she’s sleep walking????
this is worse than I thought D:
in brighter news, it seems the iron transfusion I got I THINK is showing results? either way my appetite has increased, and I seems I gained a bit of the weight I lost back 🥲
Thank Kami and the late Akira Toriyama for reals 🥹😭
all these breakfast burritos and salmon and donuts have actually been paying off!!!!
I WILL EAT THAT HOOOOORRRRSSSEEE AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
Sleepwalking isn’t necessarily a sign of anything terribly traumatic. I sleepwalk (and sleeptalk) all the time, and it usually means nothing more than that I’m really tired and hadn’t had enough sleep the previous night. xD I do wonder if Dots is actually awake in that last panel though…
Of course. This actually helps explain some of the careening full tilt towards romance they had as well. The suspension bridge effect combined with their trauma helped spark their latent bisexuality into flourishing! Who knows how long it woulda taken otherwise for either or both of them. All of the everything they’ve been through has dead ass given Dorothy a complex, which she has been trying to have sublimated into a romance/codependence onto Joyce once she realized Joyce was actually hot and she herself capable of feeling interest in a fellow woman. (Whodda thunk a dispassionate clinical kiss at high school would not have had any attractions behind it?)
I don’t think she’s sleepwalking, I think she’s trying to talk herself down and Joyce heard it. It’s kind of a way to bridge the gap between “what’s the problem” and “nothing” so there’s less conversations. Plus, Dorothy has done this before.
Oh, sleep walking! I used to do that when I was a child. I once got tangled in sheets while doing it and scared a cousing half to death when he saw me as a sort of white wraith thing walking in the darkness.
I seem to remember you shouldn’t wake up sleep walkers? Or is that just a myth? Maybe you’re not meant to touch them.
It’s a myth, there’s no direct harm from doing so, and it may prevent them from doing something dangerous.
The only possible problem is if you startle them and CAUSE them to do something dangerous due to momentary disorientation. Like, maybe be careful if they’re near a stairway or sharp object or something, wouldn’t want them flailing around.
My dad was a sleepwalker when he was younger, the farthest he got was snapping awake after he had stepped through the front door of his house. Nowadays he’s less sleepwalker and more lots of sleep paralysis.
I believe it’s in the same category as drowning people – if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, there’s a chance they might injure you and/or themselves.
Previously when this happened Becky had to call Walky over so dorothy could have someone to comfort her. At least we’ve condensed the process down, I guess that’s the bare minimum of progress!
I think it’s unclear because when it happened with Becky, we saw Dorothy as awake for a bit before it happened. Not certain how truly aware she was, though? Like, I remember one time in high school, I woke up and started getting ready for school and it was a couple minutes for me to realize it was like 3:40am, not time to get up.
—
Anyway, sleepwalking and lofted beds seems like a dangerous combo.
Sleepwalking is weird because it’s not entirely being asleep, but it’s also not being fully conscious. Sleepwalkers usually have their eyes open and can navigate obstacles, open doors, and so forth.
Yumi
That’s interesting. Lofted beds still seem like they could go poorly rather quickly, but I can see how sleepwalking might be harder to identify immediately.
—
The last time Dorothy did the Blair Witch thing, there was a whole strip right before it where it seemed like she was awake in bed: https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/up/
But I guess that too could have been in an in-between state?
“Usually” huh?
Guess you might also have received the infamous mega neck slap, which i had to give to my cousin when he came over and decided it was a great idea to try and force the door open as he zombied around
Just hold the victi- ehh… patient with one hand on a shoulder, and use your strongest hand for the sharpest, most painful, but also lightest neck slap you can manage – so far has woken ’em up every single time, and going back into my unreliable memories, i had to use it 3 times, but some folks in my family liked the idea and have been using it ever since for their own troublesome sleepwalkers.
I used to sleepwalk and sleep talk. Mostly as a child, but it absolutely came back for a while in college due to all the stress. I also had bouts of sleep paralysis back then, too. It was not great!
One time I tried to leave my partner’s apartment in the middle of the night because I “woke up” and didn’t know where I was and thought I had to escape. The only thing that stopped me was his janky doorknob making an awful sound when you turned it, snapped me back to reality. In high school I allegedly climbed out my bedroom window and onto our porch roof, below the window (I say allegedly because the only evidence was a cut on my leg when I woke up in bed, matching some blood on a broken piece of plastic in the window frame that I regularly scraped against when climbing out there.)
