Pesadillas

Sometimes when traveling I have a rather hard time sleeping. For various reasons. Sometimes it is because I am scared out of my wits. For example, in high school when my choir went to a competition and I woke up screaming in the hotel only to find out the my roommate was having a "night terror" and was yelling and pounding on the door trying to escape from people she thought were attacking her. Needless to say images of her dream-fiends crawling in the the bathroom window and hovering over my bed in the dark didn't exactly lull me to sleep.

Then there was the time a few years ago when I had to "sleep" in my aunt's "office," where she keeps all of her magic supplies--crystal balls, various useful materials for seances, books on voodoo, magic and spirits. As hard as I tried not to be mortified by the thought of the strange spirits that my aunt evoked in that space, I couldn't for the life of me free myself from the sensation that I wasn't alone in that room. And I didn't like it. I don't know that I've stayed in bed so still and wide-eyed with fear since I was a little kid afraid of the dark. All I wanted to do was get out, but I was too afraid to move.

Most recently, I had a different kind of frightening experience the first night I spent in Porto, Portugal a couple weeks ago. This particular scary night had less to do with dreams and imaginary(?) spirits and much more to do with the two random roommates I was sharing the hostel dorm with.

To try my best to make a long story short (though generally I am much more adept at making short stories long...):
When I went to bed around midnight on the top of one of the two bunk beds, no one else was in the room. So, my first introduction came at 4:30am when one of them flung open the door, half crazy and (I assume) quite drunk. He woke up his friend (who had come in earlier and gone straight to sleep), and me, asking for empanadas which apparently he suspected the other roommate had, or perhaps had eaten. This was all going on in Spanish, and while I was half asleep. I tried to ignore the arguing, until I heard a large crash and, peering over the edge of my bunk bed, witnessed an all out brawl as the formerly sleeping roommated pummelled the other guy, and then vise versa. I think I interjected a few feeble, "what are you doing?"s and "what is going on?"s. And then continued to stare wide eyed and opened mouthed at this unbelievable scene from my loft above. After they stopped hitting each other, the sleepy roommate started getting dressed and throwing things around the room and threatening to turn the other guy in to the police. The other one told him he was making a fool of himself and that he'd kill sleepy if he went to the police. They argued for awhile longer, until the sleepy one left (to go the police??) and I realized I was still staring at this random guy (who I now realized was a potential killer). I quickly lied down tried to look like I was sleeping, as the guy got into his bed and said "sorry" before turning out the light. I confess I found his apology rather feeble and insufficient given the situation at hand! But I let it go.

For the next twenty minuted I stayed in bed half trying to sleep/half contemplating the likelihood that this guy sleeping two feet away from me might be a dangerous criminal. Finding it impossible to sleep under these circumstances I finally crept out of bed and sneaked (why can't it be snuck??) out of the room as stealthily as possible... just in case! When I got down stairs to the lobby the hostel worker looked at my half asleep, dishevelled, barefooted self as if I was crazy. And when I explained that I was having trouble sleeping after being awakened by a rather noisy fight and threats between my roommates he helped me get some tea and eventually found me another place to sleep for the night.

Being as it was 6:30 in the morning before I went back to bed, and that I spent most of my remaining hours of sleep wondering how I was going to get back into the room with the scary strangers to collect my things in the morning, it was overall a rather tiring night.

But by the morning, it didn't seem quite as scary, and I felt perhaps I had slightly overreacted with my hasty escape during the night (though I still checked to make sure I would have different roommates the next night and crept quietly into the room in order not to wake anyone up when I went back for my things). So, when I was getting some hot chocolate in the kitchen after breakfast and some guy who I asked to pass the milk apologized to me for last night, I thought perhaps he had confused me with someone else. Until I realized--"Eres tu!" The dangerous criminal from the night before was there before my eyes, speaking to me quite politely and looking much more like a very embarrassed and sleepy young man than a murder. So after embarrassing him a bit more by recounting and questioning him about the events of the previous night in front of everyone at the table, I felt quite alright about forgiving him entirely. I mean, I might not have gotten much sleep, but at least I had an interesting adventure.

And the next night my roommates were girls who went to sleep before I did! Which reminds me of something I heard once-- a hostel is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get. Or something like that, anyway.

monster in my bed

In the middle of the night, when I'm sleeping in my bed, warm and curled up against the cold, darkness all around me, there is a sudden loud noise followed by loud voices and raucous laughter and stomping feet and music playing and dice being shaken in a plastic cup. That's when it happens. The monster appears. Angry Kendal comes out.

