Sleeping Tales (Zzzzzz)

I think I’m the magnet of 'sleepy people', everywhere I go I only find people who love to sleep and never miss their afternoon naps. (Yeah, I gave this post an abrupt starting as if one has suddenly woken out of sleep after having a terrible dream.) It’s not like I don’t like sleeping (in fact even I love it) but the fact that you have to make considerable efforts to get out of sleep is what I find so difficult.

I make sure that if I’m sleeping it’ll be for longer hours. I’m strictly against afternoon naps. For you can sleep for just a few hours. Gosh! It feels terrible to ditch your sleep and open your eyes unwillingly.

Dating back to the days I was a kid, once I woke up after having my afternoon nap; the sun was setting by then. Mistaking the evening time as early morning hours, I almost cried complaining to mom as to why she didn’t wake me up earlier as I needed to do my homework. It was only after I got assurance from my dad that it’s still evening that I got a sense of relief that I still have time to complete my homework. (Poor kids, such is the fear of homework.)

In another incident, involving the subconscious state of mind in which one is during the sleep, I almost fell asleep and in my dream, I was playing some group game. I was stopping someone from doing something in my dream and I spoke out that aloud, making everyone in the room look at me and laugh eventually.

 The other day, my sibling told me that I laughed out loud while I was sleeping. I wonder how she still managed to sleep by my side. Had I been at her place, I would have run out from the room fearing some ghostly presence. It sounds scary that the person sleeping by your side is laughing out of nowhere that too in the midst of night. But I guess, it’s not the case with me as my siblings often narrate me the stories of my occasional ‘dialogues’ when I’m in my sleep. (I know it is something that happens with kids but it still happens to me.)

One thing that I want to get rid of is the manipulative tactics of my brain. You might not believe this but it has happened to me so many times that I’m darn sure that mind does it purposefully as it can’t be a coincidence each time. Every morning, my alarm rings, the ring falls on my ears, my mind gets the signal to take negative action. It does so by manipulating my dreams; my dreams start unfolding as if it is not the alarm bell that I’m hearing but:

 (i) the ringing tone of someone else’s phone and that person is not picking up the call,

(ii)  it is not my alarm but someone else’s and that person should wake up and switch off the alarm,

and sometimes even (iii) I’ve woken up and turned off the alarm.

But in reality, none of it is true and I’m still lying on my bed deep in my sleep, getting late. This has happened to me many a time.

Sometimes, dreams have such an impact that you don’t remember if it was in reality or in a dream. Once I dreamt about a new pathway being made near my house. After a few days, when I was passing by that location I suggested to take the new shortcut-pathway, I realised that the pathway wasn’t in real but in a dream.

Another thing to keep in mind, “Never talk to a person who is about to fall to sleep.” For their reactions, that is, a mere ‘hmmm’ will be worthless. They are in ‘no brains’ zone. Once I handed over a ringing phone to my sibling who was just about to sleep. At first, she sat abruptly, then she started removing the curtain (god knows what was she checking outside), then she held the phone in her hand looking at it as if she never saw such a device, ever, in her life. Maybe after a few minutes, her brain got active and she took the call.

A last one on the feeling when you want to sleep but you don’t sleepy enough. My dad usually falls to sleep in noise as well (obviously in the limit) but on some days when he is not feeling sleepy, he starts chiding us for not moving out of his sleeping room, even if we aren’t making any noise; hoping that he’ll fall asleep if we move out. Such is the desperation and charm of sleep.

Hoping I didn’t make you feel sleepy by writing this boring post.