Week 11, Day 3: A Little Bit More, A Little Bit Less

I feel a little tired this morning.

The official Night 3 Sleep Report
--Went to bed: 10:26 pm
--Sleep music: Lali Puna, Scary World Theory
--Fell asleep: approx. 11:05 pm
--First woke up: 2:31 am
--Subsequent wakeups: 3:33 am, 3:58 am, 4:15 am, 4:34 am, 4:59 am, 5:11 am, 5:28 am, 5:47 am, 6:08 am, 6:26 am, 6:44 am, 6:59 am, 7:07 am, 7:15 am (last three with alarm clock)
--Out of bed/wide-awake: 7:16 am
--Total sleep period (counting brief wake-ups): 8 hrs, 11 min

Now I'm beginning to get the feeling that I really just don't know how to sleep well, or that maybe I can't. Last night seemed like the most restless night I've had yet, haunted by ridiculous "wide-awake" REM dreams with real people in very real situations. I fell asleep a bit later than intended because I'd met up for drinks with a friend who, after I recapped to her what's been going on this week, said, "Jeffrey... so basically you're sleeping like a pregnant woman," explaining how her friend who recently birthed a child has spent the past few months prior to and after her pregnancy sleeping for only 10-20 minutes at a time, unable to link the bits of rest together into something more cumulatively beneficial.

And that's the weird thing: it's like I get one first block of 2-3 hrs of sleep, but then upon waking up that first time (at which point each of the three times I've felt wide awake), I am unable to sleep for more than 30 minute chunks before jerking awake, certain it's now 7:45 am. Que terible. Perhaps it's more about being used to having to wake up when i'm still exhausted, and also about constantly sleeping until the point when I really "have to" get up, but it's sort of alarming/depressing. It's been recommended to me by non-medical professionals that I attempt to procure some kind of sleeping aid(s) for the duration of the week, but I'm really not generally into taking medication, especially not of that variety and especially not when some of the options have crazy/dangerous side effects like wakeless activity-engaging sleepwalking. I'll just try to keep sticking it out as I've been doing, hoping that the coming nights will be more restful than the last few.

Unofficial Post-Sleep Day 2 (Tuesday) Daytime Report
Even if the nights haven't seemed quite restful enough, Tuesday was my second straight day of making it through all of work feeling like I had maintained a solid and unwavering sense of alertness (can't say focus exactly, given my general disinterest in my job) all day long. Again, this should NOT be a big a deal and is only testament to how long I've let myself run on empty. It's been pretty nice, because I feel like I've gotten a lot of work done and have still had time to be myself, which is to say pretty unfocused and distracted and unable to work on any one project/task for more than 4 minutes at a time.