"..you're never really awake and you're never really asleep.."

The ceiling fan blades are hypnotic. Smoke detector lights turn into glowing fairies, dancing around in an unfocused blur. The pattern on the ceiling tiles move. The walls move. Textures are awesome and amazing.

Listen, I don’t try to trip out- that’s not my goal. But it happens. I have a sleeping disorder- and I have been medicated since November 2005, with the exception of a five month span.
There are three major sleeping disorders a person can have: Narcolepsy, Sleep Apnea, and Insomnia.

Essentially, those who are narcoleptic fall asleep at inappropriate times, and wake at inappropriate times. Such as with that one quirky character from “Rat Race” who fell asleep randomly in the casino lobby- that’s an extreme and humorous portrayal of Narcolepsy. One of the scary symptoms is the disassociation between reality and the dream world. Consciousness and unconsciousness blur together- so “dreams” can act as “hallucinations” at any point when the person is awake. They could “dream” that a car is about to hit them, that doesn’t exist for instance. Or, imagine how frustrating that could be in an office work environment, “dreaming” you already handed your boss some paperwork. Another symptom: just as much as the “dreams” can interfere with their awake time, their awake time can interfere with their sleep. For everyone, when you are truly asleep, you’re body is sort-of shut down and will not move... your brain has to turn on, like a computer before you can function again. Well, for narcoleptics, sometimes they get their consciousness back while their body is still “asleep”, stuck in a state of constrainment. That is my main impression of Narcolepsy, and do not know much more about it. But since it is such an impressionable disorder- those who have it generally need medication to regulate the symptoms.

Sleep Apnea is more of a physical disorder, associated with sleep. For all those extreme snorer’s out there- you might want to look into it. A weakened airway not only restricts airflow from the nose and mouth to the lungs, but it could potentially collapse entirely in the horizontal position of sleep and take your breath away. Talk about scary- having your body wake up its brain screaming, “EXCUSE ME! WE ARE NOT BREATHING!!!” the vessel of this brain/body disagreement usually wakes, startled- throughout the night, short of breath, still very tired and very unaware of what just happened.. and falls back to sleep. But in this vicious cycle, the brain and body are not receiving enough oxygen throughout the period of rest for the sleep to be very effective. Many people who suffer from sleep apnea will wake in the morning, fatigued- but can otherwise function. The disorder so heavily centers on the restricted airways, making surgery an option for correction.

Insomnia can be both developed in situations- like high stress- or inherited. For those who develop this disorder just from a situation, it is only a momentary thing- a discomfort on the calendar of long nights. Those who inherit it- there isn’t really much hope- you just kind of get to have it.. like me; the stress and situations just add to its effects.

“When you have insomnia, it’s like never being asleep and never being awake” -Fight Club

The average person takes seven minutes to “shut down” once they are tired, in bed, and ready to fall asleep. Then their brain goes through the sleep cycle until they wake, recharged and refreshed.

There are two major symptoms of insomnia: the difficulty of falling asleep, and the difficulty of staying asleep. Some insomniacs only experience one of the difficulties. For me- there were times it would take hours of frustrating exhaustion before my brain and body would submit to the needed rest... and then still wake up throughout the night. Waking up throughout the night is like pushing the re-do button on a game: any progress you made is lost- and you’re knocked back to square one. So I would, eventually, fall asleep, wake up, eventually fall back asleep, wake up, eventually fall back asleep, then wake up, then lay waiting to fall back asleep only to be greeted by my alarm clock’s buzzing. The sleep cycle struggles to make it to REM- the brain doesn’t get to recharge properly- and the struggling accumulates over the days and nights. There was one point when the stress that made my insomnia worse, was worrying that I wouldn’t get enough sleep. Talk about a perpetuating problem.

In November 2005, when my insomnia was at its worse, I had gone an entire seven day span with an accumulation of maybe two hours of sleep. Paying attention in class was like hearing the adults talk on “The Charlie Brown Show”. During basketball practice I would get dizzy and hallucinate. My brain just didn’t have the will to send the necessary signals to my body, making my reaction time slow. I was cranky. I had horrible bags under my eyes... I still wasn’t sleeping- and I still didn’t know that I had insomnia. I thought I was just a high-maintenance sleeper. I needed it to be DARK in the room. I couldn’t nap. No moving vehicles. I needed a certain amount of weight on me. I needed silence- even the ticking of a clock would keep me up. I just thought I was weird (and maybe I am).

