Look, I’ll just say it. I’m a notorious cover stealer. It’s feedback I’ve gotten from everyone I’ve ever shared a bed with.
I wish it weren’t so. But it doesn’t matter how much I focus on it when I’m awake, when I’m asleep I start hogging the covers. I gain herculean strength.
It’s frustrating to bedmates and frustrating to me. And I have always wondered about it because when I’m awake, I’m someone who naturally shares. I’m not a selfish person. But when the lights go out, it’s GIMME ALL THE BLANKETS.
And I wake up in the morning to stories of my middle of the night misdeeds.
I have always wondered about this. And I recently stumbled on to a study with an interesting correlation between childhood sleeping habits and sleep behaviors as an adult that possibly sheds some light on this.
Cover Stealing and Sleeping with Dolls or Stuffed Animals as a Child #
The study found that people who slept with dolls or stuffed animals as a child were more likely to steal the covers as an adult.
Huh.
This was certainly the case for me. I was a kid who always had a stuffed animal or doll in the bed with me. I had a talking Cricket doll that I adored as well as Littlefoot, a plush toy apatosaurus from The Land Before Time. And I usually had one of the family cats sleeping in my bed and cuddling up as well.
The study doesn’t dig down into why this correlation could exist, but I do find myself thinking about how I always fell asleep cuddling something. It’s not too far of a stretch to think I could be balling up the covers and pulling them to me to try to cuddle them.
Anyway, this is a pretty basic study. Not the hardest science in the world (just survey/a correlation, nothing with experimental manipulation, etc.). But it does make me smile.
And it’s fun to think about.
*
This post is part of an ongoing Poly Land feature called Psyched for the Weekend, in which I geek out with brief takes about some of my favorite psychological studies and concepts. For the entire series, please see this link.