sleep

Ahhh, sleep, the most gratifying form of rest, a bliss so necessary, untouched by evolution, partaken in by man and beast alike. The modern man is reported to spend a third of his life asleep, and though the stages change from birth to maturation, the principle of a restful slumber remains all so important. There have been moments to where we have encountered a colicky infant, or a cranky elder, both who’ve been in use of a nap, and upon their peaceful surrenders even the removed parties could appreciate their content. A multitude of scholars have penned down their beliefs and findings on sleep. Theorists, scientists, pharmacists, psychologists, doctors, mothers, spiritualists, and poets; no matter the angle they discourse, there is only the conclusion of its permanence in human life.
Charles Bukowski spoke adamantly as a loyal benefactor of sleep, revealing that he would remain in hibernation for up to three days, only breaking to swig a beer and to defecate. It was his way of “resetting”. For him it was a chance to escape and start the next conscious day refueled and clean. I have journeyed to the unconscious for respectable durations, no where near a comparable span to Bukowski, possibly fourteen hours the longest, to surface into reality clumsy and new, like a birthed calf finding its footing. But perhaps the revitalized experience is not on the regaining of consciousness, rather the event itself. With increased rates of anabolism and of catabolism taking place during sleep, one could propose that with prolonged intervals of rest, a person could wake up as someone completely different. Maybe that is a root fear for some Somniphobes.
Sominphobia has been diagnosed to those who fear sleep, quite different than an Insomniac, a person who can’t sleep. Both suffering sects, it would be quite a conversation for the pair to impart on over stale coffee at a 24 hour diner.
“I can’t sleep,” she says, her hands trembling over her coffee mug.
“I can’t sleep,” he says, biting his nails nervously.
“No really, I can’t sleep,” she says as she fuddles through the sugar packets.
“No, no, really, I can’t sleep,” he says as he pours his coffee into warm milk.
“No, I’m telling you I CAN’T SLEEP!” she cries as she rips her fingernails between her teeth.
“No, lady, I CAN’T SLEEP!” his fingers already mauled stubs.
“I’M AFRAID TO SLEEP!” she crumbles.
“I’M AFRAID I WON’T EVER SLEEP AGAIN!”
Of the detractors, the story of the sleepless man from Vietnam is the most intriguing. Thai Ngoc, a farmer from Quang Nam, a south central province of the country, professes he has not slept in thirty years. Initially reported in by Vietnamese authorities, then followed upon by foreign press, Mr. Ngoc has had an ongoing case of insomnia for three decades, set on by a fever he contracted in 1974. Since then the aforementioned has made the best of his unique situation, volunteering his attribute to the community as a night watchman and a personal alarm clock. And though his body has forsaken sleep his health has not succumbed to the unusual condition.
For those who have ever been deprived of sleep, the severity of the experience can be described in some instances as excruciating, maybe frustrating, tortuous, or in polar cases vindicating. Some have been forced to surmount the beast more than others, but by most accounts we escape slimly on the brink of insanity.
I am no stranger to this beast either, my experiences arising not from what I believed to be as negligence on my part, instead from what I charged to as unfortunate circumstance and plainly, just bad luck. One showdown took place as I was shooting a student film in the hills of northern Maryland during my junior year of college. I had the film crunched in between mid term exams, and as we already know, college life is chiseled out of abnormal sleep patterns, and tacking on the film credit only succeeded me in walking the fine line to the other side. The shoot was on a Saturday morning, call time 8:00 AM, SHARP, and I had spent all Friday night working, up into 2 AM, at a tavern where I waited tables. From the time the last customer left to 4 AM I sat licking my wounds with my colleagues over on-the-house pints. When I returned home, finally, I had to deal with an irate girlfriend, miserable to my absence, all while my head throbbed from fermented hops and the fact that I had spent all Friday taking exams, mopping up beer drenched tables, and squeezing past crapulent customers. When I finally got my head to pillow, I had to get my gear together, put some dry toast into my mouth, and drive an hour and a half to the rolling greens of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border. The exhilaration of shooting a film and the crisp mountain air were enough to subsist me for the five-hour shoot. However, when it was time to load up, and make that long trip back down, of what I think was Route 83, the purple pixies were starting to appear. I pressed down the highway desperate for rest as thoughts of my bed swallowing me whole stampeded over my liquefied brain. My foot grew eager and my cumbersome skull bullied over my wavering neck. The incorrigible pixies fluttered about me, teasing and hissing as I swatted them in futility. My hands became one with the steering wheel and I bent it forward under my weight. I switched eyes, giving one a break, then the other, winking methodically, trying to ward off sleep’s presence. I took deep breaths, inhaling to my lungs capacity, holding, then releasing, over and over, all while switching eyes and swatting the pesky pixies. Then the mountains erupted with golden fire, and knew I was hallucinating. Only the combustion resulted in rectangle flames that blazed horizontally and the purple fairies organized into pale wielding brigades and began dumping black water onto the hills. My mother then stepped out of the glove box with Thanksgiving dinner and I knew I was dreaming! I whipped my neck back and gasped into alertness, my car moving steadily off to the shoulder at aim of the guardrail. I rolled down the windows, blasted the radio, and thanked the Heaven’s for the common sense to know my mother could not have prepared a turkey dinner in the glove box. Clingingly awake, I was back to switching eyes and battling pixies.
