Sleep is my Enemy
I have no clue how some people can go to bed and fall asleep just like that. I never could do that. Maybe only a few rare times when I was so exhausted (sleepless nights) that I basically passed out. My brain talks all the fucking time. I rarely have a quiet mind. So much to think about. So when I go to bed my brain is like: oh cool, is just you and me! No more eyes to see!! 🙂
So I start thinking about stuff. Usually it would take me 30 min to an hour to fall asleep when everything goes according to plan. But the tiniest of stress can push that to several hours or no sleep at all. If I know tomorrow I have to wake up at a particular time, that’s it, almost bye bye sleep. I can’t handle the talking brain. Cannot calm it down. Not that it stresses me the whatever I have to do tomorrow particularly, but knowing I HAVE to sleep NOW, makes my brain even more so active and unable to sleep.
I am also a light sleeper so I can wake up at the faintest sound. And when I wake up, bye bye going back to sleep. Am also bothered by light so I need to sleep in a very dark environment. I HATE mornings for all sorts of reasons.
Oh and I always have really vivid dreams that feel 100% real and influence my mood after I wake up.
Welcome to my world!
Falling Fool-me asleep
When I was in highschool it was normal for me to either sleep 2-3h a night and go to school, or not sleep at all and I will sleep after I came back. I tried so many things to make me fall asleep and since then, some 20 years later, I found some things that worked.
What does not work:
- Getting myself tired only makes me tired and unable to sleep. Double the trouble.
- Not eating a few hours before going to bed makes me unable to sleep and hungry.
- No screen time before bed makes 0 difference. I do not use my phone anyway, so no screen time means no laptop for me.
- Watch something nice then fall asleep….mnot…because when that thing ends then what? I have to close my laptop now? That wakes me the fuck up. Also, when I watch something I tend do pay attention.
- Listen to something nice and fall asleep. Again I pay attention to what I listen and then wait for it to end in order to maybe try to sleep after.
- Count sheep – is this working for anyone? This is the silliest stupid thing…never works. Replace sheep with whatever you want and is the same.
- A little red wine before bed…makes me dizzy and even more chatty in my head
There are a lot more things that I tried, but never tried sleeping pills (except once and didn’t quite work) or other supplements that people recommended to me over the years. Why? Because I would REALLY want to not be dependent on these “extra” things. But if sleep becomes a danger to my health, which is becoming now, I am willing to try.
What kinda works…
Best is to not be stressed or excited. I have no idea how that feels lately since after Sasha cheated and dumped me I cannot be no-stress. But usually when I was not stressed everything was a lot more manageable. Also, feeling too excited about something is equally as bad for the sleep since I think about that exciting thing all night.
Repeated stories in my head…
Over the years I tried to fool my brains with a lot of shit. At one point I was imagining I see myself in the bed, from above, and any thought I have there was a laser gun under my bed shooting it down. Oh I should check this website tomorrow…BAAAM! The laser shoots that down. Bam Bam, shooting thought after thought. Worked a little but that itself became the game my brain was busy with, so didn’t work in the end.
But then I realized I have to imagine myself doing something repetitive and nice. And here I am going to share with you my very private world from inside of my head.
With the motorhome on an endless straight road in a desert area…kinda like this:
I am inside a cozy motorhome and in the back of it it can open like a van and I sit there looking back….like this (made with Gemini to be able to show you what I mean 🙂 ) :
The motorhome runs super slow, like walking phase. I observe the road in the back how it slowly moves away from me, with the middle road interrupted line as a measure of movement…..line by line by line…. To make it less boring I at times let go of stuff from the motorhome, like paint hahha….that drips down from the back of the motorhome creating a new pattern that I can kinda control… Like this 🙂
I guess this is the perfect time to test these AI models for image generation to bring my fantasies to life :)).
At times I imagine throwing little bouncy balls….
I guess it works because it is an infinite road so no surprises while “driving”. I look back so I already know the map, the territory, and let it drift away from me. The territory is repeating. Me throwing stuff is a nice addition that also repeats.
At times I imagine I have a rope attached to the motorhome and I am on Rollerblades swinging left and right at slow speeds:
I mostly face the motorhome (so not not get distracted) and the focus is on the feeling of drifting left and right, the wind, the quietness….
