zzzzzzz

I was talking to friend at work about this topic today (friend with no nickname oddly -- Curly Sue?) and realized I had never blogged about it before. Sleep. I told her that I have to go to bed when I am completely exhausted because otherwise I can't sleep because I start thinking about how weird sleep is and I can't do it. She said this never happened to her, but as is the way with the Cult of Heather I bet she will now...

Does this happen to you? You're lying in bed and you know you need to sleep but you try to catch yourself doing it? You want to notice when you fall asleep to see how it happens? I do. I think it's just fascinating this sleep thing. I understand that there are people whose whole lives are devoted to studying sleep and maybe THIS is my niche because it's the only thing I've ever truly been entranced by. And not even because I'm a big "sleeper" because I'm really not.

[Sidenote: You know the sleepers and if you are one, you know who you are. People who can list napping as a hobby. People who CANNOT be disturbed while sleeping or even napping without dire consequences to the disturber. I've had my life threatened on more than one occasion waking a sleeper from a nap.]

No, I'm fascinated by sleeping because it's a strange thing that all you have to do is just lay down, relax a little and your body goes into an entirely different level of consciousness. Then after a certain period of time you come out of this stage and you're awake. How do all of your bodily systems know to shift gears? Why do we need sleep? Why isn't there any other way to recharge? (As I sit here yawning because 11:30ish is my usual bedtime!) Other than the obvious answers of alarms and obligations, what makes us wake up? How do we know we've had "enough" after 9 hours or whatever? Why can't we program the amount of sleep we need? If you only have time to sleep 5 hours a night, why can't that be enough? Why does it seem like there are some amounts that are GOOD and some that are never enough? And why DOES that seem so intricately tied to how much alcohol you've consumed?

Just kidding on the last one. But sleep is weird. Statistically most people fall asleep in 7 minutes. This is not a long period of time to slip into another level of consciousness when you think about how many beers you have to drink to feel a little woozy. Definitely more than 7 minutes worth. Even if you're doing shots!

Maybe I'm interested in it because I'm a light "fall-asleeper." Once I'm asleep I think I'm on the average level for "disturbability" but as far as getting TO the sleep level: everything has to be just so. Temperature, firmness of mattress, sound, light, etc. S definitely believes I have Princess and the Pea syndrome and I do to some levels. But sleep is like orgasm -- once you get there, it's all good; it's not easy to reverse!

Anyway, I'd love to write more but I'm tired and want to go do some first hand experimenting with this sleep thing!

G'night!
HP