I watch the Engineer: he climbs into bed, pulls the covers up and is usually snoring within three or four minutes. Most often he sleeps straight through until morning. He seems to arise fairly alert and aware, though he fortifies that with copious amounts of caffeine. If I have to get up at the same time, he enjoys making athletic leaps about the room, announcing things like, "Ah, morning, the best time of the day." "Rise and shine, the day is half over!" This even if the sun isn't up yet. It's disgusting, he's actually cheerful.
We are at antipodes. It takes me an hour or more to fall asleep and I wake frequently throughout the night. I am aware of the world outside me as I sleep, any little noise wakens me. He, on the other hand, is gone. One night when we were newly married, there was a terrible storm -- pouring rain, thunder, lightning, wind so strong the house shook. I knew a tornado was coming. I grabbed his arm and tried to haul him out of bed, away from the window, towards the safest, most interior part of the house.
He never even twitched. He was surprised in the morning that half of the trees were on the ground and draped over the roof.
Sometimes I ask him if he's dreamed. Only occasionally will he reply that he has. "About what?" I ask.
"We were going someplace."
He can never say where or what mode of transportation we were using, just that the two of us were "going someplace."
How boring!
Dreaming is the best part of sleeping. I dream every night. Many dreams. Some of them good, some of them bad, some of them monotonous, but I dream and I dream about lots of different things.
Most of the time I'm in my dreams but sometimes I'm just an onlooker. Most of the time I'm me, but sometimes I'm someone or something else. Once I was a seven foot tall, skinny black guy with a big afro wearing a silver wireframe crown sort of thing as I strode over the tops of tall narrow plateaus fighting flying, man eating, evil gremlins. I've canoed through subterranean, manmade labyrinths and run through forests. Best of all, I've flown.
There may be a lot to be said for sleeping soundly through the night and waking refreshed, alert and cheerful. But, all in all, I'd rather dream, even if it means being grumpy and groggy in the morning.
5 comments:
I'm an awful sleeper. I have to trick myself into falling asleep, which includes reading the news, hopefully now blogging, reading about ten books at once, watching TV, praying, feeling guilty about not praying...it's really awful.
So it's usually about 1 or 2 before I'm drifting off, and then I wake up groggy and, until I drink coffee, dysfunctional.
I've been a night owl since I was a kid. I got it from my Dad. I always think I'm going to start a sleeping blog so I can log it and maybe work on changing some habits.
I mean, was that iced coffee before the show last night really necessary?
:-)
Ah, a Sister-in-Insomnia. The only thing wrong with being a night owl is the grief differently clocked people give us. And as for the iced coffee, make it a mocha, the soporific effects of the milk will counterbalance the stimulation of the caffeine -- or so I tell myself. ;-)
Hey, Wunx! Great bloggers bog alike - here's my solution to sleepless nights. Click this link, hope it works. Brew yourself a special potion and sleep like a baby... :))
zzzzzzzzzzz
http://highaltitudegardening.blogspot.com/2006/09/to-sleep-perchance-to-dream.html
Hey Kate -- at the very least, it means we both like Shakespeare. The Engineer swears by a good stiff shot of Wild Turkey -- if you still can't get to sleep, at least it doesn't matter to you any more.
just dropping a note as a passerby. i used to sleep so easily and peacefully, but now it was the opposite. i can blam it to many things, topmost is coffee...but then again, i guess i have become just that nocturnal person
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