Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night and had to pee (nothing strange here so far). When I got out of bed Zoë, who was in bed with us, wanted to go to the bathroom with me. She got out of bed and she held my hand as we walked to the bathroom. She stood next to me while I was on the toilet with her hand on my leg. I washed my hands. I turned around to dry my hands with a towel and Zoë wasn't there. It was dark in the bathroom. I turned on the light, and I couldn't see her. It was really strange because she's loud when she moves around and I didn't hear anything while I was washing my hands. I checked the bedroom thinking that maybe she went back to bed. Skip was in bed asleep, but no Zoë. I turned the lamp on in the living room. She wasn't there either. And she wasn't in the kitchen. I was getting worried at this point. It was like she vanished. I went back in the bathroom. I looked under the sink, in the bathtub, and in the cat's litter box. I was about to wake up Skip and call out a search party, when I realized that I hadn't looked in her room. It was dark in her room and I didn't see her at first, but there she was... fast asleep in her crib.
So what happened? Most likely I was sleep walking (or sleep peeing, whatever you call it) and woke up when I was washing my hands. It's the most logical explanation, but it felt so real. I felt her standing next to me and her little hand in mind as we walked into the bathroom.
The less likely explanation, but the one that keeps popping into my head is that Zoë was astral projecting. I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out. She is still new to being a human. She's only been in her current body (outside the womb) for 15 months. That's not very long. She's still learning how to master what we call basic skills (like getting around, communicating with others, using tools, etc). What if somewhere along the evolutionary chain humans had the ability to astral project, but we forgot how to use it. It's not that far fetched an idea. Maybe it was a skill that we used before spoken language was perfected, and once spoken language became the main way of communicating we used astral projection less and less until we forgot how to access the controls.
She had the motivation. Like all little ones, she would prefer to sleep in our bed. Skip told me that he didn't bring Zoë into our room last night and neither did I, so I'm going to assume that she never left her crib. If she was in a deep sleep and really wanted to be with mommy and daddy maybe she figured out how to do it.
Whatever happened it was a really strange experience.
