4b- Sleep

I hate going to bed. I don't know why. Seems boring I guess. There are so many things to do, to explore, sleep seems so mundane. Invariably I stay up way too late. Putzing around and collecting useless (but interesting) information. Always deducting minutes from the amount of sleep I'll get and weighing it against the research. If it wasn't proven that our bodies need sleep I would probably find away to get out of it.

It's not the actual sleeping that I dislike. It's the time between awake and asleep when you're waiting for sleep that's no fun. They say it only takes 7 minutes for the average person to fall asleep. Such a waste of time. I wish there was a wake/sleep switch that you could hit. 

It's the only time in the day that my brain has nothing to do. My most recent  endeavor while waiting for sleep is customizing my dreams. I plan what I want to dream about and whom. They're pretty tricked out dreams. That's pretty fun. 

I'm not sure if it works or not- actually it does. I'm at about a 50% success rate. It might be lower but I can't tell at which point the customization lends to the actual dream. What is the point that my unconscious mind takes over the conscious one? No idea. I do know that at least sometimes my dreams are exactly what I want them to be. And that when I wake up I remember that the extension of the dream was pretty awesome too.

Sometimes I can change them, the dreams, mid rem cycle. They tell me that's called lucid dreaming. I'm not sold on that either. I think maybe I kinda wake up and just order up a different dream. Who knows?

What I do know is that currently my pre-sleep agenda is the following- 

1) Adjust the fan

2) Read the Bible

3) Read the bible some more, wait for my eyelids to get heavy

4) Turn off the light

5) Immediately realize I'm not sleep yet

6) Check the time (run the sleep algorithm) 

7) Sigh

8) Try to Blog

9) Remember I don't have signal in the basement

10) Sigh again

11) Turn on a downloaded Radio Lab

12) Listen to the whole thing

13) Run another algorithm

14) Sigh

15) Check the time

16) Tell myself if I'm awake in 7 minutes I'll check the time again (I know, that makes no sense)

17) Decide what to dream 

 I recognize that I could just skip to number 16 but that is always the absolute last alternative to pre- sleep. My hope is that somewhere between 1 and 17 I'll nod off. I can't wait for a better bedtime routine. 

In the meantime I just ran the sleep algorithm. By the time I post this I will miss my 8 hour a night sleep goal. Sleep, such a bother. Too bad there isn't a sleep pill. As in "take instead of sleep" pill. Oh well. I better head to bed. 

Goodnight.

-Dewb