Bedside Manners (or Raging River of Thought)

I don't know if it qualifies as insomnia, but I often have trouble getting to sleep. This is one of the main factors contributing to my desire to increase the length of a day by a few hours - believing that staying up longer will make it easier to finally fall asleep when the time comes, without sacrificing sleeping hours. (The other major factor is my hatred of being forced to wake up prematurely). Alternatively, I suspect that if I did more throughout the day - particularly more physical activities - I might be tired enough by the end of the day that I'd be able to fall asleep easier. Well, however it may by alleviated, the problem as I see it is related to the raging beast that is my mind. When I shut off the lights and climb into bed, the distractions of the physical world melt away, and my mind is free to explore. It runs off into patterns of thought that keep me awake, rather than allowing me to drift off to sleep. And the longer I lay in bed trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep, the more frustrating it gets. Usually, it eventually happens, but every once in awhile, my mind just refuses to shut off. And what's particularly annoying, is when I get that feeling that I need to document what I'm thinking about - like when I get a great idea about something, and I want to write it down before I forget it. It's annoying because on the one hand, I want to stay in bed and try to fall asleep, but on the other hand, I feel this urge to get up and stay up and pursue the idea.

On a related note, I also do a lot of thinking in the shower. In this case, I know that I'll be out and back in my room within the hour, so if I have any great ideas, I can just remember to write them down after I get out - unlike when I'm lying in bed, and I'm afraid I'll fall asleep and then I won't remember at all what I was thinking about before I drifted off. Still, for some things, I put a lot of importance on the exact wording of things, and oftentimes, if I don't capture that precise wording, the idea won't have nearly the impressive appeal to me as it originally had. This is a problem when I'm thinking about a topic of discussion, and I find a great way to articulate my stance. I want to preserve those words I used to frame it that way, but I can't very well write something down while I'm in the shower, and it just wouldn't be feasible to hop out of the shower everytime I think of something new. Sometimes I go to painstaking efforts to memorize exact phrasings of things while I'm in the shower, so that I can write them down after I get out. This is actually a great way to exercise my memory skills (something I've always prided myself on), but it is a lot of effort (usually more than I'm willing to expend on most issues), and one potential trouble is that if I take the time to memorize the first couple of sentences, it might actually stunt my thought process in terms of coming up with the next few sentences. So then I come up against a pretty interesting conundrum. Do I focus on memorizing what I have, making sure not to lose it, or do I let myself follow the thought through, knowing that I might very well engage myself in an enlightening inner monologue that I'll never be able to duplicate?

Well, if it hasn't sunk in yet, I was lying in bed trying to get to sleep, and I started thinking about these very issues, and I felt it would make a good entry for my blog. At first I juggled the value of getting up and going with it against that of staying in bed and hoping I could remember enough in the morning. Guess which side I ultimately allied with? I think those first two paragraphs were pretty good though, so right now I'm gonna say it was worth it. Although, in addition to talking about my sometimes frustrating thought patterns, I thought I'd also mention a few things about my bedside manners.

One thing that I think might be a question on certain people's minds (as it's been asked of me at least once), is what the hell do I do with my hair when I go to sleep? Because I've heard at least one tale of a person with long hair who woke up choking with it wrapped around the throat, and subsequently ran off and got the hair cut. Although that person must not have valued their long hair much to get it cut off so easily, it does bring up a concern. I've only had significantly long hair for a few years (let's say, long enough that it could choke me), but in college, I ended up getting into the habit of pulling my hair up to the top of my head, after laying down in bed, and tying it off with a hair tie thingy, then letting the hair hang over the top of the bed. That way, I can toss and turn back and forth with minimal tangling and whatnot, and I don't have to constantly be concerned about where my hair is, since it pretty much stays in one place. I don't know what other people do with their long hair, if they braid it or what, but this system has worked fine for me so far. I actually wish I knew more about hair stuff, because girls can do so many cool things that guys just never learn. It's like a secret art.

