Into the Night
Drew Starkey
“I can’t sleep”
is a phrase that has replayed itself many times during my nights of sleeplessness. These words, when squeezed together, form a thought that carries no meaning to me anymore. I’ve uttered it so many times that its weight is no longer acknowledged when I tirelessly lie awake in bed. I used to fear simply thinking this phrase; that is to say, I used to have an irrational fear of not being able to fall asleep at all. My first contact with insomnia was at the age of 13. This sleeplessness didn’t methodically work its way in to my sleep schedule, or lazily creep in to my room over a long stretch of time. Instead, one night of no sleep triggered the birth of an unsettled insomniac. Yes, although a little melodramatic, I consider this early period of insomnia as an introduction to a different version of myself. A new person was born in those lonely morning hours, where thoughts were strewn as wildly as the stars would paint a lost sky. Only, I didn’t want any stars. I wanted to sleep.
Sleep
Sleep patterns have always been a personal topic of interest. In the 21st century, we view sleep as distinct as we view wakefulness. The “eight-hour sleep” has been adopted to accommodate the fast paced work schedules of modern times. Due to this widely received practice, sleep is integrated into a two part system within the 24 hour day. We traditionally wake up in the morning, experience full consciousness during the remainder of the day, go to sleep after the sun has set, and then repeat the process. There were periods in human history where this was not the most accepted form of sleep though. In the 15th and 16th centuries, people experimented with segmented sleep. This entailed a “first sleep” and a “second sleep.” Individuals would sleep for four hours, awake for two hours in the night, and then fall back in to sleep for a second section of four hours. They experimented with the idea that sleep was meant to be explored as a malleable concept. Those individuals, who weren’t dictated by the airbrushed constraints of the modern centuries, saw sleep as an opportunity to discover new ways of thought. In those dark morning hours, they would often read, pray, brew tea, or meet with neighbors to talk with drowsy minds. The night hours haven’t always been viewed as dead periods. To many, the night was an opportunity to watch themselves act at a slower pace; just two intervals of dreaming between them and the spark of daylight.
Day
The day time is perfectly set in rotation to serve as a working stage. The sun nearly acts upon us like photosynthesis would on the greenery that screens the earth. Light filters through the eyes and projects the world around us in a magnificent display of color and geometry. It’s almost amusing that the simple allowance of one bodily sense motivates us to become active participants with our surroundings. The day lets us see things; therefore, we must do things. I love daylight hours. Energy pulses during these times and reminds us that we can contribute to the complexities of life through webs of interpersonal interaction. Friends, co-workers, lovers, strangers, enemies, mentors; all of which contribute to the constant connection we have with one another. Everything is active. Running. Focused. Overwhelming. Then, the light discolors and we all settle into ourselves, making night seem like a physical force that sits us down and orders the body to slip into rest. Golden showers of liveliness give way to the dark blue clouds of ease. When night strips away one of our senses, the mind wants to naturally work harder to process its surroundings. But the end of day typically signifies an end to something, instead of determining periods of reflection. I’m just not sure my body responds to night in the same way many have governed theirs to. I’m the rebelling teenager to Night’s unreasonable eight hour demands.
Night
I can’t sleep. I used to get anxious when night approached. The question would always arise when the sun began to set: “will I fall asleep tonight?” This worry, paranoia, overthinking, whatever you want to call it, simply fed my insomnia food to nibble on when lying in bed. Night is the only chapter in a full day where the world seems a little paralyzed. Life is stilted for a moment, and universal solitude descends to kiss the ground where darkness dozes. The energy of the day then collects in moments between lonely hours, like some invisible caves in time. Finally, the world crawls in to a state of silence. Out of this silence opens doors for undisturbed thoughts. These are the moments when my mind decides it’s not quite through running, and this is where the ability to rest doesn’t sit well with me.
I remember going to therapy sessions when my sleepless nights started becoming more frequent. The first meeting with the therapist was held on the top floor of a large building, positioned awkwardly alone from the other large buildings in the downtown area. My mom and I walked into the lobby where we were directed to the room I’d be stationed in. The room itself was more of an office. It had one small window off-centered on the back wall, and when the therapist came in he walked over and opened the blinds before saying anything to us. We talked with my mom and I in the room, then we talked without my mom in the room. I remember pieces of our conversation. He asked plenty of questions regarding “why.”
“Why do you think you have trouble sleeping?”
I’m not sure, Doctor. Why don’t you tell me?
During our meeting, he let me sit anywhere I wanted. Given this power, I turned my chair away from him and looked out the window. We covered a variety of relaxation exercises and “things to consider when preparing for bed.” All the while, my focus was with the cars on the highway below; set in constant motion by drivers who were awake during the day. Within our one hour time slot of discussing my trouble sleeping, nothing was accomplished.
In many ways, insomnia feels perpetual. In the moment, there is no end to sleeplessness, or the idea that sleep is too strange of a place to fall in to. When I had trouble sleeping, it was usually due to the repetition of solitary thoughts. My mind would focus on a song lyric, something someone said to me that day, an event that I’d been a part of recently. It’s as if I was still trying to process all that happened when I was awake. If my brain could project a sound from those nights of repetition, it would sound like a car motor starting up over and over again. I’d try to cut the engine off, but even the thought of letting it cool down provided the fuel for its ignition. Gears turning, metal clashing, chemicals reacting, and the heart of the body pumping. When these movements would slow down, I’d find myself thinking about this nightly process and trying to gage the exact moment I was drifting to sleep.
My body knew it was supposed to be sleeping, but some of the light left over from the day still took its time to soak in. It seemed like phrases, or ideas, from the day would stick to the mind like moths would to a source of light. Because the mind would still be running, thoughts flooded to its burning luminescence as a simple means of attraction. Trying to shut off the light proved rather difficult though. It’s as if my fear of unconsciousness outweighed the natural instinct to regenerate. Those nights were spent neither awake nor asleep. Sleeplessness falls somewhere between concrete time and infinity. It’s a place positioned between two worlds; cocooned in a limbo of one mind.
Sleep
I’ve now outgrown such intense periods of insomnia. Time has a strange way of working through personal puzzles, even if the puzzle involves an obsession with time itself. We look upon time through linear eyes, though it shapes us in ways which cause us to sprout towards the light of things. Time is the only force that has proven this. I was terrified that not having time to sleep would mold me into an overly alarmed individual. I’d shy away from people that stimulated my thoughts too much; fearful that they might trigger something that served my inability to sleep.
Today, I don’t worry as much about my lack of sleep, or panic in those silent morning hours. I said before that insomnia made me a different person; in each individual night and in the present point in my life. Years of difficulty sleeping sent me out in to a black sea without any direction. The distinction between me and the world outside of my thoughts became blurred during the night. In this process, I lost myself. I’d spend nights aimlessly wandering through “almost dreams,” and searching through the places hidden in those invisible caves of moments. I looked for nothing, and found myself in those shipwrecked hours. The bed was my vessel, and I would float atop a sea of chaotic contemplations. I knew I’d find land. I just didn’t know how long it would take for me to get there.
Insomnia doesn’t drop in to my room regularly anymore. But tonight, I can’t sleep.