So far the AI is doing a great job! 🙂
I have used the endless motorhome tactic for many years now and it has worked quite a bit. I can make it “fun” by throwing more stuff from the motorhome haha, or replace the Rollerblades with a skateboard or bicycle….just to not get bored of it and make it interesting for me to want to think about it for a bit.
My private WONDER room!
Another more recent tactic (a few years old) is to create a fun room that’s only for me. The room is at the last floor of a very tall building at the edge of a land strip. Kinda like this (all with Gemini):
Maybe I imagined it like that for both safety and privacy. Safety because is not in the middle of the ocean, and privacy since is a tall building and I am living on the entire top floor. No neighbors! Please take me seriously!
I imagine myself inside that massive open room with windows on all sides. I can see the sea, some mountains, the sunset and sunrise. But there is no noise form outside and no one can see or bother me :). That is crucial.
Inside the place I have a calm swimming pool with warm water. Imagine a square pool that is connected with another square pool at the other end of the room via canals – water is shallow, maybe chest deep, and there is a water stream that can push me in a loop from one pool to the other. Basically if I want I will lay down on a floatie and get pushed around in the warm water stream. I can change the floaties and at times I imagine one looks like a French fried potato, another like a couch, or a giant TV….just to make it more creative. The important part is again the floating…the repeat of it all….
Something like this…
Looks better in my head but well…
In this huge apartment I also have other “toys”. One is a toy train big enough so I can sit on it and drive around the entire apartment on its tracks. Train, tracks, predictable….self working….nice :). Gemini did this and I will leave it as such :)))
Idk who that man is but for sure he is not part of my plot. Actually no people are because people you cannot control and they will bother me. Is just me, playing with my toys :)).
PAUSE.
Stop judging me! Mhokey?! 🙂 These are desperate ways for me to be able to fall asleep. I had severe insomnia for years. One time took me 12h to fall asleep I remember so well because I had to take breaks to eat. This may be funny, all of it, but the lack of sleep can become a health hazard since I simply cannot fall asleep with my always-on-brain.
Ok now that you calmed down your tits, let’s continue.
I also have a comfy and huge bed and a huge screen and at times I imagine staying in bed and watching something that is blurry….so no details, but is a nature documentary likely :).
I have a lot of things there and I already know them, so when I go to sleep I know the territory, and I can jump from one repeating action to another, from floating in this cool pool to riding that train with that guy.
There is a calm scenery outside and the huge windows give me a more relaxed state while not being bothered by anyone.
Last one: the wheels in the sand.
I have a more simple one now. I am in a 4×4 type of car trying to climb a little hill made out of sand. All I do is replace the wheels with different kinds of them. Some are con shaped, some square, some round with spikes, some are like little legs, and I imagine how they turn in the sand, slowly, going up…. that’s all. 🙂
And I observe the patterns they leave behind too….
Slow, repeating, different wheels, and I will never climb that hill just a constant way of moving up in different ways.
So yah, how to fall asleep for me is a lot of WORK. I need to fool my brain into falling asleep. I didn’t mention that I use an app for Brown Noise (brrrrrr) that is quite loud and I leave it on all night. That does wonders at muting all other sounds. I also use night googles and I make the motorhome super dark inside. And usually sleep in sandwich mode with my head squashed in between 2 pillows for more “protection” from the outside world.
You see I was always a night owl and always lived with my parents or others, and these people wake up early and make noises so I had to protect myself from these creatures. Loud brown noise + dark room + night googles work well.
The only period of time when I was able to fall asleep in like 10-15 minutes was in the first year or two when I was together with Sasha. I was so happy and relaxed and cuddling with another human also helps. I was having a great great sleep.
In time our relationship dried out some…and ironically enough now because of her I cannot sleep. After she cheated and dumped me almost none of my techniques work.
The only way now is to add more to the mix. I put some podcasts about the universe, like Startalk, or listen to Brian Cox talking about the universe. Now I need for my brain to be distracted form the outside else I have too many dark thoughts and cannot sleep. Even in my cozy top floor room I quickly get sad and frustrated at Sasha, worried about my future…cannot relax.
