I'm not sure how sleep works, in particular how it works with me. I've always been curious about the mystery of sleep. When I was a kid I always tried to pinpoint the moment that I fell asleep. To this day I am, of yet, unsuccessful. I once successfully, or at least believe that I successfully affected my dreams. One night as a youth I dreamed an amazing dream about only God knows and woke up in the middle of it frustrated that it hadn't continued. I guess I had to use the restroom or something. Well, as I lay back down I was determined to affect my dreams so that I started the same dream again. I'm not remembering if it started where it left off or if I had to start from the beginning, but by concentrating deeply on the dream and what it was about I was able to create the conditions of my dream again.
By the way, while I'm thinking of it, if you are interested in dreams and the subconcious mind, do yourself a favor and watch Waking Life by Richard Linklater. He directed School of Rock and Dazed and Confused but he also has some lesser known (lesser by big market standards, I mean, most people who really like indie film have seen it, but it could concievably be off most people's radar) movies. Waking Life is chronoscoping animation, much like his current film A Scanner Darkly, in which the actors are filmed but then the movie is animated using the original footage. It makes for a kind of mind trippy looking film.
Anyway, Waking Life takes a guy trying to wake from a dream from place to place in his dream, unable to wake up, and he just keeps meeting these different people who pontificate on the oddities of sleep and dreaming, and how it compares with life awake, and so on... If your only qualification for a movie is a compelling story then you might not like Waking Life but if you listen to NPR you'd probably like it.
This is all to say that I can't get to sleep and I'm confused as to how my body decided this. I've really confused my sleep clock this time.
For the last several nights I've been going to sleep late. Really late. So late it's early late. One morning Amanda woke up to go to a workshop at 8 am and I was still up, cleaning out the computer room. I was tired, but I was more interested in pictures I was finding that I hadn't looked through in awhile. And, let's face it, I wasn't that tired. I'd been sleeping late enough and couple that with the fact that I'm a night person anyway and I could stay up a long time. Saturday night it all kind of hit the fan because we had to wake up to go to church at 9 the next morning. With a new computer to play with, sure enough I had little interest in sleep until I forced my retirement at 6 am. With a 8:30 wake up and a very disappointing Astros game to look forward to I wasn't really looking forward to the next day, and even contemplated just staying up. But, I gave in and with 2+ hours of sleep went to church with bags under my eyes. Church was fine. I zoned out some, but was a lot more alert than I thought I'd be. A nail biting Astros game at Minute Maid Park kept my attention for the next few hours, but by the time the game was over I was ready to hit the hay. Amanda and I got home around 4:30 and I immediately went for the bedroom and got comfy. I wasn't ready to sleep yet, but instead watched a movie with Amanda. By the time 8 was rolling around I was ready to call it a night. I fell asleep around 8:30.
3 and a half hours later I wake up thinking that it's morning but I'm confused as to why it was so dark outside. I figured that it might be raining. I also notice Amanda's watching "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel and not The Today show and ask "What time is it?"
"11:30 at night." She says, "you've been asleep for 3 hours." I thought it had been one of the best night's sleep I'd had in a long time.
So now after practically no sleep a three hour nap was all I needed and I'm wide the freak awake again! Why can I go to bed at midnight and sleep til noon, but if I try to go to sleep at 8:30, even after a full day, I sleep for three hours? Makes no sense.
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6 comments:
Hai Kyle Martin.
How are you
Sup, Deepak? Thanks for stopping by.
When a child is off his sleep schedule, the parent offers him a cup of milk, then puts him to bed at the scheduled time. Don't get out of bed. Go to bed at your time. If you don't go right to sleep, stay in bed and read. Then when your eyes feel sleepy, turn off the light. This is weird, I picture in my mind a blank chalkboard. It works. Oh, and also, no alcohol. It makes a person wake in the middle of the night and not sleep as well. Take it from me. I know. :-(
Brandon gets strange sleep cycles. He'll sleep normally for a couple weeks, then hit a week where he's, just... awake. Awake until 4 every night, getting up at 8 for work.
Our roommate Laura says there's a guy who sleeps 30 minutes every four hours, every day. He says he loves it, and feels really effective while he's awake. I don't know if I could do that.
-Rozie
Sorry for your struggles. Perhaps you should come stay with my three small children and let me go take a nap?
perhaps you're just naturally a more nocturnal creature then most. i'm a night owl and firmly believe that although the early bird may get the worm, the owl gets the rodent. the rodent being the bigger of the two, and thus "bigger is better", i'd prefer the night owl over the early bird anyday and consider myself a unique individual accordingly.
sleep well kyle.
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