I'm usually a nice person. usually. But there is something about being woken up in the night that seems to unleash the nastiest side of my personality.

Even if i am only fuming to myself, cursing to the darkness around me, now unable to sleep with the various stimuli from around the house, each sleep disruptor appears in my mind as a demon, stealing from me my greatest and, now, most illusive desire. Oh precious sleep! And evil sleep snatchers!

The frustration only builds as I continue in sleeplessness. Every sound is magnified. Every laugh becomes a derisive, mocking noise intended solely to disturb me. Every footstep is purposefully louder than necessary as the devious walker scoffs at my plight. Even the usually lovely sound of music, the strumming of a guitar, is a piercing, twanging intrusion entering my ears no matter how desperately I try not to hear it.

There is no logic in my thinking. No reason to be furious at each roommate or guest conversing about the house. But the ability to react and act rationally seems not to wake with the rest of my mind. I am an emotional bubble just waiting to burst. Panic. Furry. An irrational desire to tell everyone and everything to stop and be quiet and let me SLEEP FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE!!! takes over all other senses.

I am an insomniac. I have been since... probably birth. I remember long nights as a child, willing myself to fall asleep, bored and alone, tired and frustrated, but unable to reach that lovely destination of dreams. I remember asking my mom to stay with me until I fell asleep, and then, when she fell asleep first (as she always did), trying not to move or make noise in case I woke her up. I remember the frustration, once I was old enough to go to school, knowing that I would wake up in the morning exhausted, my mom pulling me out of bed despite all resistance, and sending me off to school half asleep, but unable to do anything about it. No matter how hard I tried, sleep did not come. For years. And years and years and years.

There were all kinds of suggestions:
Count sheep or clouds or dogs or cats or . . . .
Repeat in your head "I can't fall asleep" over and over, until you finally do.
Try to think through a movie from beginning to end and don't think about anything else.
Play this soothing music to lull yourself to sleep.
Clear your mind before you get into bed.
Write down all your thoughts and put them away before you try to sleep.
Etc. etc. etc.

By the time I got to high school I'd created a methodology. I stayed up with everyone in my house until they all fell asleep. Then I'd watch TV. I'd read a book. I'd boil some tea and sip and wait. Until finally my eyes started to droop. Until I couldn't keep them open any longer. Until I was falling asleep without a struggle. Effortless. Then I'd quickly flip off the light and slip into rest.

Bliss.

Sometime in high school, though, I started falling asleep without such a process. I would be so tired. I was exhausted. Every day. It was still just as hard to get up in the morning, but I would stay up working on homework and reading or getting home late from swim meets, and I realized, I wasn't having my same old problem. I wasn't lying awake for hours before falling asleep. There were occasional nights when I was still haunted by restlessness. Days here or there when I would have to pull out the tea pot and my book. But they were rare.

That's the way I am now. For the most part. I sleep fairly normally. And insomnia is not a common issue.

But I'm a light sleeper. And I get woken up easily.And that's usually when the attacks hit me now--trying to fall back to sleep. Once I'm awake, I'm awake.

So I know when I come out of my room, disheveled and raving, I probably seem like a monster, inappropriately angry at the innocent (but noisy) victims of my rage. But you have to understand. Sleep is precious. And if you mess with mine, you are crossing a line. Whatever you are in the daylight--friend, roommate, complete stranger--as soon as you disturb my rest, you become the enemy.

At least until I fall asleep.

the First

So this is "blogging."
1:08am: There isn't much else to do, except sleep, which would make far too much sense for me. So, bored of all my usual late night activities, this is what I've come to. Following the crowd? Probably. And why not. Of course, the only comfort I can take in writing this is knowing that the chances of anyone actually reading it are slim to none. So if you are, congrats...you're probably bored already. Sorry. But you can't say I didn't try to keep you away. I did. I promise.

Confession: Even now, as I write this, I am afraid of blogging. I don't write things for others to read. Ever. And it terrifies me to put any part of myself in such a public realm, even if it is just a few random words composed in the wee hours of the morning, so to say. There is something uncomfortable in that act: exposing yourself to others. And to unknown others at that. Who are you out there reading my words?

Well, I feel okay about this I guess. If I decide against it later I'm banking on some kind of delete function on this blog and my post will be dissolved into oblivion, where it belongs.

ciao