Mental Meanderings

Trying To Stay Awake

You know you're body is bouncing on sleep debt when you resort to writing a blog entry to stay awake. lol But it's an hour till midnight and I figure I'll wait up that long and get the 7 hours I'm getting used to. It should be 8 hours but hey, there are already too few hours in the day that odds are I'll never see 8 hours sleep in a row for a long time. Ohh actually, school holidays soon. WOOT!!! Six weeks of sleeping in. *grins wickedly*

Sleep is a strange thing. Our bodies need it to rest and recharge. To restore the energy used during the brutal days and to give our tired minds, eyes, and muscles a rest. Mine is the kind of mind that doesn't do too well without enough rest and for the past week or so I've been having 4 and 5 hours a night instead of the recommended 8 or even the pushing it 7.

Too little sleep is bad for me. I already know this and I have no excuse for not being strict with myself. I set the midnight curfew on myself when I'd learnt what an effect being up to all hours had on me and my moods and I'm usually pretty good about keeping it. It really does make a huge difference to get enough sleep and yet, I'm nocturnal by inclination, forced to human hours by the fact that my daughter's school expects her ten to nine each weekday. lol

The strange thing about sleep and me is dreaming. Or rather the lack of it. If I dream I certainly don't remember doing so. Some would say this is a good sign that when I'm sleeping I'm on the deeper levels. Sure I've had the occassional dream but it's not the sort of thing that happens nightly. In fact when I do have a dream it's often something I should pay attention to. Sometimes it's an important aspect of a story I'm working on or something I should write in the future.

There is a storm dream that recurred for weeks until I too notes knowing that it would one day become a book I worked on. I still haven't settled into working on that one but it's there, noted down and every aspect brilliant recall in my mind when I ask for it. It's strange how that works. Dreams can be fleeting and forgotten when you rise to consciousness but if you note them down while they're fresh and you're in the dream between waking and sleeping it imprints them on the conscious mind as well as the subconscious.

Sometimes I wish I would dream more frequently. Dreams can be insightful and it might be interesting to have my mind entertained while I sleep. Then again I suspect I give it such a workout doing the million and one things I do each day that it faints into exhaustion when I hit the sheets. lol Sometimes, like now, it's already passed out long before I sleep and my body, my fingers are left to wander about astranged from it.

Alas the land of nod is calling and calling and I'm trying to ignore it just a while longer. Floating in that absent space where I'm not really quite awake and I'm definately not sleeping because I'm here and I'm typing. Sure, not making a whole lot of sense but I don't know anyone who can sleeptype. lol *ponders* Now wouldn't that be something? OMG I wish I could sleep-novel-write. *grins* Talk about lazy or what? lol

Wouldn't it be fantastic to go to sleep one night and wake up with a few thousand words in the morning? It would be even better if those words make sense.

*sighs* I know, wishful half-asleep dreams. lol No one said I had to be lucid at 40 minutes to midnight after quite a few days of 4 hours sleep. You know I was feeling out of it yesterday, down and depressed like I was this morning too and went to bed earlier hoping to catch up on that sleep. It didn't work, I lay there tossing and turning, worrying, and completely in my own head about everything. Eventually I pulled a book to my fingers and lost myself into other peoples lives.

I suspect an alternative might be to start thinking about losing myself in Emily and Jake's lives. I'm certainly struggling enough trying to give Jake some substance. Emily less so, she's realistic to me. I guess I have trouble believing in Jake. Too disallusioned to believe something sweet and kind and loving is out there still. Especially the right someone who can be patient and understanding for Emily. I'm probably too close to Emily to be objective enough on the matter but then I couldn't write her well if I didn't adore her so much. What is the point of creating a happy ending for someone you don't much like? Those characters are the ones you give unhappy endings too. *chuckles*

Of course now I'm in an Emily and Jake tangent. Perhaps I should wrap this and see if I can churn out some freewriting about them in the half hour I have before midnight since there doesn't seem much else to be doing. *grimaces* Ok, just the idea of that turned me completely off. Barriers go up. What is with this anxiety I have about my book? It seriously can't be as bad as my churning emotions tell me. Afraid of failure, afraid of success, it's all the same debiliting BS that keeps me frozen in time. *sighs and takes a deep breath then sighs again*