By moonlight

"But there's no release, no peace
I toss and turn without cease
Like a curse, open my eyes and rise like yeast"

 

Insomnia, by Faithless

 

Ok, so except for that last bit about the yeast (?), the rest sounds pretty accurate - but with a twist. Imagine being really really tired, going to sleep, entering the blessed state of sleeping and relaxing (Amen, Reverent!), and then waking up every 45' or so throughout the night. Aaaaaall night. For almost two months now.

Funny how the mind plays tricks on you under such conditions. You start off quite lightly, just feeling a bit tired, but "oh well, I'll sleep earlier tonight and make up for it". Then you start feeling a bit ill, just wondering if you're coming down with something, and as a result you feel you need to sleep. Which leads to you not sleeping, of course. And then you start having problems concentrating during the day, you just can't focus on things for too long, plus you get random events of extreme sleepiness. But you sort of expect all that.

The fun begins after all that. You find your concentration not completely gone, as before, but actually working at completely random instances, switching on and off in mid-sentence, leaving you wondering just what the hell you were talking/thinking about. You become uncertain of what people are saying to you, you think you understand what they say, only to find that they said something quite different which you forgot a few moments after they stopped speaking - "I'm sorry, what have you been saying for the past 3 hours?". Your grip on reality becomes less firm, and you're wondering what actually happened. Oh, and you start hearing/imagining things during the night, as you wake up again and again to noises that aren't really there (the rhythmic inexistent bass line is my all time favourite, followed close by the ultrahigh pitch).

The doctor has prescribed Valiums in the past, but these make me a nice person and, as such, upset my usual way of acting and thinking. So thanks, but no thanks. Also, usual remedies don't seem to work - let me be clear though, I absolutely refuse to go jogging after work, simply on principle.

On the same night theme, I've just finished reading a book entitled "Midnight's Children", by Salman Rushdie - highly recommended, if a bit difficult to follow at time.

I can't get no sleep...

 

(Rise like yeast... mmm?)