Well, here I am, wrapped in a red fuzzy blanket and my underpants, listening to the music overflowing from the halfway house next door. And, as usual, I can’t sleep. Not because of the loud and intrusive music from the half-way house. No. In fact, I find it soothing to listen to the mix of music, television, and film noise that emanates from that square grey brick building.
The problem is this damn insomnia. I can’t sleep. Wait, let me explain: I do sleep, if I didn’t I would be dead (so say the experts), and I do find that in the periods of time called ‘night’, I will be not conscious for a half hour or forty five minutes at a time. The problem is the two and half to three hours between each spurt. In this awake-in-between-time, I am happy to listen to Jackie Chan kick someone’s ass or listen to Greenday sing about their boulevard of broken dreams. That’s not the issue. The problem is this damn insomnia.
I have tried to explain it, not only to doctors but also to friends and family. You want to hear my description? It goes like this: it works in one of three ways. 1) Am unable to fall asleep. This doesn’t happen much. I listen to soft classical music and count my breaths, the sheep on a mountainside in the Swiss Alps, salmon desperately jumping up a waterfall in the woods, and normally within in a half hour or so, I’ll be asleep. 2) Am asleep but wake due to weird-ass/terrifying dreams, i.e. family being slaughtered, innocents killed, and mass destruction. (This happens enough to be annoying, enough that I spend the following day distracted and doing my utmost to not bore people with the re-telling of my weird-ass dream from the night before.) 3) (the most common) Am able to fall asleep fine but wake suddenly, not due to a dream or from a loud mad lick of Greenday from next door. Just “pop” awake. One moment asleep, the next wide-awake. This happens the most, 'more oft than not', I would say (though it is more likely that Shakespeare said it first and I'm a copy cat). It's as if my unconscious is nervous about what dreams may come (that is definately from Hamlet). And having woken from the weird-ass dreams previously mentioned, I don’t blame my unconscious.
This leaves me much time to think. Or worry. Mostly worry. And my poor brain, it tries to come up with ways to occupy me; fantasies, day dreams, and wishes. But I, stubborn as always, refuse to be relaxed into a state of restful sleep, regardless of breathes, sheep, or salmon.
The other night, as I lied awake next to my enviously deeply sleeping significant other, I began to characterize my insomnia. One was Me, the one who was kept awake, felt anxious, and ultimately had to go to school and work worn out from a restless night. The next was Brain, who tried so hard to do what was needed and expected. She sent out all the right chemicals at the right time, ready to do whatever it was she did while Me was in Sleepyland. Then there was Mind, the trouble-maker, the rebel without a cause, unless the cause was to unnerve Me. She was the one who over-heard the Elvis Presley singing “Fools Rush In” from an apartment 4 floors above and decided to wake up and listen. (Hey, it is Elvis so at least Mind has a sense of class.) I’m not crazy, but these three entities at work were the personification of inability to sleep.
Me wanted rest. The day was long, it was taxing, there was traffic, homeless people, pan-handlers, and crack addicts, plus the duties of maintaining a home and a career. I am an actor, and yes, that is a career, Let me answer all the questions you are thinking right now: No, I am not famous. No, I do not want to be famous (as a woman I like being a size 4, hell sometimes a 6 if it’s after the holidays or a stretch of time when I am bored. I was a size 0 when I was 16 and a professional dancer. Now I’m 30 and the pounds stick whether I wish them to or not. I’m ok with it.) No, I have no desire to get a boob job, lip job, cheek bone job, ass job, or whatever else job that makes me not look like me. I got my mother’s cheekbones and eyes and my father’s nose and tush. I like these bits, they are the result of a long line of my ancestry, history gave me this nose, this tush, these eyes, and these cheekbones, and I don’t want a surgeon to come along and modify them. (Well, the nose could use work, but that’s an issue for therapy.) And, no, I do not wish to have my every mistake in outfit/ lipstick choice/ boyfriend/ dinner party/ drunken mishaps recorded in the tabloids, regardless of the saying that “there is no such thing as bad press.” So that's Me. The bit that most people see, meet, go shopping with, bitch to, flirt with, and categorize.
Brain wants to do her job, which includes mental shut down and restoration. She is responsible for the wear and tear so she needs a few hours each night, when Me is distracted by the fun movie (dream) playing. To get Me to see the dream, Brain has to release chemicals and initiate a sequence that takes Me through NREM (non rapid eye movement) sleep. N1, also known as the transition to alpha waves, followed by N2, “sleep spindles”, and takes up about 45%-50% of sleep time. Next is N3, the delta waves, this is when ‘abnormal’ sleep behavior occurs, such as bedwetting (no issue with that), night terrors (wish I didn't have issue with that), sleep walking (had a roommate with an issue with that), and talking in one’s sleep (been known to have an issue with that). Lastly, Brain institutes N4, which is just a deeper version of N3 (don’t be mad, Sleep Specialist, for me over-simplifying). REM, rapid eye movement, occurs in N3 or N4. While Me is distracted with N1-N4, Brain can continue on with her job, and, honestly, its quite mysterious. No one knows exactly what it is she does but it is known that if she does not have the chance to her job, then several mental and emotional features will occur. So its best if she gets her way and is able to work unobstructed. Otherwise, she is pre-occupied looking up sleep statistics and not getting the rest she deserves.
And then Mind comes along...
The problem is this damn insomnia. I can’t sleep. Wait, let me explain: I do sleep, if I didn’t I would be dead (so say the experts), and I do find that in the periods of time called ‘night’, I will be not conscious for a half hour or forty five minutes at a time. The problem is the two and half to three hours between each spurt. In this awake-in-between-time, I am happy to listen to Jackie Chan kick someone’s ass or listen to Greenday sing about their boulevard of broken dreams. That’s not the issue. The problem is this damn insomnia.
