I love sleep. I love going to sleep when I'm tired. I love waking slowly when I don't have to get up, extending my sleep time, picking up the thread of a dream if I'm lucky, finally arising when I begin to be bored, when starting my day looks better than remaining horizontal.
2.
When I was in high school I stayed up as late as I could most nights and hated having to get up in the morning. There was a period during which I set my alarm clock for 3:00 AM just so I could experience the luxury of being very tired and being able to go back to sleep.
3.
Some people organize their lives around family. Some around a career. Some around becoming a recognized artist, writer, actor. The organizing principal of my life, the thing that has guided my choices, is the desire not to have to wake up to an alarm clock. Probably 350 days a year I manage that. (Aren't you jealous?)
4.
I love dreaming. I love remembering dreams. I love waking up from a dream and being able to fall back to sleep and return to it. I love easing into a world of dream logic and then being brought out of it by a noise and laughing at how silly but convincing that logic was.
5.
I hate nightmares. I hate waking up with that weird watery pain behind my knees when I couldn't run away fast enough and was about to be killed, or worse. Fortunately I probably have no more than one or two a year, so I still love sleep.
6.
When I was in college, I was very impressed with a poem by Heinrich Heine called Morphine. I still remember the ending:
Sleep is good. Better is death. In truthNow I think this is obviously a very depressed poem. My affection for it is a part of my affection for the clueless earnest sophomore I was - a sweet kid actually. I still agree with the first sentence, but as for death being better, only if you can dream and occassionally wake to savor the dreaming. And not being born! I just can't get behind that. Sleep is not obvlivion, and, as I said, I love sleep.
The best were never to have been born.*
*Gut is der Schlaf, der Tod ist besser -- freilich
Das beste wäre nie geboren sein.
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Comments: 43
I think I'll devote my retirement years (coming up way to quickly and not actually expected to be spent in retirement) to gaining this ability. I can't think of a more worthwhile passtime.
After reading this article, I'm more solid in my belief that I really do want to sleep.
This was a delightful piece.
I firmly believe that every full night's sleep I get extends my life by at least a day. Unless, of course, I get run over by a truck. But if I do, it won't be because I was tired.
15 hours. Now that's sleeping. Go for it!
I would gladly trade years of longevity for getting rid of the need to sleep.
Now aren't you glad you worship ME?
I don't spend that much on my bed, but I still spend more than on my clothes. George Clooney is definitely attractive. If only the fundies were correct and I could just choose to be gay, I'd choose it and then go for Clooney in a second.
Only good sleep around here is with meds! Might as well have fun!
I too enjoyed this poem you reference. And most anything else by Heinrich Heine. However, it's been a while, and I no longer recall the title of the poem that began with "ein Reiter durch das Bergtal zieht / mit traurig stillem Trab".
In my now-muddied mind that hasn't spoken German in over four years, I finish the verse as "all mimsy were the Borogoves / and the mome wraths outgrab".
By some dialectic process, this manages to butcher one of my favourite as well as one of my least favourite poems. Funny how that works.
Are you crazy? Wake her up? You can come over here and do it yourself if you're brave enough but I am not insane
She was bloody brilliant even at such a young age.
Lori - that is so funny. I had a friend who had a sister much younger than her. The sister didn't bother to speak much as a child, though she was able to. My friend was very difficult to get out of bed, so her mother would teach the sister phrases and send her in to my friend in the morning to shock her awake. The one I remember is, "The partisans are coming, the partisans are coming, get Benito to the wine cellar!"
Lennox - You've been productive. I'm dying to read all that stuff you posted yesterday. Later.
You get two guesses which poem is my favourite of the two. I will be sorely offended if you are wrong on your first guess.
Wake up. You owe me an email now. :)
I have to pick the one that makes the most sense to me. The Lewis Carroll.
Like you, I have no set time to get up. It's a great feeling, isn't it?
I hate to oversleep. It cuts into my nap time.
I spent the bulk of my life working rotating shifts, almost always regulated by alarm clocks ... I have been retired now for many years and never use an alarm ... though I did 'threaten' to do so for the very reason some of you mention.