Once I got home it was over and I drifted before I could sink into a pillow. Scientists say you can’t catch up on sleep, but I argue had it been a competition, there would have been a photo finish. I don’t recall how many hours I remained in repose, though I would imagine that it must have capped six. Six hours of sleep in thirty six, not shabby, perhaps that time will make up for the extra hour or two I try to squeeze in every morning. Make up for? Well, apparently to the latest studies, as there are always the latest, those of us who attain the former healthy ideal of eight hours might be committing laggard suicide. The study supports the allegation that those who manage with less sleep, approximately six to seven hours, have evidence of living a longer life than the lethargic eight hours plus sleepers. We’re literally sleeping our lives away! Has this data been presented to those siesta proponent countries? They may be sleeping shorter hours at night, but does a nap not count against the cumulative scale of sleep? A few years ago the Spanish were ready to reform, considering banishing siestas from their daily agenda, in a move to keep up with global business. The European Union urged Spanish officials to take the step. Spain’s rising workplace accident rate was put onto the mid day snooze, as was their hindering production rate. Progressives pushed for the removal of the archaic tradition; then came new studies (later studies) and broader information, opposing the new wave principles. For within a few years, the other siesta friendly countries (such as Greece, Japan, and Chile) mounted data defending that the observed break was necessary and quite beneficial for their work force, claiming it lowered stress, prevented heart disease, and all around resulted in more proficient employees. I continue on my eight-hour plus schedule while forgoing the naps.
Then there are the pills, regarded in some circles with the sanctity of the daily vitamin. Naptime is not open to all employees and often the stress of the day carries on into the night, and Mr. Sandman has proven incompetent of consistently filling his post, and we are left with the solution of drowning our buzzing alertness with names like ProSom, Eurodin, Magadon, or Alodorm. Then there are the heavy hitters when our nervous system will not yield to our control and we drop bombs like Valium, Xanax, and Rohypnol. In the modern day of sleep, the sheep can have all the warm milk your grandmother can pot, we will pay top dollar for a formatted rejuvenation. There is a schedule to maintain, and if our bodies can’t conform naturally there are methods of alteration. Even for the chap on the contrary, who has close to given up, feeling indebted to his down feather labyrinth, who sleeps all day to avoid the misery and toil beyond his window, without realizing the vicious weight of his depression is See-Sawing with his ill-contrived remedy. There’s hope for him as well. Fumbling through the overtly accessible Internet the ailing hypersomnia or ESD (Excessive Sleep Disorder) sufferer can locate a variety of treatments at the convenience of the keyboard, displayed with satisfying text like “relief” and “mood brightening” and “life enhancing” with grinning mouths of perfect white teeth and rested bronze skin under yellow blue skies. There are as just as many –ines, and –ants, and –ates, to suppress sleep as there are to administer it, although on the down side, the Hypersomniac not only has the worry over his or her languid habits, but the chance that their depression is linked with bipolarity or their sleep apnea is linked with obesity, and not in form of irony on my behalf, creating much a more reason to stay in bed.