I have tried to explain it, not only to doctors but also to friends and family. You want to hear my description? It goes like this: it works in one of three ways. 1) Am unable to fall asleep. This doesn’t happen much. I listen to soft classical music and count my breaths, the sheep on a mountainside in the Swiss Alps, salmon desperately jumping up a waterfall in the woods, and normally within in a half hour or so, I’ll be asleep. 2) Am asleep but wake due to weird-ass/terrifying dreams, i.e. family being slaughtered, innocents killed, and mass destruction. (This happens enough to be annoying, enough that I spend the following day distracted and doing my utmost to not bore people with the re-telling of my weird-ass dream from the night before.) 3) (the most common) Am able to fall asleep fine but wake suddenly, not due to a dream or from a loud mad lick of Greenday from next door. Just “pop” awake. One moment asleep, the next wide-awake. This happens the most, 'more oft than not', I would say (though it is more likely that Shakespeare said it first and I'm a copy cat). It's as if my unconscious is nervous about what dreams may come (that is definately from Hamlet). And having woken from the weird-ass dreams previously mentioned, I don’t blame my unconscious.
This leaves me much time to think. Or worry. Mostly worry. And my poor brain, it tries to come up with ways to occupy me; fantasies, day dreams, and wishes. But I, stubborn as always, refuse to be relaxed into a state of restful sleep, regardless of breathes, sheep, or salmon.
The other night, as I lied awake next to my enviously deeply sleeping significant other, I began to characterize my insomnia. One was Me, the one who was kept awake, felt anxious, and ultimately had to go to school and work worn out from a restless night. The next was Brain, who tried so hard to do what was needed and expected. She sent out all the right chemicals at the right time, ready to do whatever it was she did while Me was in Sleepyland. Then there was Mind, the trouble-maker, the rebel without a cause, unless the cause was to unnerve Me. She was the one who over-heard the Elvis Presley singing “Fools Rush In” from an apartment 4 floors above and decided to wake up and listen. (Hey, it is Elvis so at least Mind has a sense of class.) I’m not crazy, but these three entities at work were the personification of inability to sleep.
Me wanted rest. The day was long, it was taxing, there was traffic, homeless people, pan-handlers, and crack addicts, plus the duties of maintaining a home and a career. I am an actor, and yes, that is a career, Let me answer all the questions you are thinking right now: No, I am not famous. No, I do not want to be famous (as a woman I like being a size 4, hell sometimes a 6 if it’s after the holidays or a stretch of time when I am bored. I was a size 0 when I was 16 and a professional dancer. Now I’m 30 and the pounds stick whether I wish them to or not. I’m ok with it.) No, I have no desire to get a boob job, lip job, cheek bone job, ass job, or whatever else job that makes me not look like me. I got my mother’s cheekbones and eyes and my father’s nose and tush. I like these bits, they are the result of a long line of my ancestry, history gave me this nose, this tush, these eyes, and these cheekbones, and I don’t want a surgeon to come along and modify them. (Well, the nose could use work, but that’s an issue for therapy.) And, no, I do not wish to have my every mistake in outfit/ lipstick choice/ boyfriend/ dinner party/ drunken mishaps recorded in the tabloids, regardless of the saying that “there is no such thing as bad press.” So that's Me. The bit that most people see, meet, go shopping with, bitch to, flirt with, and categorize.
Brain wants to do her job, which includes mental shut down and restoration. She is responsible for the wear and tear so she needs a few hours each night, when Me is distracted by the fun movie (dream) playing. To get Me to see the dream, Brain has to release chemicals and initiate a sequence that takes Me through NREM (non rapid eye movement) sleep. N1, also known as the transition to alpha waves, followed by N2, “sleep spindles”, and takes up about 45%-50% of sleep time. Next is N3, the delta waves, this is when ‘abnormal’ sleep behavior occurs, such as bedwetting (no issue with that), night terrors (wish I didn't have issue with that), sleep walking (had a roommate with an issue with that), and talking in one’s sleep (been known to have an issue with that). Lastly, Brain institutes N4, which is just a deeper version of N3 (don’t be mad, Sleep Specialist, for me over-simplifying). REM, rapid eye movement, occurs in N3 or N4. While Me is distracted with N1-N4, Brain can continue on with her job, and, honestly, its quite mysterious. No one knows exactly what it is she does but it is known that if she does not have the chance to her job, then several mental and emotional features will occur. So its best if she gets her way and is able to work unobstructed. Otherwise, she is pre-occupied looking up sleep statistics and not getting the rest she deserves.
And then Mind comes along...
1 comment:
Earlier in the semester here in Columbus I experienced a very similar type of insomnia. I would fall asleep and then wake up after my TV timer had clicked off only to be awake for another 3 hours. I had a similar bout in Mid October when Chelsea visited (nothing related to her except maybe her body temperature raising the heat in my bed significantly). I also had a really weird dream where I was giant sized and could not reach two far off hills while a sense of dread and death surrounded me. Afterwards I was awake for about 3.5 hours.
I had never had insomnia before, so I didn't really know how to handle it. I'm doing great now that I've fallen into a routine. I have kept the temperature in my room down. When possible I create more airflow into my tiny room (window open or door open, fan on). I have no idea if this is what has helped it, but I think it has.
Philosophically, I think of these troubles as extensions of difficulties of adjusting to new situations. I think the arrival of my first paycheck also marked the end of my insomnia. I don't do well with insecurity, so I hope its behind me now. I'll check with you the next time it happens, if it does.
For a while there, though, I felt like I was living a Lovecraftian existence where my dream life was more real than my waking life. Perhaps reading over 300 pages a week will do that.
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