All this to say, this super sucks for Dorothy and I hope she never gets locked outside of her dorm in her underwear. I had a single room and I was terrified of this happening to me, so I deadbolted my dorm at night as an extra layer to stop myself from leaving.
Damn that really sucks. I had occasional parasomnias like that as well, not a ton or anything dangerous though as far as I know. kind of wonder how they relate to my other sleep issues.
Concerning though this is for Dorothy, I’m mostly feeling “Poor Sarah.” Guys, she’s already had one roommate who wrecked her ability to sleep with their understandable personal drama, if this wakes her up this’ll the third bad night’s sleep in a row they caused her. Maybe she can be the one to take Amber’s bed for a bit. (I’m definitely over-commiserating as an insomniac, it takes me so long to get to sleep that if you wake me up in the middle of the night it is flames on the side of my face burning no matter how justifiable the noise is.)
OH. oh dear. her doing that eerie standing thing is a *sleep disorder* thing. Which also means she hasnt really been sleeping right/restfully forrrrr a while.
Remember when I said Joe triggered a death flag when he agreed to talk to Joyce at a later date? I think this is a flag for Joe too. If Dotty’s subconcious wants to shield Joyce from all bad people and Dotty consciously loathes Joe for his former womanizing ways, I can totally see Dotty catching Joyce and Joe talking alone and, thinking that Joe is trying to coerce Joyce into his bed, attacks him in a blind rage. Willis said he won’t KILL any more core characters after Mike, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have one of the “Lawful Good” character beat one of them to an inch of his life due to a misunderstanding, and finally blowing up the DoJo ship when Joyce reveals that she never OFFICIALLY broke up with Joe, despite avoiding him for days.
If it IS sleep-walking, that lines up pretty neatly with, you know, those strips where it was implied she kept going into Joyce’s room to check on her.
I also don’t think we can necessarily afford to ignore that Joyce is having a panicked reaction to Dorothy being not-in-bed, instead of assuming she’s up to take a leak like a normal person would. These dorks both need to actually talk to their therapists and/or get new ones.
70 thoughts on “Joyce is in trouble”
NGPZ
she’s sleep walking????
this is worse than I thought D:
in brighter news, it seems the iron transfusion I got I THINK is showing results? either way my appetite has increased, and I seems I gained a bit of the weight I lost back 🥲
Lumino
Glad to hear it!
Now plant your feet, grit your teeth and EAT THAT HORSE!
ZombieKyrik
Thank you for the reference; now go teach a dinosaur to ride a ball.
RIP Toriyama-sensei, you raised a monkey to fight gods, and we thank you for it.
NGPZ
Thank Kami and the late Akira Toriyama for reals 🥹😭
all these breakfast burritos and salmon and donuts have actually been paying off!!!!
I WILL EAT THAT HOOOOORRRRSSSEEE AAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!
Doctor_Who
Worse! She’s sleep BROODING!
That’s how Batmans happen, right there.
Deanatay
Do you want to get Batmans?
Cause that’s how you get Batmans
https://imgflip.com/i/algg31
RassilonTDavros
I’m very glad to hear it!
After everything that’s happened today… no, after the mass murder my country has committed today, it’s good to hear any positive news.
Bryy
I’m glad for you.
GreyICE
She has the shinning
Needfuldoer
Sleepwalking is worrying. Sleep-climbing-down-from-a-loft-bed-unhurt is impressive.
Yet_One_More_Idiot
Sleepwalking isn’t necessarily a sign of anything terribly traumatic. I sleepwalk (and sleeptalk) all the time, and it usually means nothing more than that I’m really tired and hadn’t had enough sleep the previous night. xD I do wonder if Dots is actually awake in that last panel though…
IntangibleMatter
Joyce you gotta start laying on top of her to keep her in one place. Surely this will help her feel safer and not make her feel trapped.
Doctor_Who
Nah, they make all sorts of high quality restraints specifically designed for use with beds.
As a bonus, one or both girls might discover a new interest from trying them.
Qlx
I was going to say a weighted blanket might help her anxiety, but I like your solution too.
Furie
Wow, sleepwalking is big business, huh?
Astariel
Hmm, sleepwalking and sleeptalking. Probably not a good sign.
Rosicrucian
Generally signs of very high levels of stress.
Amara
Of course. This actually helps explain some of the careening full tilt towards romance they had as well. The suspension bridge effect combined with their trauma helped spark their latent bisexuality into flourishing! Who knows how long it woulda taken otherwise for either or both of them. All of the everything they’ve been through has dead ass given Dorothy a complex, which she has been trying to have sublimated into a romance/codependence onto Joyce once she realized Joyce was actually hot and she herself capable of feeling interest in a fellow woman. (Whodda thunk a dispassionate clinical kiss at high school would not have had any attractions behind it?)