However, there is no effrontery for the indulgence of stretching a few more minutes past the time of routine rise when at the mercy of the psychosomatic restraints. As when the bitter rain pecks at the glass, or when the cold air of the room is austere and grey, or when fifteen minutes longer is not only the time between slaps of the snooze alarm but also the amiable reassurance your cotton and quilted, or satin and down nest will not betray you. The time bargained is some of the most pleasant sleep imaginable. Especially when there is another dream squeezed in before reality strikes. Unfortunately the plethora of pills used to treat sleep represses dreams. What is one without the other? Linked like coffee and cigarettes, or sex and nudity, sleep without dreams is peculiar and mechanical.
I urge someone who has never, to bathe in the slow drift of slumber, acknowledging the plummet off the conscious cliff into the manifested arcane abyss, noticing how the sirens seduce us incapable of injunction. The logical process of thought is deconstructed into abstract patterns and coincidences. Why is my mind focused on the yellow pencil, that yellow pencil sharpened close to the nub, flecked with wooden teeth marks, used by my 2nd grade classmate, Amy Reese, to draw unsymmetrical flowers on her desk. The stress of my day had more to do with persistent creditors, rejected resumes, and words with my mate, than gnawed pencils. Although, that pencil, chewed and shaven to a feeble twig is my lifeboat, it is the guide as I lose myself to myself. I collapse chasing after it as my body becomes as light as breathe and expands like taffy, and I can taste myself, as I fold inverted in half like origami paper. And when I land on the island, or the ice berg, or the roof of a farmhouse in Illinois, of somebody I never knew, and whose existence is the combination of the aptly forgotten strangers in my life awake (it is only by immeasurable odds that they fit together so solidly like a jigsaw) I can either maintain enamored with the majestic creation realizing it is all within me, or I can allow myself to fall away, worried why the island is deserted, or why the ice berg is encroached by the cruise liner, or why the roof is shoddy and neglected.
This type of passing tends to be the most enchanting transposition, too conscious we think as we enter the scenario of which we have little to no control over. The fleeting belief of independence drains quickly, our minds already entrapped, contorted by forces officials have yet to give a definitive purpose, and one that countless fortunes have been spent to find.
I admit to flipping randomly through dream books, too embarrassed to transact a purchase, suspicious of the validity and refusing to concede value in the words, but engrossed with all the same curiosity of the person who displays it proudly upon their personal bookshelf or coffee table. I don’t have flying dreams anymore. I’m not sure exactly what those magnificent dreams translate into, and at the moment I’m too occupied with this essay to slither the psychology section of Barnes and Noble to take a peek, though will acknowledge them as a formidable rival to even the most sultry sexcapade. Those sexcapades always offered horrible endings; too quick or absurd or worse even too conflicting. The love dreams often leave one with a hollow aching, for these most perfect encounters are rudely awakened by the loss of momentum or the dreadful alarm clock. I’ve pined over those tragic ends for hours to days after parting and even today I sometimes reminisce about the spectral feelings. That longing is easily more vacuous than any nightmare I’ve ever contracted.
I used to watch my dog sleep in his favorite corner and with amusement harbor the thought of his dream experience containing the same vitality of my own. It could have been that the slyness of his grin was the result of tampering an extra treat out of the cabinet just as I had conducted a massive heist in my fantasy. But that correlation may be condescending. Who’s to say his grin was not a tell of a heist just as awesome? I’ve had dreams where I ended up as the fly on the wall, literally. That pup could have had bigger dreams, grander dreams, enigmatic and perplexing enough to rival my own, commanding he could have been, as the acting chairman of the board, with hire and fires, hold his calls, he’s on the ninth hole, lobster and filet after, his dossier thick with achievements and accounts, bringing a blush from even the likes of Astor the IV. Kibble is reality, competitive viability is escape! Or it could have been dreams enshrouded by the successful demise of the mocking crow that would trespass too close from the other side of the glass. Vengeful dreams offer a rewarding release. And to some, even more pleasurable than embarking on these cerebral expeditions, is relaying them to a partner, through a pillow with eyes barely suited for the new day.
