O sleep,
blessed is your embrace.
though fickle can your affections be,
I remain, as always,
your disciple.
***
I am such a slut for sleep.
I know a lot of people who see more then six hours of sleep as a waste. They mock my complaints when some activity requires me to forgo a few hours of sleep. To be honest, I am not sure why I need eight hours of sleep; I believe it is because I abuse my conscious mind so much that it requires several REM states just to stretch and work out all the kinks my active mind busily creates.
But it matters not why. I am content to just adore sleep and not question my affections for her.
I love waking up gradually and stretching luxuriously in bed as consciousness slips in like an old lover, inhabiting my limbs once more.
I love the feeling that comes with waking up too early and then finding out that, for one reason or another, I get another half hour or so of sleep. I greedily draw those minutes to me, all the more precious because they shouldn’t be there.
Give me eight or nine hours of sleep every night and I can handle anything. Angry, frustrated co-workers become people who just need subtle nudges in the right direction to succeed. Cat-ravaged curtains become an excuse to buy something in a deeper shade of green. Bumper-to-bumper traffic becomes a way to catch up on the intriguing audio book I am in the midst of listening to. Harsh criticism becomes creative critiquing. Broken processes become puzzles of efficiency. Proposals become a game of wordcrafting. Bratty submissives become convenient excuses to practice innovated spanking techniques.
As the narrator says in Fight Club: I become the calm, little center of the world. I become a Zen Master.
With just six or seven hours of sleep, I become…a normal human being. With less then six hours of sleep…bad things happen. Mogwai eating after midnight-like bad things.
I haven’t been getting much sleep the last few days. But – as of tomorrow, I am off to a lake house for a week. I plan to get a lot of sleep. And then I plan to use my calm little center to toss stones into the gentle tranquility of others. Ripples can be so much fun. Especially when they have affects unexpected by those who think they know better.
“If only tonight we could sleep
In a bed made of flowers
If only tonight we could fall
In a deathless spell
If only tonight we could slide
Into deep black water
And breathe
And breathe…
Then an angel would come
With burning eyes like stars
And bury us deep
In his velvet arms
And the rain would cry
As our faces slipped away
And the rain would cry
Don’t let it end…”
If Only tonight We Could Sleep, the cure
I grok. I don’t DO sleep deprivation. I am an insane maniac without enough sleep. But sleep, sweet sleep, to wake enough to knowingly roll over and let my head descend into the cloud of a pillow once more…
Ahhhhh.
Don’t you hate it when you leave the comment under the wrong post? Damn that lack of sleep.
Enjoy your rest!! I love this post – it captures how I view sleep. In my life, sleep is a precious commodity, a luxury, and I savor it.
Funny, with my recent bout of insomnia. Feeling rather Gremlin, yes. Hallucinatory also. Miserable most of all. And I keep reading this post, dammit. >smacks head onto desk
Yes, but consider this. In sleep, the conscious mind is dormant and the pathways to a deeper darkness is opened. The longer you slumber, the more devastating its effect. Like a cancer, it carries the horrid moments, the shocking few, the daunting dares. It shakes you awake only after its needle pierces deep. And some are left sweating in befuddled haze.. losing the tenuos grasp on recall. The unlucky…. remember.