Musings of an Insomniac

Insomnia [in-som-nee-uh]:  chronic inability to fall asleep or to enjoy uninterrupted sleep. 

For myself it used to be one or the other; either I would lay in bed for hours not able to fall asleep before finally passing out, or I'd fall asleep easily only to be woken up by various things every 30 or so minutes.  This week...this month...it's both.  On those rare occasions I can fall asleep it's typically 15-20 minutes before the dreams start.  And although it's never been the case, I always convince myself at least twice that it's worth trying to fall back asleep.  I do, for another 15-20 minutes and then I dream again.  Eventually the fear of dreaming causes enough anxiety that the short spans of sleep cease being a possibility.

When I try to sleep and can't, or do and have these dreams, I am far more exhausted the following day than if I just stay up.  So every night (or more likely morning) I weigh the benefits of sleep against the risk of exhaustion and more often than not, decide it's not worth the risk.  Two weeks ago I slept twelve hours.  Last week, six.  I have never been one to require a lot of sleep, six hours a night is normally the most I can do.  But six hours a week has a tendency to impede function and rationality. 

On one of these sleepless nights a week or so ago I decided to finally transfer my files from my old desktop to my laptop.  The desktop is the computer I had in college and it hasn't even been turned on in years.  I began to randomly open documents and came across one I wrote for College Writing II back in spring of 2003 titled "Sleep".  Apparently eight years ago I was in the midst of a similar struggle and wrote an explanatory essay on how to train yourself to sleep less.  I like to think I'm much different than I was as a freshman in college, but I guess some things are reluctant to change.

Absolutely everyone - doctors, friends, family - seems to have an opinion on resolving this issue for me.  But what if I'm afraid of the resolution?  Inside my head there are so many different brands of crazy.  At this point I'm unable to differentiate the crazy caused by sleep deprivation from the rest.  What if I begin to sleep regularly and become a normal well-rested person but all the crazy is still there?  At what point do I have to accept that I'm just not well?  Some things are hard to think about, so I'll choose to be sleep-deprived for one more day.