I hate sleep. I’ve always hated the sleep. I remember when I was very young, I’d stuff a towel in the crack under the door when I was supposed to be in bed. Then, I would read until midnight or later, rinse, lather, and repeat. There were several reasons for this and it set me up for a lifetime of not being able to sleep before midnight. There are other reasons including a mischievous thyroid, but it set me up for a lifetime struggle with Lord Morpheus. In fact, it’s such a big part of me, I really identified hard with The Sandman, a graphic novel series by Neil Gaiman. A friend hooked me up with the compendiums and I devoured them with an eagerness that was almost frightening. I was immediately antagonized by Dream (Morpheus) and wanted to punch his moody lights out. Desire both intrigued me and repulsed me as desire was so oft wont to do. Death was amazing, of course, and Delirium broke my heart. Despair was grotesque and scary, whereas Destruction was hot as fuck. I was so enamored by them, I wrote a novel with them as main characters.
When I was in college, I slept maybe four hours a night. By this point, my thyroid was destroyed so I was hypo instead of hyper. I was also deep in an eating disorder my first year in college, which did not help my metabolism at all. When I went home from college for breaks, I would crash for fifteen hours the first night and get sick. Every time. There was one day that stands out in sharp relief. I had a portable alarm clock that I kept on my desk by my bed. One day, I got up and couldn’t find it anywhere. I looked all around the room several times and it was nowhere to be seen. After ten minutes, I shrugged and gave up, still befuddled. I opened the mini-fridge to grab a Diet Pepsi and there was my alarm clock. I had no recollection of putting it in there. After that, I put it on the sink across the room so I wouldn’t do that again.
In my late twenties, I had nightmares upon nightmares every night. Four or five was not unheard of and they were incredibly graphic. There was a stretch of time where my friends were dying in my dreams on the regular. It became a joke that if you hadn’t died in one of my dreams, then you weren’t really my friend. It was funny in retrospect, but at the time, it was exhausting. I also had a nightmare in which I actually died. I was lying in bed (in my dream) when a Snuffleupagus-like creature comes up to me. Hey, I know that doesn’t sound bad in the light of day, but in my dream, it was terrifying. It crept up to me as I was rooted to the spot and then it started stealing my breath. I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do anything but lie there. It kept stealing my breath until I couldn’t breathe any longer–and then I died.
So, yeah, the adage that you can’t die in a dream isn’t true. It wasn’t fun at all. It wasn’t painful, but it wasn’t fun, either.
Through taiji, my sleep got better little by little. Now, I’m up to six-and-a-half hours when everything is aligned perfectly. Except. Since my brush with Covid, my sleep has been horrible. I mean, epically awful. I hadn’t been that tired in such a long time. When I found out that I had probably been exposed to Covid, it made sense. My body was fighting off Covid, which made me tired as fuck. Plus, it’s been really hot at times, which always fucked with my sleep. So, in the past week-and-a-half, I’ve been having a hell of a time sleeping.
A few days ago, I gave in and decided to bump down my AC to 74. I keep it at 78 and turn it to 76 for taiji. Yes, I ‘m all about the cold, but I’m also about trying to be good to the environment. But, my sleep has been such shit that I said forget it. I’m putting this bad boy on 74 and seeing if I can actually get some sleep. I woke up seven hours later feeling only a little bit tired. What is this? Is this how some people feel on the regular? It felt so good that I did it again the next night. And another seven hours! Madness. That night, though, I was dozing on and off, and I couldn’t be stuffed to get up and fiddle with the thermostat. Plus, I had someone coming over the next day to clean and no matter what time I have an appointment, I can’t sleep the night before.
Then, last night, I put the thermostat on 75 and used my weighted blanket. I got five-and-a-half hours of sleep, which was still better than I’d gotten before. I think I’ll kick it back down to 74 and see what else I can fiddle with. I feel a bit guilty for keeping the AC so low, but I need to sleep. I have to say, I’m always bitterly amused at how the advice for wellness casually tosses out, “Be sure to get eight hours of sleep” as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. I have been trying for decades and have made it to six-and-a-half hours on a somewhat consistent basis, which is a huge improvement.
I have had friends who talk about how much they love sleep and just laying about in bed with a delicious sense of drowsiness as they slowly drift awake. Ha, no. I’m asleep or I’m awake and there’s no in between. Or rather, I don’t wake up slowly. I jerk to consciousness, alert to any possible danger. I never feel rested after sleeping, which was a bummer. It’s one reason I put off sleep for as long as possible until I can barely keep my eyes open. In my twenties and thirties, I didn’t go to bed until six in the morning at the earliest, sometimes not until noon. I just hated sleep so much and refused to deal with it whenever I could possible ignore it.
I’m still testing my sleep hypothesis for science. The first two nights I put the air on 74, I didn’t use a blanket at the same time–not even my cooling weighted blanket. It used to be helpful when I first got it, but I’m finding it less so now. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve gotten too used to it or because it’s been so fucking hot. It’s a cooling weighted blanket, but it doesn’t mean it’s cool in and of itself. It’s just…there. It doesn’t make me hot, but it also doesn’t make me cool. So, maybe I should just not use it when I’m trying to sleep.
At any rate, calling it a scientific experiment makes it easier for me to deal with my sleep issues so I’m going to run with that for now.