Kick, turn, roll, flip — it’s the regular exercise I get every night as I try and fall asleep,
While I am appreciative my body is trying to get in that workout, the timing is lacking. While most are blissfully resting their heads on soft cool pillows, I am not. Instead, I am fighting thoughts of what is to come the next day, what took place that day and listening to the creaks of the house play with my imagination. Sleep has long been my enemy, this year I vowed to take up war against it.
I started young in my battle with the concept of sleeping. As a baby I was so difficult to put to bed my mom would have to drive me around the city until I would finally doze off. There was also a time when I also would have the craziest dreams that I couldn’t decide if I was awake or sleeping.
Quite often I would have a Blair Witch Project type of scenario run through my bedroom where I could swear that someone was standing in the corner of my room in a trance staring at the wall. My eyes would slightly open, my head seemed to be in a fog, and with all my might I could not move my arms or legs. Not the most comforting thing to wake up to, or to try and fall asleep after.
A recent poll commissioned by CBC News found that six out of 10 Canadians get about one hour less than the six to eight hours of sleep experts say most adults need in order to awaken feeling refreshed and able to perform optimally through the day. Guilty as charged.
But, I can revel in the fact I am not alone. I once had a roommate whose weird dreams must have had an impact on his rest, or at least his girlfriend’s. Late one night I was watching television when my roommate came sauntering in from his room across the hall and was trying with all his will to flip the seat up on my television so he could go pee. Thankfully, he didn’t figure out just how to do that. I found out this was a common adventure he would go on to different places in the house, and it was not out of the ordinary to hear him yell, sing and have full conversations all while asleep.
Comedian Mike Birbiglia shed light on his fear of sleep on the iTunes podcast This American Life. Birbiglia explained how he once dreamed he was in the Olympics participating in the dust-bustering event. He won third place and promptly was told the judges reconsidered and he actually won the gold medal. Climbing to the top of the podium it began to get wobblier and wobblier. He woke up only to find himself surrounded by pieces of his TIVO after falling off his bookcase, er, podium.
As a comedian he travels to perform, and having read about his sleep-walking condition he knew he was supposed to create a relaxing environment before he was to sleep. One particular night he was watching a news broadcast about war before he shut his eyes. He drifted into a dream where military personnel were in his room explaining a guided missile was targeted at the hotel room with its co-ordinates set on him. He realized at that moment in order to be the hero and save the hotel he would have to jump out the window. Yes, the closed glass window.
Birbiglia leaped through his second-storey hotel window, got up and started running. As he was running through the hotel parking lot it slowly dawned on him what he had just accomplished as the sleep lifted into consciousness. I can only imagine the story the night desk clerk was thinking when he came back in standing in his underwear, bleeding from cuts and explaining he needed a key to his room and to go to the hospital.
So here I am, it’s well past midnight and I am awake. Sitting in bed I am tweaking this column, counting the letters on my screen like sheep. Maybe next week I can dream of getting some zzz’s, but for now it’s time for my nightly exercise.
Kristi Patton is a reporter with the Penticton Western News.
