“Almost Asleep” - The Insomniac's Angst

"Sleep is like death without the commitment."  said someone, I'm not sure who. Maybe we welcome the former while rejecting the latter?

Almost there - but

I love being almost asleep. Have you ever fallen for that trickster? You are working/playing at your accustomed portal, the internet on the computer. You feel an overpowering need to sleep. Maybe it’s a great idea to actually fall asleep over the keyboard, but then you resist that for reasons of safety. You don’t want to fall off the chair. You try and hold yourself at the threshold, but you have tried too hard and you feel pain. And there ends the momentary bliss of the almost-asleep zone.

When you do cave in, shutdown and retire, you don’t end up getting the good sleep you crave either. The bliss you anticipate of your temporary commitment-free state, is another mirage.  Now that you’re there, the bed that hauled you into it, no longer feels comfortable. You are forcing yourself to reluctantly accept that you were tempted when you were not ready. And insomniacs like myself are perhaps never either entirely ready or unready.

You also keep fending off the option of hauling yourself out of bed to try all over again to induce sleep, continuing to force yourself to lie still and prolong your pain. I’ve jumped out in several instances in severe frustrations and tried music, movies, even food, to re-induce the urge. When sleep finally claims you, it does so invariably close to dawn.  Sometimes it wins, at others it lurks around teasing. You pray you will actually fall deeply asleep for just five minutes or till five minutes before the milkman hour, tossing all your cares overboard to be claimed by whomsoever/reclaimed by you, at an appropriate juncture. You wish it would happen just once, for real. The perfect dose, the perfect timing! Compensating in some small way for a whole night of futility. 

Sleep has its revenge anyway and finally wins at the oddest hour of mid-morning. It really does in its tyrannical way! With little benefit! “Avavelaiilla thoongathei” – mom would say - "Don't sleep at untimely hours," but it sounds kind of grand in Tamil! Sorry can’t spell that in Roman! And she was right. I have rarely savored the much touted fruits of the power nap. 

Maybe there’s a technique and deliberateness behind those naps? Like setting the intention and doing it. Even as I type the word "intention" I feel an urge!! Hey maybe that is the trick? There are times when I don’t have a care in the world and I claim a refreshing daytime sleep in a rare victory. Not a power nap but a deep sleep from which you want no immediate return. I have woken up happy from some of those, especially when I wake to something I look forward to that I can take at my own pace, and not something compulsive that waits to drag me back in. But there are times when sheer fatigue has led me to toss my cares in a heap and let sleep claim me. And both these sorts of times are rare. Maybe an excess of fatigue makes you lose the connection across the border and you lie awake instead?

Picture reflects pre-sleep mood

Could we just forget about sleeping  and stay almost asleep - indefinitely?