I have a plan: I’m sleeping in tomorrow. You know, it’s been almost a year since I’ve had a job that kept me up all hours working crazy shifts, but it seems to be a habit that I can’t break. And, as I may have mentioned in the past, I’m one of those folks who needs lots of sleep. About nine hours is my requirement, though even without a job to wake me, there are lots of times I don’t get that much sleep, and eventually it catches up with me.
That is especially true this week, though it’s not so much lack of sleep this time around, as a lack of restful sleep. It started Monday when I went to bed (too late) and had a bit of difficulty falling asleep. My brain was buzzing like crazy with all sorts of thoughts about the new semester, and once I did fall asleep, I tossed and turned until the alarm finally went off about half an hour later. At least, that’s the way it felt when I woke up after that restless night.
That’s not all that unusual really, though; happens to me often if I’m worried about oversleeping, which I was a little bit that night, so I didn’t worry about it too much. But it happened again Tuesday, and Wednesday. I’m hoping to break the cycle tonight.
But the most troublesome part is the dreams. I’m not even sure what all they’ve been about, but I know that they’ve been pretty weird, and contributed to my sleeplessness. There have been family gatherings in strange environments, aliens, gun runners (or maybe drug dealers; it’s unclear, but some sort of sleazy criminal type), burglars, school buildings, jam-packed highways, barking dogs. Basically, a jumble of incoherent images and events that fade quicker than I can wipe the sleep from my eyes and begin the day. All I know for sure is that I wake—whether it be in the morning or still in the dead of night—with a tingling feeling of unease that doesn’t go away easily. I don’t like that at all.
Out of idle curiosity, I ran some of those images through an online dream interpreter. Though I’m not sure I believe in such things entirely, I can’t say I was too surprised to see that most of the things I looked up pointed to some sort of chaos going on in the waking world. This week has certainly felt a little chaotic, trying to settle in to a new semester and all. But now that all but one of my classes have held their first meeting, I’ve got a clearer idea of what is in store for the semester, and I’ve allowed myself a little bit of time to panic as I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into, I’m hoping that things will begin to settle down now. And I’m hoping that my sleep will reflect that—soon.
So, tonight, I’m going to bed and I’m not even going to set my alarm. I’m hoping there will be no tossing and turning, and if there is, I’m hoping that I will reach eventually reach the point of such exhaustion that a deep sleep will be able to envelop me. Because, as I said, I’m sleeping in tomorrow.
“For sleep, riches and health to be truly enjoyed, they must be interrupted.” ~Jean Paul
Do you ever have strange dreams that disturb your sleep?
