As previously mentioned in the pizza episode, I have sleep troubles. A lot of people do, sure. But how many do you know that, once a regular work-school schedule is lost, will immediately go from being up until 2 am to being up until 7 am? This is essentially every summer and winter -- whether I will it or not, I will be messed up for the remainder of the vacation. And the times get later and later, to the point that eventually I am going to sleep early again. I slept during each hour of the day at least once this past summer -- ever slept from 11 am to 7 pm before, and multiple "nights" in a row at that?
It just happened to me this Thanksgiving break. That very Tuesday night after we departed, I was up until 6 am. Granted, Zelda: Skyward Sword just came out and commanded my attention like a tank juggler, but I wasn't doing that the entire time. Some of it was watching The Familiar of Zero. Some was playing/reading Tsukihime. And during none of it was I tired. Thus, I did not go to sleep.
When hearing of my sleep troubles, most people say that I need to get help. But honestly, I feel like I don't need help. (First step of denial, right?) It's not that I don't get enough sleep, because when not in school, I do -- eight hours every, er, day. The problem is that, I think, internally, I can't justify going to sleep any earlier than 1 am. There's so much to do, like play video games, watch anime, and browse the internet.
Not only that, but I just can't will myself asleep; I have to actually be tired before I can conk out. Some people I know can just lay down and in five minutes they're gone. Me, it takes two hours or so. So I usually just don't bother, and do random shit until I'm tired, and then I can fall asleep in a half hour, because of another problem: I just can't stop thinking. Events of the day, story development, discussing my favorite stories with myself, fantasizing about being fabulous... there's always something going on in my head.
Even if I do manage to get on a regular 9 pm to 5 am schedule (it has happened, really), socializing inevitably happens, and it happens until fairly late at night, so I can't keep it up for more than a week, usually less.
I don't know if the solution is to get a 9-5 job and do that for the rest of my life. Rather than fixing my problem, I think I'd just be tired and miserable. The solution I'm most keen on is finding a job that suits my sleep schedule. So either graveyard shift at some creepy warehouse (awesome), or a writing job (also awesome). At least with the latter I could be putting my major to use, and getting plenty of rest while I'm at it.
I hear that. I'm up until around 6am most nights anyway, school or not. And even when I'm dog tired, sleep is still quite a process. There's so much information from the day to be processed and analyzed that I just can't stop thinking about it until it's all been shuffled away, and double checked.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it's sleep troubles if so many people are up so late. I'm always sleeping different times every day. I work overnights some nights, go to school some days, and play games or do homework other nights. I don't think that being up late is a problem unless it's physically draining you. I still find time to sleep, even having a sleep schedule that would make a normal person crazy.
ReplyDeleteI find myself doing the same thing as you! Though not to quite the extreme that you described here. When I'm not at school I end up going to bed later and later. I just don't ever find a good enough reason to go to bed.
ReplyDeleteCreepy warehouse sounds like a good plan. Shit, you could probably use something from that in the writing job. Awesome stuff.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, the world is more interesting at night. Everything just seems so much more intense, probably because you don't have that god-forsaken sun peeking through and putting a glare on the TV or computer screen or making everything so damn hot. Personally, when my sleep is screwed up beyond saving, I like going outside. When you take away the ability to see more than three feet in front of you, every sound becomes so unbelievably awesome. And creepy.
A lot of people get really hung up on sleep. They have this strange sort of mentality: "it's not like mine, so it must be wrong." Even people who should logically know better.It's somewhat annoying, really.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I tend to be of the opinion that I can sleep when I'm dead (I routinely go two to three days without sleeping, because after that hallucinations caused by being overtired basically kill any sort of value in a day), so it may not be the best idea to listen to me.
I wonder how it would work to have an on going discussion between essays. Sort of like a running theme, blog. I liked when you mentioned your Pizza Blog. that gave an odd connectedness. Does this idea limit you more that inspire. That's the problem I guess.
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