Monday, November 2, 2015

I'm writing this in the middle of the night

Mars and Jupiter are up at this hour, too

I love sleep. L-O-V-E love it. I want to marry it. Now that I'm retired and don't have to fit my life into society's schedule I can sleep whenever I want, for however long I want.

One of my favorite times in the sleep cycle is when I become just conscious enough to know I'm sleeping, when my body is trying to drag me back down down down into that delicious warm, floaty, womb-like state, and I think, "Sure. Let's go-o-o-o-o-o-o..." Mmmmmm, yes.

We modern humans have been conditioned to think we need eight straight hours of uninterrupted sleep each night. But that's a product of the industrial revolution, light bulbs and the Protestant work ethic. Take away external scheduling forces, artificially extended daylight and the belief sleep is laziness (or that it's our "job" to sleep a certain way) and we humans would really rather sleep in something more like two four-hour blocks in the course of the night. It's what we used to do before we messed ourselves up.

Now, when I wake in the middle of the night, I have the luxury of not fighting it. I don't curse myself for not being able to turn over and fall right back to sleep. I use the time instead. I think, I read, I take night photos and write blog posts about being awake. Then I go back to sleep. Deep and wonderful dream filled sleep. Later, I'll take a nap. Or two. Because I can. Because I don't feel guilty about it. Because sleep is my lover. Hold on, sweetheart. I'll be with you in a moment. Just let me hit the publish button.

6 comments:

  1. Great article, there are many of us - retirees - that have sleep problems, specially those like me that worked night shift for many years, it's frustrating indeed to sleep 4 hours & be done with it, but perhaps we should adopt your philosophy, sleep whenever we feel like it, to hell with stablished patterns !!

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  2. Now that I have stopped trying to fit into society's standards I generally sleep about 3 am to noon. It's wonderful being able to schedule your annual physical for 1 pm and go in fasting for the tests they will do--really freaks them out.

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  3. Could you make the text a little darker? Very straining on these old eyes.

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  4. Great photo!! What'd you take it with? Settings?

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    1. Canon EOS Rebel T3i, set on manual. There was a half moon that night providing some illumination, so the exposure was shorter. I think it was something like 8 seconds at ƒ4.5 and ISO800. When I do star shots with no moon, it's more like 25 seconds at ƒ3.5 and ISO6400.

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    2. Thanks.

      Interestingly, in the process of admiring the work at the URL below

      https://www.flickr.com/photos/wee3beasties/ (a Flickr follower)

      I saw she uses the same camera. One could surmise it imbues the photographer with exceptional abilities.

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