I have been a sleepwalker for as long as I can remember.

As a child, I would regularly wake up in different rooms to the one I went to sleep in. I’d have to be restrained from wandering out of the house by a panicked parent; or be shaken awake by a confused sibling who had no idea what I was doing in their bedroom, babbling nonsense. Sleepwalking – or, to give it its fancy name, somnambulism – is incredibly common in children.

In fact, about a third of kids will sleepwalk at some point and doctors can confidently reassure worried parents that this is all perfectly normal and that their little darling will almost certainly grow out of it. It’s just a phase, nothing to worry about, etc. Hardly any children continue sleepwalking into adulthood – only about one per cent, in fact. At which point, you will doubtless breathe a huge sigh of relief.

Unless, of course, you are the one per cent. I never grew out of my bizarre nocturnal activities. And over the years, I have done some truly strange things in my sleep.

I have left the house and woken up in my car, with the keys in the ignition. I have torn posters off walls, ripped up books, phoned people at 2am talking crap, and got into bed with bemused housemates. I once punched a boyfriend because I was dreaming that an alien facehugger was trying to kill him. He wasn’t as appreciative of my actions as I thought he would be. And then there is the endless talking, shouting, screaming, and general nighttime noisiness. It’s like sleeping next to a rooster. No wonder I’m single.

The worst thing about all of this is that I have no control over it, and almost no memory of doing........

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