I think that insomnia has decided to sneak up on me again. Nevertheless I just hope that it was due to the fact that I had lost my blanket in the dark, was unable to retrieve it at any cost without getting hurt, and that even if it is too warm and a blanket is unnecessary, I still need to hold onto it so that I know if it ever becomes too cold, I'm safe!
I've digressed even before I've begun! Anyway (I'm using too much of this word!), what happened while I was cursing the sudden reappearance of the insomnia was that I began to think of the best way to fall asleep - which is to count sheep. Too bad it has never worked before. I believe that all the sheep that I intended to count were all happily grazing in the greens of New Zealand, bleating away, and were most probably too full to jump over fences just because people needed to sleep. I thought chickens were a better bet, because I see chickens practically every single day of my life. Running on the streets, opposite the house, etc... and then I started thinking about how chickens are slaughtered, and how as a very small kid, I saw an undigested cornflake lying in a pool of blood where a chicken had met it's untimely end, where I was immediately greeted by the memory of feeding some chickens cornflakes - just because the pack had a silhoutte of a chicken (rooster, actually) on it.
I never really slept that well after that because it got too cold. Well, that and the fact that I decided to backtrack my thoughs... Damn!
I've never found counting sheep an effective method. When I couldn't sleep as a kid my mother would tell me to count sheep, but I always ended up more awake because I'd be actively concerned with numerating the sheep in the pen accurately.
ReplyDeleteThe thing that works for me, well sometimes, is going through the minutiae of what I have to do the next day - that way I bore myself to sleep well before I gotten as far as "leaving the house". It doesn't always work, especially if the following day contains a big event or problem that you know is coming.
A slightly related point; I was kept awake last night by a small dog in my bed intermittently barking at nothing. I tried kicking her, shouting shut up, threats of 'if you do that one more time I'm kicking you out', but I was too sleepy to actually get up and do anything about it. Eventually at 7am I picked her up and shut outside of the bedroom... if she barked after that I didn't hear her.
i havent been able to get more than 4.5 hours of sleep in a given night for 18 years. Whats worse is that the jetlag i am experiencing in Japan has compounded that. My life has become a series of powernaps. It sucks! Anyway, I feel your pain. Running at night always gets me to sleep.
ReplyDeleteaunty: it has never worked for me either... in my case, I end up thinking of how a sheep should really look like!
ReplyDeleteThese days, I just sleep when I'm feeling sleepy. If that happens at 9 pm and I'm already at home, then 9 pm it is.
Sorry to hear about you being kept awake till 7am. Going to work that day would've been torturous!
cyberfish: 18 years is a long time to be deprived of sleep. It certainly does sound terrible... like 'the machinist'
That made me chuckle.
ReplyDeleteActually, I think that paragraph goes a long way to explaining what insomnia is like. Your mind just won't shut down and skips around to more strange and unusual stuff.
True... It's funny, because you're actually sleepy, but you just can't sleep!
ReplyDeleteI've just gotten off a 34hr insomniac spree myself, so I understand where you're at. The best way to sleep I find is to create a fantastical world in your mind and imagine being a part of it. Dream before you start sleeping and before you know it you'll be waking from it.
ReplyDeleteHope I made sense; I've only had about six hours rest.