I am writing this after some 3-4h of sleep and 2 months of horrible or no sleep…
But at least the AI is great for allowing me to represent these ideas. I can put my dreams into reality now :)…speaking of dreams….
Dreams are amazing and fucked up.
As far as I am aware we all dream, but some do not remember much. I ALWAYS remember. Even if I take a 20 minutes nap it feels like an adventure. My dreams are so vivid that became memories. I know in detail dreams I had many years ago, even when I was in school. I remember places, things I’ve done, fucking shit at times I get nostalgic about DREAMS!
In my dreams at times I go to places I dreamed before about (invented) and I am like “Oh I know this place, I dreamed about it before” and continue with exploring it again. I have many dreams in which I say “Ok is a dream let’s do stuff” and I do. Or I even wake myself up intentionally. Everything is so vivid and real for me, this now, writing the blogost, might as well be a dream.
Lucid dreaming? I think that is nonsense. You are not “lucid” you simply dream about dreaming and you get fooled when you wake up thinking that you were in control when dreaming and realized you were dreaming. I dreamed a bunch of times that “Oh I am dreaming let’s wake up” and I woke up, but not in reality, in another dream where I was like “haha I woke up so I was dreaming” while I was still dreaming that….:)). So is all random invented stories – this is what I think.
Is cool when you are attacked by so many zombies and I can pause them and add into the mix a huge machine gun, then I press Play and kill them all. Or when it becomes overwhelming I say “That’s it…stop it” and the dream stops so I don’t get too stressed. Is cool when I fly, go underwater and breath without any gear, when I travel between planets…but also horror when I dream about seeing on the horizon a Jupiter like planet rising up….overwhelming….knowing we are getting fucked now…. 😀
This is what Gemini could do out of the past 4 paragraphs (lame):
My dreams a far better than these stock footage crap….
Now here is the massive problem I am facing…
To fall asleep is a huge task for me. Mr Cox shouts on top of the Brown Noise about the universe. I am forcing myself to ride that fucking little train in that penthouse or throw shit out of a slow moving motorhome. Night googles, head squashed between 2 pillows. What where you saying mr Cox? Entanglement oh….yah…cool shit let me listen to it while float in this pool and try to ignore the fucking HEAT in the summer…
Hello, this is Sasha, remember when I told you I love you a bunch of times when I was in Iceland, or good night, or sent you nice emoji and we talked about the cool nature in Iceland, and maybe if we can get the motorhome there, or how we miss each other?? Remember that?
Yes…that was really cool and I was so eager to see you again when you come back.
Sasha: Oh sorry I met this ice climbing guide and it was free to go with him climb some glaciers.
Oh, nice.
Sasha: Sorry I also fucked him. A few beers, you know, nothing emotional….so stupid of me. Oh and I love this solo hiking so I want us to break up.
Oh fuck.
And so Sasha somehow always ends up in my protected penthouse or anywhere I try to isolate myself from the world. I randomly think about what she did and that spirals me down a black hole.
MR COXXX!! Entanglement SIR! Entanglement! Tell me more!
At times I am able to listen to a podcast for an hour or so, coupled with me being super tired from the little sleep I get these days, and I fall asleep.
HELLOOO this is Sasha, said my fucking dream. We are fighting and we break up. Oh now we are doing great, we travel with the motorhome, how niceeee…
I wake up always depressed because it is all so real to me. I either go through the same shitty breakup with her, or I dream about us when we were together and wake up depressed.
Actually a bunch of times I had nightmares that we broke up, to only wake up and see her next to me and I was so relieved.
I am just saying that for me even small stressful events would mess me up with my sleep and dreams, and this event with Sasha was so terrible that I struggle every single night. It is less awful now so I hope with time it will become a non-issue…
I am trapped in a sort of torture, and sleep for me has become a massive challenge. To fall asleep is WORK, and then after I go to sleep to put up with the many nightmares I have, is TORTURE. I wake up so often and struggle to get back to sleep.
Right now is 1PM and I will try to take a nap if I can…I hope I do not dream stupid shit again but probably I will.
Ok…enough for today! I will survive this one too.
