To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

I am not an insomniac. I've had my problems with sleep over the years, but that is not one of them. Were I to ever go an entire night without ANY sleep, as with true insomnia, I would be a complete wreck the next day. I've tried sleepless nights a few times over the years and they have all ended the same way, with me feeling sick to my stomach and utterly miserable--not to mention completely useless--until I got some proper sleep.

Round about late grade school/early high school, however, I began to track something that I started to refer to as "semi-insomnia." While I wasn't kept up all night, I found it impossible to get to sleep before sometime between 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning, which mean I only got a half night of sleep. Though I started keeping track of when it happened around this time, and came up with a not-quite-accurate name for it, it was something that I suffered from since early childhood.

During college, I figured out what the problem was. Thanks to more flexible class scheduling, an abundance of things to do in the middle of the night, and no parental supervision, I learned that my body clock naturally wants me to sleep from 3:00 until 11:00 in the morning (over the years I've been able to bump that back from 1:00-9:00, but it's still hardly what you'd call a "workable" sleep table).

Mostly, I've been able to adapt. I still rarely get to sleep before midnight, but I've found that I an function--albeit inefficiently--with only five or six hours of sleep at night. But, every once in awhile, I'm struck by a case of semi-insomnia, and there are few things in the world that I find more frustrating or irritating. Being one of nature's clock watchers, every five minutes that passes tosses and turning in bed registers very clearly in my mind as five minutes LESS that I will be sleeping that night. Thus the frustration and irritation.

Anyway, last night, I had another bout of semi-sleeplessness. I finally got to sleep around 2:30, but it took a great deal of coaxing on my part, including an act of desperation that I never in my wildest dreams thought I would consider.

In early childhood, when I couldn't sleep, I used a number of methods to try and self-sooth myself to sleep. Often I rocked against the wall my bed butted up to (my parents eventually had to put carpet down in my room because I had worn a groove with the feet on my bed into the hardwood floors, from the bed being rocked away from the wall about six inches at night), but sometimes I slept under the covers with my head at the foot the bed.

This was my comfort method of choice when I was having some of my bad dreams. I remember two instances specifically. Once I was hiding from Darth Vader, the second I was hiding from that goddamn clown nightlight. Both times, I carried on quite long and involved conversations with Luke Skywalker, hatching plans of attack should the bed become compromised and generally trying to convince myself that I was actually safe in my bed. And, both times, I fell asleep down there, feeling half smothered when I woke up the next morning from the complete lack of circulation.

I remembered the success of these endeavors last night as I destroyed my bedding with all my tossing and turning. So I gave it a try. With all the grace and aplomb one would expect from someone in his mid-30s, I maneuvered my way down to the foot of my bed. Granted, the result wasn't quite the same since my feet were sticking out the top of the covers, but, I assure you, my top half was quite well secured.

Sadly--possibly because I'm beyond the point in my life where I can carry on a soothing conversation with an imaginary Jedi, or maybe just because feather comforters let in FAR less oxygen than the standard issue one I used as a child--it was not successful. Feeling deprived of air, I abandoned my great experiment just five minutes into it. Eventually, I went to sleep feeling rather foolish (maybe shame is what I need to go to sleep at night--there's a thought!), so I thought I'd share. At least that way something positive might come of it.