DashWallkick
I don’t think she’s sleepwalking, I think she’s trying to talk herself down and Joyce heard it. It’s kind of a way to bridge the gap between “what’s the problem” and “nothing” so there’s less conversations. Plus, Dorothy has done this before.
“It’s not real. We’ll never be real.”
BYM!
Nah, that is not a conscious Dorothy talking for sure. She’s not being wistful here, she’s still in that dream.
eh, whatever
…but she’s not talking herself down. If anything, the opposite!
“Joyce is in… trouble… got to… go keep her safe”
Bill Erak
Oh, sleep walking! I used to do that when I was a child. I once got tangled in sheets while doing it and scared a cousing half to death when he saw me as a sort of white wraith thing walking in the darkness.
I seem to remember you shouldn’t wake up sleep walkers? Or is that just a myth? Maybe you’re not meant to touch them.
Dot
That’s a myth.
Doctor_Who
It’s a myth, there’s no direct harm from doing so, and it may prevent them from doing something dangerous.
The only possible problem is if you startle them and CAUSE them to do something dangerous due to momentary disorientation. Like, maybe be careful if they’re near a stairway or sharp object or something, wouldn’t want them flailing around.
Doopyboop
My dad was a sleepwalker when he was younger, the farthest he got was snapping awake after he had stepped through the front door of his house. Nowadays he’s less sleepwalker and more lots of sleep paralysis.
StClair
I believe it’s in the same category as drowning people – if you don’t know exactly what you’re doing, there’s a chance they might injure you and/or themselves.
Taffy
If somebody is sleepwalking and you see it, you have to wait 48 hours to tell somebody else, or their brain will stop developing when they’re 25.
Isalis
Now for a game of “Is Dorothy awake or still sleepwalking?”
Stormtide Leviathan
Previously when this happened Becky had to call Walky over so dorothy could have someone to comfort her. At least we’ve condensed the process down, I guess that’s the bare minimum of progress!
mindbleach
So the Blair Witch behavior Becky called out is not by choice.
Yumi
I think it’s unclear because when it happened with Becky, we saw Dorothy as awake for a bit before it happened. Not certain how truly aware she was, though? Like, I remember one time in high school, I woke up and started getting ready for school and it was a couple minutes for me to realize it was like 3:40am, not time to get up.
—
Anyway, sleepwalking and lofted beds seems like a dangerous combo.
Rosicrucian
Sleepwalking is weird because it’s not entirely being asleep, but it’s also not being fully conscious. Sleepwalkers usually have their eyes open and can navigate obstacles, open doors, and so forth.
Yumi
That’s interesting. Lofted beds still seem like they could go poorly rather quickly, but I can see how sleepwalking might be harder to identify immediately.
—
The last time Dorothy did the Blair Witch thing, there was a whole strip right before it where it seemed like she was awake in bed: https://www.dumbingofage.com/comic/up/
But I guess that too could have been in an in-between state?
ZombieKyrik
I feel like a portion of Dorothy’s anxiety could be reduced if she was the big spoon.
Personally I always sleep better holding someone, and waking up from a dream/nightmare it is nice to feel someone in your arms.
Will this fix all of Dorothy’s anxiety? Of course not. Could it help? It’s plausible.
Rosicrucian
I feel like a lot of Dorothy’s anxiety could be reduced if she took it seriously and stopped trying to hide it.
HueSatLight
New context for this strip.
RassilonTDavros
That is… a distinct possibility, now that you mention it.
apocryphascribe
Oh shit, you’re onto something.
Amara
You’re cooking with fire here 🔥. I woulda guessed the the strip where Becky sees Dorothy just standing in the corner and freaked out at the parallels.
ilvos01
oh yeah. I sleepwalk. usually I can’t be awakened like this, though. I have to finish the dream or whatever.
DSR667
“Usually” huh?
Guess you might also have received the infamous mega neck slap, which i had to give to my cousin when he came over and decided it was a great idea to try and force the door open as he zombied around
Just hold the victi- ehh… patient with one hand on a shoulder, and use your strongest hand for the sharpest, most painful, but also lightest neck slap you can manage – so far has woken ’em up every single time, and going back into my unreliable memories, i had to use it 3 times, but some folks in my family liked the idea and have been using it ever since for their own troublesome sleepwalkers.
