Cigarettes, coke, and long, long, nights.

I recall as a young child always having to go to bed way too early. Who goes to bed when its still day light anyhow? And looking back I remember a peculiar smell of those nights, that was associated with bed time for DJ. maybe the sheets dried on the line as nothing smells quite as nice as laundry when dried in the sun outdoors.

Yet my sleeping habits as far as time to go to bed, changed after a couple of accidents, which somewhere along the lines seemed to set the pattern for changing my life. I think folks kept me awake after I was nine, as late as possible, because I was less trouble awake than asleep, when seizure activity would kick off and make sleep impossible not just for me, but for my parents too. So, hey I got seizures and got up to stay up late!!! WooHoo!! But no one would let me watch scary things on the TV saying I would have nightmares forever!! BooHoo!!!

But, I think those early years of seizing while I slept, and being kept up much later than I otherwise would have been, set the pattern for erratic sleep habits for a life time. And back then, as well as now, I can wake up after sleeping a full 12 hours sometimes, and before I've had time to drink my freshly made coffee are asleep again, in my chair, as if I'd took a sleeping pill.

Time passed and I became determined to reclaim my life and the years lost from any kind of normal living, and sleep seemed like it could be time better spent than flat out on ones bed oblivious and doing absolutely nothing through the night hours.

And still at nights I can't sleep. Though this is probably due to some degree by a life time of bad time keeping patterns for sleep, also because I get these large explosions going off in my head which seem to start upon me starting to doze, I often startle at the slightest sound, thinking it is kicking off, and afraid of the affects on waking if it is.. not to mention, pain, twitching and itching...so sleep becomes pretty impossible.

My dad looked in on me twice this morn as I sleep. I went off at after nine am after a full night awake. He said I was scratching my face like" someone possessed", and yet I don't remember and actually thought sleep though late had been a good quality. As often the scratching wakes or disturbs me, or prevents me from sleeping and this morning I was oblivious of it till my dad said.

I used to notice a correlation between full moons and not sleeping at all on those nights. My friends used to joke about my werewolf tendencies in this respect. Yet, often on those night I would go out the following day on no sleep for a 12-14 hour day out, and this was up to within the last five years.

Time changes, circumstances change, and I'm still looking to solve the mystery of sleep. people say don't drink caffeine, and not doing so has made not a scrap of difference. People say drink warm milk, the thought of that makes me gag.

So, I spend the night, thinking, reading, writing, sipping coke or coffee, and still wondering if the mystery of sleep and the proper method of it, will ever be unfolded to me. Which fulfills my desire of not wasting time sleeping I don't need to, and proves to me even in this state of health I can keep going on little or no sleep better than most people can. I occasionally watch TV at night, though infrequently, but still don't watch horror movies of the slash 'em variety, because I know I'd still have nightmares.


So much can change, and yet patterns and habits can be set for life, as can predispositions. |