t flinch. Instead, he slowly got out of bed, sighed deeply, and led Jodie gently back to her pillow. ‘There’s no acid,’ he murmured. ‘Go back to sleep. I’ve got to get up in an hour.’ Josh was all too aware the vat of acid didn’t exist because, on a nightly basis, he’s woken by Jodie’s terrifying hallucinations that can include burglars, objects floating around the room and even spirits. She suffers from a rare form of parasomnia — or sleep behaviour disorder — which occurs halfway between sleep and wakefulness, in what’s known as the ‘hypnagogic state’. When Jodie gets out of bed at night, she is not acting out her nightmares, since technically she is not fully asleep. Instead, she is hallucinating — and she feels the adrenalin rush of very real fear. Released from the usual muscular atonia, or weakness, of sleep, Jodie can walk around, talk, gesture and scream. She is not fully conscious, but instead reacting to a dream-like world, conjured from the depths of her half-asleep brain. But it’s no laughing matter: the true awfulness of the condition lies in the regularity with which it happens. For Jodie, who’s 30 and a doctor’s receptionist from Thurmaston, Leicester, these scenes occur every night — and sometimes up to six times an evening. Each episode lasts several minutes, and occasionally poses a real danger to her and her long-suffering partner. ‘One night, I woke up to find Josh pulling something out of my mouth,’ she says. ‘He’d turned the lights on and looked absolutely terrified. He told me I’d woken him up and informed him in hushed, appalled tones that there were robbers in the house who wanted to steal my jewellery. I’d then grabbed all my rings and stuffed them in my mouth. Josh had to fish them out to stop me choking. I’ve never seen him so frightened.’ Jodie is with her partner, Josh Adcock (right). Jodie's condition can be incredibly dangerous, she attempted to swallow her rings one night and was saved from choking when Josh realised what she'd done . Other forms of parasomnia include sleep-eating; sleep sex, in which sexual acts are carried out by a person who’s asleep; and somniloquy, when someone talks aloud while sleeping, even making long speeches. Some disorders, like Jodie’s hallucinatory somnambulism (sleepwalking), are associated with partial waking up — and many are thought to have a genetic component to them. Indeed, Jodie’s mother and aunt suffer from the condition, too. Jodie was four when she first remembers it happening. ‘I had tonsillitis and a fever. I woke up and saw yogurt pots and spoons marching around my bedroom,’ she says. ‘I screamed out to my mother and she soothed me back to sleep. She told me it was just a bad dream.’ All children suffer nightmares, of course, and some experience night terrors with a sleepwalking element to them, particularly when they’re feverish. But Jodie’s parasomniac episodes didn’t stop there. They increased in frequency and intensity, until, by the time she reached her 20s, she was suffering night-time hallucinations many times each night. If it happened when she was alone, she would barely remember it the next day. But when friends came to stay, they were in for an eerie shock. ‘I once had some girlfriends over, and got up in the night believing they were trapped in nets or plastic bags,’ she says. ‘I ran over to them, screaming, trying to “free” them from suffocation.’ Jodie took to warning boyfriends of her ‘dark side’. ‘At night, I’d see all sorts of things — burglars, people standing in the room, floating objects, police coming to arrest us. Some boyfriends would be understanding. Some not so much.’ By the age of 24, she was at her wits’ end, and at last went to her GP, who prescribed sleeping pills. ‘I tried one brand and it did diminish the hallucinations a little,’ she says. ‘But I’d wake up so groggy and exhausted, it was counter-productive. I was as tired as if I’d been up six times as usual.’ Over the years, Jodie has tried various pills but none stopped the disorder completely. Often she’d be so exhausted she couldn’t focus at work. In her late 20s, she was referred to a sleep clinic, but to her disappointment, found no answers there either. Jodie (pictured aged 2) remembers her first experience of the condition aged four . ‘I hoped they’d analyse my sleep patterns but they didn’t,’ she says. ‘The consultant simply told me I would “grow out of it”, which I found strange as I was already an adult.’ Children do grow out of some disorders associated with the hypnagogic state. The form of sensory distortion known as Alice In Wonderland Syndrome, for example — where people feel as though parts of their body shrink or grow — is thought to affect far more children than adults. Yet other parasomnias affect those of any age. Some are associated with anti-depressants, or with neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease, stroke, or narcolepsy, where the brain’s ability to regulate a normal sleep-wake cycle is seriously compromised. It’s believed that up to 10 per cent of the population suffer a sleep disorder at some stage of their lives. It is thought that Jodie’s (pictured aged 12) hallucinatory somnambulism could be genetic, both her mother and aunt suffer from the same condition . A year ago, Jodie began dating Josh, who’s also 30 and an engineer. It was love at first sight, she says — yet her excitement was tinged with anxiety. ‘I know it sounds a cliche,’ she says, ‘but I knew he was “the one” almost immediately — and that terrified me. ‘There was a cloud hanging over me: my night-time episodes. What if my sleep disorder ruined everything and scared him away? I was so afraid of it that I put off spending the night with him.’ Before they did, she resolved to sit Josh down and tell him just how freaky her night-time behaviour could get. ‘I told him I suffered from a sleep disorder and that it could make me do all sorts of strange things,’ she says. ‘But he just smiled and said I wouldn’t get “night terrors” with him there. I hoped he was right.’ Before Jodie and Josh spend the night together for the first tine, Jodie sat him down to explain her sleep disorder as she was so afraid that it would put him off . Remarkably, for a while, he was. For a few days Jodie didn’t suffer any hallucinations at all. ‘Josh even joked that he’d cured me,’ she says. ‘I almost dared to believe him.’ The lull didn’t last, and over the next few weeks, Josh witnessed everything: ‘Me screaming that I was naked in a see-through bed. Grabbing his face in the dark to check it was him and not an intruder. Telling him things were falling from the ceiling; screaming that someone was about to pour acid on him. All of it.’ A shift-worker who sometimes has to get up at 5am, poor Josh spends much of his day exhausted. ‘But he’s so supportive,’ says Jodie. ‘He just holds me and tries to calm me down until it passes. He’s used to it by now, and he won’t let me sleep in the spare room. Some nights he finds me dusting off his face and body because I can see ants crawling all over him. He just rolls over and goes back to sleep.’ Jodie and Josh are thrilled to be expecting their first baby together, but Jodie is concerned that the child may inherit her condition . Jodie and Josh have since taken precautions, such as removing all sharp objects, including nail scissors and files, from the bedroom and ensuring the windows are closed. They’ve also removed mirrors, since reflections of light seem to trigger Jodie’s episodes. Together, they even came up with a comic name for the ‘other’ Jodie that emerges each night — TEJ: The Evil Jodie. Thankfully, TEJ isn’t always in evidence — and now Jodie and Josh are expecting their first baby. ‘I’m thrilled we’re about to start a family but I’m also frightened about how I’ll cope with the baby and my sleep disorder,’ says Jodie. ‘Will I constantly be waking it? Or worse, what if I get up and drop it? Josh says he’ll have the baby on his side of the bed, which will be safer. ‘I could always make light of my sleep disorder before. In lots of ways it was a nightmare, but I could joke about it. ‘But now that our baby’s on the way, it’s different. Most of all, I really worry that he or she will inherit my condition.’ Yet there is no one better qualified than Jodie to help a child through the disorder. No one who knows exactly what it is to crave the simple pleasure of a good night’s sleep.
disorder all her life, it causes her to suffers from a rare form of parasomnia — or sleep Jodie can walk around, talk, gesture and scream. She is not fully conscious, but instead reacting