24 hours under hospital supervision. A night study. A day study. A neurologist. Two weeks after my lowest point, and I had my answer- my diagnosis, confirmed. That wasn’t the moment I became an insomniac, it was just the moment I knew.

My neurologist taught me about sleep hygiene. One of the methods to help ANYONE sleep better, is to regulate it:
1.Go to bed at the same time every night (this will trigger your brain to shut down, by habit)
2. For about two hours before sleeping, just relax. Don’t do anything productive that might stimulate stress or relentless thinking. Just wind down.
3. While you’re winding down, avoid illuminated, optical stimulation like TV and Computer (the light sends signals to your brain that says, “it’s time to wake up” -a primitive eye to brain reaction from when humans knew they weren’t nocturnal)
4. Avoid auditory stimulation once you are finally about to sleep. (People who swear they can’t sleep without the TV or radio on- you’re only cheating yourselves. The brain can’t completely block out ambiguous, unrhythmic noises as another primitive recourse)
5. Avoid caffeine (which stays in your system longer than you probably realize)

So I tried just using good sleep hygiene practices for a little while... but was shortly after put on medication, fully aware and educated that the pills could cause dependency- and I slept- I slept through the whole night, for many many nights.

It was like clockwork. I’d have to have 8 hours to dedicate. I’d have 20 minutes after taking my medication before it was time to sleep. 20 minutes before I couldn’t focus on reading my book. 20 minutes before I couldn’t keep my eyes open. 20 minutes before my brain. shut. off...zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

The one thing about the human body that is amazing: its capability to adapt. So after being on my medication for months- that’s when I started really feeling the side effects. It wasn’t just 20 minutes any more- it was maybe 30. The medication would kick in, but my brain wouldn’t shut off at the same time. That was a ten minute lapse of dizziness- of clinging to the walls in fear as I headed to the bathroom. The ten minute lapse of misconstrued sounds. 40 minutes... 20 of slurred speech, stuttering, and hallucinations before shut-off.

I would like to talk on the phone before bed because I could be in the dark. I wouldn’t have to strain my eyes to read a book, or cheat the sleep hygiene by watching TV or being on the computer. I could close my eyes, lay down, and wait for shut-off. During the lapse time it was never guaranteed I would remember what we talked about. Often, the next morning I would have missing puzzle pieces of conversations and have to re-ask what the blanks were... like a hangover- surprised to go through my phone and see that I talked to this person and that person throughout the night. With my brain all drugged-up before sleep, it was a different conception of everything... but without it- I already knew what my night would be like. I already knew what it was like to not sleep- I’d had sixteen years of that.

Wether I fell asleep right away or not, it would sometimes even be the opposite problem (especially in the beginning). I would sleep on schedule, but then the meds would still be kicked in when my alarm went off. I’d be “awake” and “functioning” but my brain was soooooo somewhere else, leaving my body on auto-drive. Same as with the “hangover”- there was a good chance I wouldn’t remember what I ate for breakfast, or learned in class that morning, so I HAD to have enough time between taking my meds and functioning if I was going to consider taking them.

Over the last few years of being on medication, I still have to follow the main rule of dedicating time to being drugged up- and if I don’t have the time, I don’t take the meds. When I don’t take the meds, I try to follow the sleep hygiene. I know my brain an body can be resistant to the proper function of the sleep medication, so I have to put a conceited effort into working with them. The hardest time to submit to this behavior is when I share my bed. Sure I deal with my own high-maintenance sleep in my own ways- but throw another person in the mix and I worry that my waking up throughout the night will wake them up- that they’ll get offended if I move away from mid-night cuddling because I don’t want to disturb their sleep. I feel most venerable when trying to sleep, so to share that with someone- to be comfortable enough to submit to sleep.. it’s infrequent, and a work in progress..

I was reading heath ad/article in the February 2010 issue of National Geographic the other day that states, “Sleep deprivation can lead to: greater risk of heart disease, increased risk of illness, thinking impairments (like slower reaction time, memory loss, and confusion), poor work performance, mood problems (like depression, anger, and irritability), risk of unhealthy weight gain and loss...”

...I wouldn’t blame ALL of those on lack of sleep. But it’s good to know I have a scapegoat.