Sleep

I love to sleep. I always have. I need at least nine hours of sleep a night. Any less and I begin to... change. I get... tired. And you wouldn't like me when I'm tired.

I really enjoy sleeping. I love drifting off. The feeling of slipping away, falling into the relaxation and letting my mind finally stop. Dreaming is an awesome way to work out inner turmoil and to experience fantasies. I don't have lucid dreams often, but when I do, I really enjoy them. I tell off people I'm mad at, I fly and swim and run and leap tall buildings in a single bound. Nightmares, while terrifying, provide a cleansing of soul that is sometimes needed. Frustrations, fears and anger all have to come out somehow, I think through dreams is the least destructive. Waking up is all stretching and slow thinking. Enjoying the last remnants of heaviness in my limbs before accepting my fate of consciousness.

On that, it's not that I don't enjoy my waking hours. They're more trying since the head pain started, but not entirely without joy. I have reasons to get out of bed and usually do so cheerfully. I sometimes even put off going to bed (gasp!) because I am having another, more important life experience. Like watching The Mentalist. Has anyone seen that show? That guy is so cute!

Ahem.

Sleep is my favorite food. I taste it and chew on it and swallow it down until I am full and drowsy. I can smell it, it's earthy and warm, like vanilla and morning dew. It feels like silk or the softest baby blanket imaginable, in a deep, dark blue. I curl up inside of it, and around it. My mind embraces it like a lover, intertwined and helpless to its seductive charms.

Ahem.

Also, it's good for migraines! Having the appropriate amount of sleep consistently is very important in keeping my head functional. I don't get sleep-triggered headaches very often, since (I'm not sure if I've made this clear, or not) I am pretty into sleep and making sure I get enough, but sometimes I'll go to bed too late or be woken up too early, or I'll wake up six times in the night to pee, or I'll just fall asleep in a weird position and wake up with my neck cricked and my head announcing my mistake before my eyes are even open. Few and far between, the sleep-triggered headaches are, but brutal.

I occasionally take supplements/drugs to help me sleep. I start with melatonin and chamomile. If that doesn't work, I'll take a soma or two. If I'm still up, it's time for a benadryl or a sleeping aid. I get infrequent bouts of insomnia, but they usually go in spurts of a few days, so I'm careful about overusing that last group. Before the headaches, I would just ride out the insomnia, and go a day or two without sleep. I don't like taking drugs if I can help it and before the pain, I really could deal with little to no sleep pretty easily. I just powered through it. I might get a little punchy but I was fully functional. If I get less than six hours of sleep now, I am dead weight for several days.

I've been trying to go nocturnal for a few months, off and on. Since spring hit, the sun has been particularly painful for me. I'm bringing sunglasses, hats and umbrellas with me whenever I suspect that I'll be exposed for more than 2 seconds, which is becoming awkward, cumbersome and embarrassing. It would be so much easier if that pesky fireball would just stay behind a cloud, or better yet, not even rise! Instead of bending nature to my will and screwing with the natural cycles of light and dark on our planet, it occurred to me to eschew the sun, head for night and never look back. Sounds great, doesn't it? But my sleep won't let me. I wake up no later than 10 am every day. Usually it's much earlier though, between 6 and 8. And the time I wake up seems to have little to do with the time I go to sleep. I tried to ease myself into day-sleeping by pushing bedtime until 2am. My head pushed back by waking me at 6:45 and refusing to let me go back to sleep. Three days of nausea and eyeball throbbing later, I was back to 9pm bedtimes. What I probably need to do is just commit. Keep going to be no earlier than 2, or 4 or whatever makes me go less crazy, until my head gives in and lets me sleep until 5 pm. 3? I'm bargaining and I haven't even started yet!

I'll definitely give it another try. But if my sleep messes with me for more than a week, it's over. Leaving the house freely during my waking hours won't be any fun if I am raging out, sick and in pain all the time.