Pocky
Yeah, Dorothy gonna need Joyce to be a stronger big spoon. Gotta hold her in bed to save her from any sleepwalking accidents.
At least til she gets some proper therapy for her PTSD.
apricot
I used to sleepwalk and sleep talk. Mostly as a child, but it absolutely came back for a while in college due to all the stress. I also had bouts of sleep paralysis back then, too. It was not great!
One time I tried to leave my partner’s apartment in the middle of the night because I “woke up” and didn’t know where I was and thought I had to escape. The only thing that stopped me was his janky doorknob making an awful sound when you turned it, snapped me back to reality. In high school I allegedly climbed out my bedroom window and onto our porch roof, below the window (I say allegedly because the only evidence was a cut on my leg when I woke up in bed, matching some blood on a broken piece of plastic in the window frame that I regularly scraped against when climbing out there.)
All this to say, this super sucks for Dorothy and I hope she never gets locked outside of her dorm in her underwear. I had a single room and I was terrified of this happening to me, so I deadbolted my dorm at night as an extra layer to stop myself from leaving.
Dwampre Scorrigank
Damn that really sucks. I had occasional parasomnias like that as well, not a ton or anything dangerous though as far as I know. kind of wonder how they relate to my other sleep issues.
eh, whatever
regularly
!!!
Cass
Concerning though this is for Dorothy, I’m mostly feeling “Poor Sarah.” Guys, she’s already had one roommate who wrecked her ability to sleep with their understandable personal drama, if this wakes her up this’ll the third bad night’s sleep in a row they caused her. Maybe she can be the one to take Amber’s bed for a bit. (I’m definitely over-commiserating as an insomniac, it takes me so long to get to sleep that if you wake me up in the middle of the night it is flames on the side of my face burning no matter how justifiable the noise is.)
apricot
If she’s lucky she’s at Tony’s
Cassie
I assume this is the case, since there was no smark during the Dorothy Capture portion of the evening.
Spacie
It’s a school night though. Tony probably only allows for sleepovers on Friday and Saturdays.
Zamperla
OH. oh dear. her doing that eerie standing thing is a *sleep disorder* thing. Which also means she hasnt really been sleeping right/restfully forrrrr a while.
Bryy
Oh. Oh crap.
Taffy
This is the most immoral thing Dorothy has ever done.
Corey C.
Remember when I said Joe triggered a death flag when he agreed to talk to Joyce at a later date? I think this is a flag for Joe too. If Dotty’s subconcious wants to shield Joyce from all bad people and Dotty consciously loathes Joe for his former womanizing ways, I can totally see Dotty catching Joyce and Joe talking alone and, thinking that Joe is trying to coerce Joyce into his bed, attacks him in a blind rage. Willis said he won’t KILL any more core characters after Mike, but that doesn’t mean he can’t have one of the “Lawful Good” character beat one of them to an inch of his life due to a misunderstanding, and finally blowing up the DoJo ship when Joyce reveals that she never OFFICIALLY broke up with Joe, despite avoiding him for days.
Taffy
That would be really stupid and I’d be forced to burn down a church if it happened.
Thag Simmons
I feel very confident that this is not going to happen
eh, whatever
Dorothy isn’t capable of blind rage.
…except maybe while she’s sleepwalking; but that would wake her up really quickly, don’t you think?
Li
If it IS sleep-walking, that lines up pretty neatly with, you know, those strips where it was implied she kept going into Joyce’s room to check on her.
AK
Oh, that’s a good catch.
Li
thanks :)
Morrison
If they slept with Joe’s weighted blanket, this never would have happened.
Kyulen
If this strip is the start of Dorothy properly addressing her mental health issues, that could be pretty good.
StClair
bender-serious.gif
anon
disassociating?
Deanatay
Does anyone else miss the chapter link? I miss the chapter link.
darkoneko
…huh
TimeKiller
Everyone in this friend group needs to go to therapy. I’m sure if they go in a group they’ll get a discount for their combined fucked up trauma
YourCousinJay
Dot already goes to therapy, she just needs to stop lying to her therapist
Jerna
Man, of course the Americans would ruin a perfectly good movie with their remake of Sleep
Alan in DC
I was wondering how long it was going to take for the stress release to come. Nobody that age is made of stone.
Clear your calendars ladies.
Big Z
I also don’t think we can necessarily afford to ignore that Joyce is having a panicked reaction to Dorothy being not-in-bed, instead of assuming she’s up to take a leak like a normal person would. These dorks both need to actually talk to their therapists and/or get new ones.
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