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o for a sock full of sand that would descend
Thursday, 5 October 2006 10:59 pmI don't fall asleep easily. Habitually I lie awake for anything up to an hour before drifting off, while a random succession of thoughts drifts through my hyperactive head: ooh nice warm bed, did I put the car away, have I set the alarm, pillow's all lumpy, get off my foot, cat, bother, didn't send that mail, gosh that novel was weird and depressing, darned ADT guys talking in the road, Evil Landlord really clomps down the passage, get off my other foot cat, bugger didn't finish the marking, what's that weird noise, why isn't it the Tardis in my back yard, mmmm Dr. Who. Etc. Then I eventually drift off. Except Tuesday night, when the bloody process went on from about 10pm, when I went to bed, until at least 1.15 am, which is the last time I remember looking at the time, punctuated at uneven and unpredictable intervals by AAARGH NO BUGGER OOH MY LEG'S IN CRAMP. And hopping heavily across the floor trying to uncramp it, while swearing and falling over the cat.
Then I fell asleep, at some unspecified time post 1.15am, and spent the rest of the night sleepwalking.
I don't walk far when I sleepwalk (which I actually do quite often): I usually leap madly out of bed and rush to the door, waking up somewhere en route, possibly because, yet again, I've fallen over the cat. (There's a theme here). On Tuesday night I was having repetitive instances of my favourite anxiety dream, the one where there's some incredibly intricate, complicated piece of machinery behind the walls of the room. Everyone has assumed I have been looking after this on a regular basis for years and years and years, but in fact I have, with a sickening, sinking rush of guilt, only just realised it's there. (Tuesday's one had controls in the curtain rail, which means a couple of times I woke up standing on my bed fiddling with it. And falling over the cat).
Not having done the delicate, sustained, imperative things I should have done always leads to dire consequences in these dreams. On Tuesday night it was an inexorable sort of robotic contraption that, as a result of my failure, snapped automatically into action to make both my parents walk away from me very fast, backwards, enmeshed in the toils of some irresistible machine. I came to at least twice standing in front of the door tying my dressing gown cord, all ready to rush after them. Those moments are always a bit weird, it takes me a couple of minutes to actually wake up enough to identify the imperative as a dream, and to allow me to crawl back to bed* and more or less drift off into enough sleep to re-start the nightmare.
This went on until 4.30 am, at which point I suspect my battered psyche had decided enough was enough, and refused to go back to sleep on any terms. I got up at about 5am*, finished the marking, sent the e-mail, fed the cat and spent ten minutes gazing wistfully out into the back courtyard wishing the Tardis would arrive and take me away from all this. Then I went up to campus and gave a spirited impression of a total shambling zombie giving a first period tutorial on Neal Stephenson. I think I may have referred to the author as Iain Banks throughout, but fortunately none of the students were awake enough to notice.
If there's a god of sleep, he has it in for me, is all I can say. Last night I doped myself silly with cough mixture and 'flu meds, and slept like the aforementioned god had belted me over the ear with a sock full of sand.
* Falling over the cat.
Then I fell asleep, at some unspecified time post 1.15am, and spent the rest of the night sleepwalking.
I don't walk far when I sleepwalk (which I actually do quite often): I usually leap madly out of bed and rush to the door, waking up somewhere en route, possibly because, yet again, I've fallen over the cat. (There's a theme here). On Tuesday night I was having repetitive instances of my favourite anxiety dream, the one where there's some incredibly intricate, complicated piece of machinery behind the walls of the room. Everyone has assumed I have been looking after this on a regular basis for years and years and years, but in fact I have, with a sickening, sinking rush of guilt, only just realised it's there. (Tuesday's one had controls in the curtain rail, which means a couple of times I woke up standing on my bed fiddling with it. And falling over the cat).
Not having done the delicate, sustained, imperative things I should have done always leads to dire consequences in these dreams. On Tuesday night it was an inexorable sort of robotic contraption that, as a result of my failure, snapped automatically into action to make both my parents walk away from me very fast, backwards, enmeshed in the toils of some irresistible machine. I came to at least twice standing in front of the door tying my dressing gown cord, all ready to rush after them. Those moments are always a bit weird, it takes me a couple of minutes to actually wake up enough to identify the imperative as a dream, and to allow me to crawl back to bed* and more or less drift off into enough sleep to re-start the nightmare.
This went on until 4.30 am, at which point I suspect my battered psyche had decided enough was enough, and refused to go back to sleep on any terms. I got up at about 5am*, finished the marking, sent the e-mail, fed the cat and spent ten minutes gazing wistfully out into the back courtyard wishing the Tardis would arrive and take me away from all this. Then I went up to campus and gave a spirited impression of a total shambling zombie giving a first period tutorial on Neal Stephenson. I think I may have referred to the author as Iain Banks throughout, but fortunately none of the students were awake enough to notice.
If there's a god of sleep, he has it in for me, is all I can say. Last night I doped myself silly with cough mixture and 'flu meds, and slept like the aforementioned god had belted me over the ear with a sock full of sand.
* Falling over the cat.
