To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

Actually, I have been dreaming a lot lately. Very hard dreams promoting very restless sleep. Not bad dreams, just incredibly active. The kind of dreams where you actually feel that you are luiving the dream whle you are snoozing. I wake no more rested than when I went to bed, in fact, I wake more exhausted.

I do not sleep anymore, it seems. I can’t remember a night that I truly rested. I’m not awake, mind you. I do not lie in bed with my eyes wide open staring at the ceiling like a vampire stares at her coffin lid. I do shift consciousness to a different plane. The problem is that my “sleep” state is as active, if not more active, than my “awake” state. With the diuretics I’ve been taking, also, this means an extra trip or two to the loo in the middle of the night. So, day by day, the circles under my eyes darken, the vitality flags and the spirits sag. But, life goes on…

Not that I accept this fate passively. I do try to take action to increase the probability of successful rest. I go to bed at an early hour. But, whether or not I go to bed at 8:00 pm or 10:00 pm, it seems to matter not. I have monitored caffeine intake and curbed such as evening approaches. This has not made a difference. Eating too late? Evening snacks do usually contain high proportions of fiber and protein, both harder for the body to digest, so I tried cutting those out of my daily meal plans. No effect. My bedroom is already used only for rest – no television or reading, so there are no behaviors to modify for that. More relaxation? Less relaxation? Doesn’t matter. The only routed I have not and likely will not pursue are the chemically-laced ones – sleeping pills or a stiff nightcap.

My body and brain just don’t want to sleep at this point in time. The resistance is fierce. When everyone else is jubilant that the weekend has arrived so that they can luxuriate with sleep, I think “Whatever.” The weekend holds no special sleeping experiences for me right now. I go to sleep when I feel the urge, and then ride the crazy train until my feet hit the floor the next morning. It feels rather like the day never ends. Sleep acts like a demarcation between one day and the next. I no longer feel that division. Each day just flows into the others, before and after. There is no true beginning and no definite end. I’ve lost the feel of relief when a stressful day ends and the anxious anticipation for a new, fresh day to begin. I find I don’t like this situation. I like the feel the rhythms of a day and they are being blunted by this homogenization.

I find that I want clear definition to my time. I have always been a creature of structure and this might be associated with that trait. I want an old day and a new day. I want a night and a morning. A past and a future. I am finding it hard to exist in a continuous “now.” Of course, one should live in the now for practical aspects of life. Living in the past or neglecting the present by focusing on the future does not promote positive self-growth. But our day to day consciousness should be framed around a delineated time schedule. We should feel a difference between units of time such as the day. I think it provides some grounding to our existence. Some surety in the natural progress of the universe. Sleeping provides some definition to our time and, therefore, our lives.

That might be my problem. I feel undefined. I feel spread out to a nearly amorphous state. The “now” stretches endlessly and I stretch along with it. Never a chapter to close, I am never able to move myself onwards – parts of me remains with the days that have never ended. One day, I may be spread too far to ever again coalesce.

Might be time for that nightcap…