I'm pretty sure Sleeping Beauty must have had a killer case of morning mouth. Never mind the dragon outside the castle; no fairy's spell could manage to keep a princess' breath Listerine fresh for 100 years. So when her prince found her and woke her with a kiss, I really doubt it was as magical as Disney makes it seem to be. In fact, it would probably be pretty disgusting.
And she'd probably suck at spooning. If I'd slept in one position for literally ages, I'm pretty sure I would struggle with being an accommodating sleep-mate when my ideal life-partner suddenly appeared and woke me up, let alone accomplishing the feat of sleep-spooning.
So don't be a sleeping beauty and try to be a good spoon-sleeper. Here're my thoughts on how to make that happen:
Spontaneous snuggle-sleep is a good thing. If you're so comfortable with someone that you just drift off naturally, (A) clearly you've got a good spoon there, hang on to him/her, and (B) sweet dreams!
Already be super comfortable with the person you're sleeping next to, and be comfortable enough to rearrange if need be. Sleep-spooning is only a good thing if you don't wake up with a crick in your neck. I would recommend just adopting your favorite awake spooning position (whatever hand holdings/leg-layerings/hair situations etc. that you prefer) and just letting yourself fully relax in that position and drift off.
You're probably going to have to learn to sleep next to someone, unless you're either so exhausted it just happens naturally or you magically can sleep next to him/her and sleep well. Give yourself time; there's definitely a learning curve. Enjoy the process of learning! As School House Rock says, it's great to learn, 'cause knowledge is power!
Also, blankets are optional. (Also, clothing is optional, but that's a different story entirely.) It's really easy to get overheated sleeping this way; being curled up together tends to result in a lot of shared body heat. In my opinion, the electric blanket is a definite no-no unless you live in arctic fox friendly environments...or unless it's just really ridiculously cold some nights. Layers are your friends; you can always throw the top layer off if need be (so maybe you can consider them your fair-weather friends). Or, if you get chilly, you can always add another layer.
Dreams also create another interesting situation. I know if I have a bad dream and I'm sleeping in your arms, I'll probably wake you up, either when I jolt awake or because I lie there all panicky for a couple of minutes and I get tense (and it's pretty easy to tell when you're suddenly spooning someone who is absolutely rigid with post-nightmare panic, however brief it may be). And I'll feel super awful about it, because I don't want to wake somebody sleeping soundly up with my crazy accidental panic! But then I'll go back to sleep. It's obnoxious; even I admit it. Or sometimes, you have a cold and you just can't help coughing, or maybe you always wake up at 2 am and sneeze or something (that I don't do). The moral of this story: people have weird sleep habits. Everybody's got one. Hopefully you're comfortable enough with your spoon that your sleep quirks won't annoy them too much and vice versa, or that you can at least articulate to them if they're driving you crazy with their obsessive need to reset the alarm clock at 4 am or something. Otherwise, you might want to re-evaluate your spoonship (spoon-relationship), be it platonic or romatic or something else entirely. But that's just my opinion on that one and a friendly suggestion at best. You do what you want! :)
Happy spooning, and sweet dreams!
