“O Sleep, O Gentle Sleep, Nature’s Soft Nurse!”

I have not frighted sleep, though.  Henry IV for those of you wondering.

Last night, after having fallen asleep and thinking that I was still awake, I had a dream in which a large, hairy spider crawled across my pillow towards my face.  I bolted upright in bed, fumbled for the light switch, then stared at my pillow.  Nothing there.  Then a rush of understanding came through – it was really quite extraordinary to wake up and find myself sitting up in bed, the light on, my hand brushing over the pillow.  I know I was dreaming the spider, but my brain was still "on" enough to want to do something about it physically.  I had gotten into bed at 10:30pm.  It was 11:18pm when I realized I had been asleep.  Not enough time, I think, for paralysis to set in for the night.

That reminds me.  Those horrible dreams where you need to run away but you Can’t.  Move.  Your.  Legs?  I hate those.

In general, though, my sleep and dreams are rarely troubled.  Few are the nights when I can’t get to sleep (just put a pillow near me, I’m out), and few are the dreams where I’m truly frightened or under enough to think that what’s going on is really happening.  I sincerely hope the ability to sleep easily never goes away for me.  At 26, with a fair amount of stress in my life, I find that sleep is not something that escapes me.  Money and worldliness and wit?  Oh my, yes.  Sleep?  Nah.

My sleeping patterns have always been quite regular, especially since the establishment of an exercise routine in my life.  Go to bed by 10pm, get up by 6am in the summer, 6:45am in the winter.  Even if I go to bed late, my body is up and atom (heh, see what I did there?) by 6:45am (or 6:46am, since I went over on my alarm clock by one minute and my body seems to have adjusted to that minute).  Even when my sleep is interrupted by, oh, loud footsteps or dishes being put away at 5:45am, I always fall back asleep and that hour feels like a comfortable eternity of sleep.  There is just no way to shake my sleeping habits.  Even when I cross into different time zones (usually just a one hour, two hour difference), I’m not that worse for the wear.

In general, sleep to me is like a fluffy, snow white cloud of contentment in which I float along for about eight hours.  Ever seen those Philadelphia Cream Cheese commercials with those annoying angels in heaven, delighting over said cream cheese?  Well, it’s like that, but sans the annoying angles and cream cheese.  Ever seen that segment on "The Simpsons" when Homer falls asleep in his car?  He goes off an embankment but is caught by angels, he waves sleepily and reclines his car seat and the car becomes a bed, then the angels toss the bed up towards the sky?  And the moon is looking benevolently down at him as his bed’s leg catches some cloud and drags it along?  Then we see Homer, still in his car, dragging along a piece of a fence as he sleeps?  Yeah, like that, but without the car and the dangers of driving while exhausted.

Man.  Sleep is great.  Thus endeth the musing on sleep.  Can you tell I’m bored, sick of what I’m doing, and want to go home now?  Yeah.