I like a soft, but pretty flat pillow. Those super-fluffy pillows can be really luxurious, and nice to lay on, but I have a hard time sleeping on one, because the pillow fluffs up all around your head, and that makes it hard to breathe clearly. Speaking of pillows, I happen to have a rather large mattress, and while I love to spread my body out, my pillow stays on one half (actually more like 3/4's), with the remaining quarter (the side of the bed away from the wall) hosting a stack of two really fluffy pillows, creating a kind of pillow wall that obstructs my immediate view of the area just beside the bed and the rest of the room, while I'm lying down in place. Why is this? One simple reason. After I had my sleep paralysis episode a year or so ago, I became very paranoid about an evil presence kneeling down beside my bed to watch me (which is exactly what happened during the episode), so just like you throw the covers over your head to protect yourself from the monsters in the dark of your room, I put those pillows there so I wouldn't have to be staring out into the darkness beside the bed, wondering if something might be there. Wow, that sounds so childish, but damn, if you've experienced what I've experienced, you'd understand.

As for covers, I have a nice stack of a bunch of comforters, and I use a varying percentage of that stack throughout the year. In the coldest winter months (like right now), I use most of them, to keep warm, which I guess is about 4-6 layers (I had to take off two of the layers to block off the window...). In the summer, I only use 1 layer, and it's always the same layer on bottom, which just happens to be particularly comfortable for me. Speaking of being comfortable, there's nothing more comfortable than sleeping nude, and the only time I don't is when I can't. But even now, in the cold winter, there's nothing a layer of clothing can do that an extra blanket can't do - and the blanket doesn't restrict you as much, or create as much static friction. Even in college, during the times when I shared a room, I devised a system where I'd use the basket, that I tied to my bedside to sit my alarm clock on, as a place to keep my shorts after taking them off under the cover of the blankets, so that I could slip them on again in the morning before climbing out of bed. I don't remember exactly when or exactly why I started sleeping nude, but I do remember a period of adjusting myself to it. I'm sure I didn't have any specific ideas about nudism back then, but I must have recognized the comfort and simple joy of it at the time. And that's something that I haven't forgotten.

Sometimes, during the summer, it's so hot that even using the one blanket is too much. But for the longest time I've had an inborn aversion to sleeping without any covers. Maybe it's a natural thing - defense mechanism or something - but I've always felt vulnerable without being covered - particularly the feet. Whether it's monsters or the cold or just the space, I feel uneasy climbing into bed without having anything to cover me. On the other hand, when it's just too hot to be covered, I've learned to make compromises - mostly by covering myself as little as possible, balancing the feeling of being exposed with the feeling of being overheated. I like the image that I get in a lot of anime/manga series of Japanese people sleeping with a wide but rather short (perhaps folded over) blanket covering only their midsection. I wonder what the story behind that is, if that's a Japanese custom, if there's some reasoning behind it or something. I've tried it, and it's fun just because of the association I make with characters from anime, but it only works when I'm really hot, and even then I have to gradually unfold the blanket to cover myself up more as I cool down.

Boy, isn't this interesting? I think that's all of what I thought I'd mention. I did promise something about bedside manners, didn't I? Luckily, I haven't really been forced to share a bed with anyone I didn't want to, as a result of crowding or whatever (there was that one time I opted to sleep on the floor rather than share a bed with another guy, if you remember). I have had a little experience sharing a bed with a girl, however. There are all kinds of emotional benefits, waking up next to a girl you love and all, and the physical closeness, which is all pretty obvious. There have been times when I've been pushed out of bed though - inadvertently, but no less frustrating. Ah, I just remembered something else - positions! No, not sexual positions! I mean sleeping positions.

I've always been a side sleeper. I lay on my back to relax, but never to fall asleep. I don't specifically have a favored side, as far as I know, except that lately I've been falling asleep on a particular side - but I suspect that has to do with facing away from the light leaking in through the window. As far as sleeping on my stomach, it's the oddest thing. I had a friend/roommate in college that always slept on his stomach. And it kind of scares me, because there are certain connections I do not want to have with this person - and anything related to sleeping is one of them - but I've never slept on my stomach before, yet, after having lived with him for awhile, I started doing it. I honestly can't explain it. And it's a habit that I still haven't been able to completely shake off. I also have this particular pattern I place my arms in that usually gets me the most comfortable, and it's something that I also happened upon during college. It's like a criss-cross, where I'll have one arm directed upward, over the head of the bed, and the other directed outward, away from my face - but with the arms crossed. I dunno, this is weird stuff, and I'm suddenly starting to wonder if it's even all that interesting, and most importantly, if it was really worth getting out of bed for. Maybe now I'll be tired enough to fall asleep. Still won't make me feel any better when it's time to get up though...