It's 0518 and instead of getting up as I might occasionally do at this hour, I am going to turn off the light and see if I can get some sleep. It is rare for me not to be asleep withing minutes (or even seconds) of putting my head on the pillow and to sleep solidly until I wake in the morning ready to meet the next day. I usually go to bed very late. Last night I was reading in bed (a relatively new thing in my life) and put the light out at midnight. I'd had the computer backing up a clone since the early evening and it was due to finish around 0130. I knew it would switch itself off so went to sleep without thinking about it - consciously. At 0152 I woke: wide awake. I got up and checked the computer and it hadn't switched off so I did that and came back to bed. I don't know how much music I've listened too as I floated in a world somewhere between sleep and wake, dream and reality for two hours before I eventually got up at 0430 and made myself a green tea with lots of fresh ginger grated into it. I know that during those several seemingly interminable hours I spent a lot of time wondering whether I could afford to retire from work and why some people I was talking to couldn't hear me yet some could. The mind is a very strange place - well mine is anyway!
As I wrote this I thought about a post I wrote a few years ago (found it thanks to Mark's Postvorta: Can You Sleep at Night?) relating the story of a Ghanain lady who said to a friend of mine "You white people you don't sleep at night. You
white people worry. You have too many things. I have nothing. I
don't worry. I sleep at night." I don't have anything to worry about (that I know of) so I'm looking for another cause. I think it's because I've had too much sleep recently! A surfeit of sleep.
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"The mind is a very strange place - well mine is anyway!" I never doubted that, dear Brother... But then, it obviosuly runs in the family.
ReplyDeleteI've always blamed a lack of sleep for my problems...
Yes, CJ, as Mum used to say "All the world's a little queer, 'cept thee and me and even thee's a little queer." I wonder where she got that from. Must Google it. I know that your sleep patterns are exceedingly eratic but I'm not sure that realised you didn't sleep enough. Mind you, returning to Mum, she didn't ever go to bed until around 2am (was it 1.20 or 2.20?) sitting reading and learning. I never needed more than 5 hours a night when I worked. My sleep pattern now though is exceedingly eratic - but usually solid when I am asleep.
Deletehmm...we had the same problem last night. My last words to God: "If it's meant for me to go to Fiber Ministry (my 1st time), to wake me in time to go (at 10 a.m.). This invited Him to wake me at 5:30 a.m. So...about 3 and a half hours sleep. And all because I didn't want to set an alarm. Guess I'll choose my words more precisely asking Him for help.
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that I've never been convinced that any god would be concerned with the minutiae of our lives so on the rare occasions I need to get up very early for a ferry or whatever I just set my alarm clock. It rarely goes off before I wake.
DeleteAn interesting post! Sleep and dreams are (NOT from an esoterical angle, mind you!) topics I find fascinating, and in fact, the very first post I ever wrote deals with it:
ReplyDeletehttp://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-friend.html
(Since you already read one of my older posts the other day, maybe you'll do it again)
I have always needed lots of sleep, 5 hours is the minimum for me to function on the next day, and I can only do that for two or three days in a row. Seven or eight hours seems to be best for me, and in the summer of 2009, when I was, physically speaking, at the peak of my personal fitness, I needed less. I'd really like to get there again, it is a goal for this summer.
I sincerely doubt you ever had a surfeit of sleep, at least not these past few year's that I've followed you around... If I was trying to lead your life, but still being me, I'd fall asleep on the croquet lawn in the afternoon, no matter what was going on around me!
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