by Tom Shafer
October 28, 2021
So, I was reading late a few nights ago (1:37 a.m., and no, I wasn’t reading Hamlet) when a notification murmur from my phone (appropriately a light saber) alerted me to a message from NASA. This late in the evening, I guessed correctly that it was informing me about the International Space Station, that it would be passing overhead in approximately fifteen minutes. Though this happens frequently, I always enjoy stepping outside to watch it amble across the sky. So, I closed my book and quickly made my way to the hot tub that helps me complete each day.
As I slid into the water, orienting myself toward the southern horizon (and after treating our four outdoor cats to a few feline delicacies), I heard a lone coyote yipping to the east, likely one from the Orchard Lane band. Overhead, I whispered a “hello” to the Pleiades, the seven sisters, daughters of Atlas, cast into the heavens as stars by Zeus to protect them from harm. Of course, seeing the Pleiades overhead was a sure sign of seasonal change, a harbinger of late fall and the coming of winter.
As I settled in, always enjoying the soothing, healing therapy of gently pulsing water, I experienced a touch of melancholy unexpected, almost certainly prompted by thoughts of this cyclical transformation, a transition that brings an end, a death, to the growing season. As I age, this change becomes increasingly more difficult in almost every way. Physically, the colder, damper weather exacerbates the arthritis discomfort that permeates seemingly all of my body parts. Mentally, my brain shudders at the thought of dealing with four plus months of winter. Emotionally, the impending demise of the living plants on our property, some that I have cared for throughout the spring and summer, reminds me of my own mortality. Just as I was on the verge of a good cry – okay, that’s arguably quite melodramatic for a noted non-crier – I spied the Space Station sauntering across the darkened firmament. Of course, that it “saunters” is laughable because it’s actually traveling at a velocity of 17,500 miles per hour and orbits Earth every ninety minutes. Typically, it will traverse the sky from horizon to horizon – this night from southeast to northwest – in about four minutes, glowing brightly (no blinking), second in magnitude only to our moon.
After the Space Station passed out of sight, I slid down further into the water and engaged low jets to better foster some hydrotherapy for my aching muscles and bones. Unfortunately, my brain immediately contemplated the concept of sleep, or in this case, my difficulty in properly attaining and maintaining it. In the previous seventy-two hours, I had slept perhaps just nine total hours, and those nine were restless at best. As I have documented previously, sleeping is the worst of my skillsets, and it has been a nightly challenge for over fifty years. And on this evening, I was worried about another sleepless one.
To me, the process of sleep is both frustrating and mysterious. The frustration I experience stems from the fact that I don’t know how to do it. Most people seemingly do it without thinking (which might be the secret ingredient), and can fall asleep with little to no difficulty. It’s like everyone took a class, Sleeping 101: Comfortably Numb in Silent Lucidity (shout out to Pink Floyd and Queensrÿche!), and somehow I missed it, and nobody kept their notes and nobody wants to help me out. In my travels with friends (mostly golf outings and camping trips), I have “roomed” with a variety of body types sporting a multitude of character traits, and none suffer any kind of sleep disorder. In fact, I can’t even count the number of times I’ve watched them individually fall asleep on me mid-sentence (and no, that’s not necessarily an indictment against my captivating personality – though admittedly I’ve been called a “fun vacuum” more than once). And don’t even ask about naps. The last one I experienced was several years ago after a significant surgery, and was likely induced by a nice cocktail of residual morphine, Vicodin, and a nice cocktail.
So, lacking the necessary knowledge, I haphazardly attempt to slumber each evening, counting sheep, drinking warm milk, throwing back chilled shots of Crown Royal, utilizing those old-wives’ anecdotes instead of the class notes from Sleeping 101. Meanwhile, every night is the same, read until 1:15 to 1:30 a.m., slip into the hot tub for twenty minutes or so, slide into bed after setting my noise machine to ten (to combat tinnitus and a brain that never shuts down), then hope that I fall asleep sometime before the sun rises or I roll over to turn off my alarm clock set to 7:15 a.m.
But sleep is so much more mysterious than frustrating. Of late, and on rare nights that I don’t struggle to fall asleep, I have noticed that just before the moment of unconsciousness that leads us to Slumberland, I experience a trippy kaleidoscope of wavy technicolor, not unlike the aurora borealis I’ve witnessed in Montana and Maine. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen every time, but when it does, I know that in just moments, the Sandman will be entering (shout out to Metallica!).
But what is sleep? Yes, I’m aware that it is an altered state of consciousness, characterized by subdued sensory activity and inhibited muscle movement – and a brain that is concurrently resting yet displaying diverse and dynamic brainwave patterns. And I know that the sleep cycle alternates between REM (rapid eye movement) and non-REM sleep, that the non-REM phase occurs first and leads (hopefully) to slow-wave (or deep) sleep, when the body resets and restores many of the body’s important systems (immune, nervous, and muscular). Then, when deep sleep appropriately slows the heart rate and body temperature, the REM cycle can initiate the dream (or nightmare) sequence, where the brain creates a believable “awake-like” experience, typically in narrative form, which mirrors real life, or at least a lifelike one.
I get all of that, but none of it addresses the most crucial component of the sleep cycle: how to fall asleep. Unless I fall asleep, none of that other good (or bad in the case of nightmares) stuff can happen. Of course, I’ve tried everything – the Google machine is replete with bonafide “remedies” for sleeplessness – and right now I’m utilizing one where I pick a simple lyric from any song and sing it inside my head. Surprisingly, this method worked – I think – the one time I tried it, so maybe it has some merit. What I really wish is that I could follow the wisdom of Bob Schneider’s song “The Other Side”:
That if my head came with a switch / I would turn it off
If only it could be that easy.
So, I implore those of you who drift off easily to your slumber each evening, don’t take it for granted. This is a skillset that we sleep-challenged humans covet with every fiber of our beings. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of arguably the best novel ever written, The Great Gatsby, has perhaps spoken for us best of all: “The worst thing in the world is to try to sleep and not to.” Amen, brother, amen.
Oh, and while I’m at it, I’ve always believed that people who proudly say “I slept like a baby” have never been around an actual baby. Who wants to wake up every couple of hours crying with a wet diaper?
(AP Photo by Alexandre Meneghini)
