Forecast for the Future

"Every individual without exception bears a potential writer within himself. The reason is that everyone has trouble accepting the fact that he will disappear unheard of and unnoticed in an indifferent universe, and everyone wants to make himself into a universe of words before it's too late. 

Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not that far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding."

- Milan Kundera, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting

Friday, March 21, 2008

Week 11, Day 5: Continued restlessness

The official Night 5 Sleep Report
--Went to bed: 10:31 pm
--Sleep music: Julee Cruise, Floating Into the Night
--Fell asleep: approx. 10:46 pm
--First wakeup: 10:54 pm (phone call)
--Second wakeup (naturally): 2:37 am --- awake for 12 minutes, checking email (on phone)
--Subsequent wakeups: 5:10 am,
--Alarm attempts: 6:00 am, 6:08 am, 6:16 am, 6:24 am
--Out of bed/wide-awake: 6:26 am
--Total sleep period (counting brief wake-ups): 6 hrs, 28 min

Thursday night's sleep was less restful than Wednesday's. I got home from having dinner and walking my old little friend and it was 9:08 and the thought of going to sleep in 52 minutes when it felt like I'd done so little all day made me feel depressed. Though, as my THERAPIST told me yesterday, "Ben, hello! That's what real life is! Normal people go to bed and don't stay up all night." I resolved to wake up early the next morning and set my alarm for 6--I would get up and watch an episode or two of Lost that I'd been missing and get some writing done.

Unfortunately, about ten minutes after I fell asleep, my phone rang and woke me up and then I had trouble falling back to sleep as my brain began to get locked on various trains of thought. I eventually tried to start repeating numbers to myself and seem to have fallen asleep soon after that, but again awoke in the middle of the night at 2:37. It's strange to me how I come to at these times, feeling like i'm ready to get up completely. I noticed I had a text message from a friend, which I read and then decided to check my email (on my phone), which then led to me checking and sending work emails (those Korean and Indian work days don't correspond well with ours). Around 2:50 I decided I was crazy and went back to sleep.

Somewhat hilariously though it took me nearly a half hour to get up once my alarm started going off at 6. This has happened more or less each of the mornings this week--despite waking up early and repeatedly throughout the course of the night, when it comes time to actually "wake up / get up" my body slags. Anyway though, up and and at 'em and ready to face another day.

Unofficial Post-Sleep Day 4 (Thursday) Daytime Report
Same basic shit: wide awake, all day. This "experiment" has proven to have considerably more concrete outcomes than originally expected: clearly, if I sleep, I can make it through a workday no matter how bored or uninterested I am in whatever it is I need to do. Wow, rocket science. I have two brains, one intense and mechanical and relatively high-functioning, and the other made out of peas and struggles to process even simple human concepts, even when carefully explained by example. Slowly, I am merging them into one fairly mediocre but consistent brain that will empower me to a life of normalcy.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ben, I totally understand not being able to wake up when the alarm clock finally goes off. I have the same issue with waking up a million times a night and wanting to get up for the day, but finally when it really is time to get up, my body doesn't want to move. Weird how that happens.

Sleeping is a really fab thing though. I've been going to sleep at 9.30 for the past few months, and I can actually do things during the day without having a total brain meltdown/falling asleep at inappropriate times. Get more sleep. It's soooooo good for you.

-Jess

jayson said...

Fucking A, I dislike your therapist invoking the behavior of "normal people" in your session. Who the are these folks, and what is their prescribed bedtime?

That said, good week. Enforced sleep can be as stressful as it is rejuvenating, but it sounds like you stuck to your goals, which, after all, is the only measure of success in Hyperliving.

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