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| Hypnos and Thanatos, Sleep and His Half-Brother Death, an 1874 painting by John William Waterhouse (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
I have always had an odd
relationship with sleep, as a kid I really disliked sleeping, especially the
moment before 'falling' asleep as that is how it felt to me, a fall, like being
sucked into a twirling bottomless black hole.
I tried to explain to my family why I did not like to sleep and the falling in the black hole moment but they told me it was just my imagination and that I should close my eyes and just 'sleep'.
I remember seeking ways for safety on my bed, moving against the wall with my back, curling up in a fetal position and hanging onto the blankets, hoping that if I were to fall into the bottomless spinning black hole, I would be able to hang on to something and 'climb back' out.
Kindergarten and summer camps at the time were agony, they forced us to sleep in the afternoons, not for our own good, as they said, but for the good of the adults that planned their breaks around our unnecessary, unrequired 'sleeping time', I would be forced to comply and would lay on the floor mattresses for the afternoon waiting for the 'sleeping time ' to be over.
When I stayed at my grandparents they would sleep in the afternoon, they would ask me to lie down and sleep, as if this was what adults do, take a rest, a nap, a break within a day that nobody enjoyed but just walked through as the zombies we have become. I did, for the sake of being on their good books.
When I grew up I would postpone my sleeping time in the evening as much as I could, would find millions of things to do that had to be done before I took to the bed, which drove my mum crazy, I would not sleep more than 6 hours per night except for some nights that my mum called catch up nights in which I went into long sleeps to 'pile up sleeping hours' - this is what she said I did.
I didn't like dreaming either, I was not in control of dreaming and my dreams were weird, lucid dreaming was better, I could direct it, move things and people around in my mind and wouldn't get to feel so hopeless and powerless as when I slept. Waking up was not much better either, I didn't know if I disliked more the falling asleep or the waking up, they were both frightening and disappointing.
When I started to smoke Pot I loved that I would NOT fall asleep, I sorted of drifted into sleep, fainted into sleep, fading out of the day, the waking up still sucked, but one side was fixed, the falling asleep was better, painless, unnoticeable.
On my way to becoming used to Pot, I passed out many times, passing out was NOT nice, those were the only times when the black hole of my childhood came back to suck me in, in time I managed to master the 'what to do as I pass out' just like I did as a kid, do not resist the black hole, there is nothing to fear about it, you'll be here again as soon as dawn comes, it's a promise AND a threat.....
Many many times I have had the hidden and suppressed desire to NOT wake up anymore, I tried to cross all sorts of lines as in mixing alcohol and pot, which would make me very sick with a painful anxiety filled passing out, but of this moment what I remember best is my disappointment at waking up, yet again, sick, hangover-ed and seeing that I lived groundhog Day, day in and day out, no escape, what would it take me to never wake up again ? Could I ever NOT wake up again ?
Everybody said how dying in your sleep is the best death, funny how we promote things we have not tried personally and no one has personally related, with absolute Faith, Die in Your Sleep, it's the Best Death, the Best deal, you won't even notice, so I think this is what I tried unsuccessfully for many long years.
Even now some days I feel this pull to sleep, to close my eyes and stop all stimulus, all thoughts, worries, projections, judgements, I desire to STOP the experience of Me, and so I close my eyes and drift off and sometime when I wake up to go to pee I purposefully walk zombified to the toilet to NOT wake myself up, so I can return to the slumber as I have accepted within a Character that I still embody as Real, that there is nothing worth living for and still carry this thought as a memory and as a Character inside of me as Me and occasionally when the desire to not be Here to face myself comes up, I pull out this Character from the sleeve and step into it to just go away, for some time, maybe forever, can I please just wake up when It's All Over, Please, Pretty Please ?
Self forgiveness and Self corrective Statements to correct myself and delete this Character once and for All soon to follow
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