I’ve had to muster explanation the numerous times I cracked out loud with laughter before dawn breached the horizon, and never were my recounts as hilarious as I previously perceived, nor did my partners feel so. Then there were the arm wrestle bouts, where each party felt their implausible absurdities were more worthy of dissection, only left to be unrequited in attention, as their spectacle was swept aside for the others experience. Dreams are ultra personal, though we tend to share them haphazardly, and usually they’re treated with the same recklessness, and frequently misdiagnosed. They signal creativity, even in the uncreative, where imagination embedded deep within the morass of logic may sputter free in waltz and play a while before skittering back with the receding tide. The deconstruction of the piece should be left upon the creator’s recognizance, for anyone can build, but the artist must birth a meaning personal, insubordinate to generality. Nevertheless, it would be unseen, at least by this eye, that anything will ever change in the regards of sharing dreams, as elusive as they can be, it is well understood why we are compelled to seek guidance, even if in the least to corroborate our present sanity.
The desire to share arrives to another quandary, more insoluble in its regards, when the terms of actual sleep are put into play. For many of us, the sharing of sleep is either pleasant companionship or claustrophobic inconvenience. One couple so I’ve heard, years married with children grown, have maintained the same residence although at the end of their evening retire to separate quarters. I figured the couple to be stale on the relationship and possibly seeking the benefits of affection from other sources, but that proved to be false as they march on to their next wedding anniversary. Though this happy couple has managed to circumvent a primordial foundation in romantic partnerships, I doubt this arrangement will be sweeping as a new trend through the majority.
Learning to sleep, to say actually sleep with a partner, takes much of the same cooperation and discipline as it does to make love. Often are the first sexual encounters clumsy, stiff, and rigid, and that may be the highlights. If one tries to do too much, trespassing the parameters of the other, it causes them to shrivel awkwardly beneath the shadows preventing further exploration. Or there may be too little offered by one side resulting in frustration on the side of the adventurous. These intricacies, mental and physical, are aligned with the manners in which we sleep. As she may prefer complex positions during coitus, he may be more comfortable with easy motions just as she may prefer to sleep to the soft hum of the radio while he prefers the dead of silence. Usually we will oblige our partners during the early stages, willing to suffocate on hair, tolerate icicle feet, even forgive a snore attack, but just as we mature from our cumbersome first time, we are expected to format how we sleep with the one we share a bed. A night embraced is ideal for every honeymooning couple. But really, the effort to remain interlocked through itchy nights and hot mornings becomes more a test of endurance than a restful sleep. These marathon spooners are indeed the overachievers, able to move past the numb arms and shooting pains, the agglutination of sweat, and have indeed something unique, if solely the luck of discovering another to commiserate in such contortionistic and masochistic activity.
No, it would be splendor to fit with one like a puzzle piece all the night through, I guess, unfortunately my arms and neck seem to often impede the situation, not to mention my jostling predisposition that leads to my banishment on the far side of the bed. I am not saying I’m callous to the security of sleeping with another. The need is inherent in most organisms. Though, in analysis of the act itself, and how humans have come to note it, the necessity to share our sleep with another proves rather odd when considered it’s something we really cannot share. For the items that are associated with the bedroom, sleep is pure in its absolute stinginess. Sleep, even more so than dreaming, is specific to an individual. We use others to translate our dreams, we feel obliged to discuss them and compare. How do we do that with rest? It’s of a different breed. As is sex, which for the most of us takes a partner or two, though when we set adrift, those partners are useless. Sleep is the most self-indulgent activity. We share meals, exchange stories, barter clothing, build shelters and make love. When it’s time to sleep we escape from each other to a place that we can’t be reached by cell phones, emails, instant messengers, or fax machines. That time is spent moving rapidly through erratic thought, to dead space, to next erratic thought, in ignorance of our clocks that tick the same reliable pace, it unaware of how we are escaping its clutches. We are aware though, we recognize the passing time when we smack our heads for oversleeping or realize that the weeks have gone by too fast, but it’s of conflicting interests. That’s why we find comfort and security in rest with another, even if not a coiled position, and if only the crossing of the ankles, the connection of fingers, or the sound of breath behind us. Since we cannot share this time, and it is time inescapable, with more space between us than the next universe, we have to stay close if only to know that in real time we continue together. I saw this exemplified in a baby asleep on its mother’s bosom as we took the J train into Manhattan. The train was unmerciful it its jitter, knocking those unseated off balance, as it pressed hurriedly, everything is in this time, over the Williamsburg Bridge. I was astonished that not a flinch came on that sleeping baby’s face. He was somewhere serene, absent of the stresses and worries and obligations the rest of us juggled on that frenzied train. It was engaged in fantasy and the closeness of his mother’s beating heart and the escape from the world that he would too soon learn too much about.