Little Slices of Death

"Sleep, those little slices of death - how I loathe them."

- Edgar Allan Poe


I don't consider myself a fan of Edgar Allan Poe, but man, he was right about sleep.

For the record, I almost never sleep well.  In fact, for me to actually get through a full night and not wake up once, twice, three times maybe is a small miracle.  "Restful sleep"?   That happens to me with the level of timing more akin to cicadas than people.

Now I know I don't get enough sleep, but for me that's like saying I don't get enough dental work.

Every little sound at night wakes me up.

Slight temperature variances both me at night.

The whole activity seems, well, so wasteful.  Now I know that there is benefit to sleep, and in fact I will cop to the fact that at times when my head is full of stuff at the end of the day, sometimes sleeping helps to clear things out.  Score one benefit to sleep.  However, even then I find the benefit more in waking up than in actually snoozing.

I can probably count on one hand...one freak'n hand...the number of times in my life when I've gotten such a great night's sleep that I actually wake up feeling refreshed.

Some of this is a self-inflected wound by the way.  Too many energy drinks, I know, but that's in part because I don't like coffee.  So what if Red Bull's chemical composition closely resembles the atmosphere of Titan, as it does taste better than that bitter, repugnant coffee people drink.

One thing I don't do, well at least not very often, is to actually take chemicals to help me stay asleep. I gave up on that actually working, as about 75% of the time it just makes me feel sluggish in the morning without actually delivering the coma-esque sleep I'd like to experience once or twice a decade.  Nothing like waking up in the middle of the night, groggy as heck, but not  getting the benefit of actually feeling better in the morning.

Now I think I at least have solved the mystery, all be it for me, of how to fall asleep.  By and large taking a large dose of Melatonin does help put me to sleep, and I am glad to report it does not make me groggy in the morning.  It's only negative?  It has about a 30 minute window to work; meaning that if I take it and I don't fall asleep within about 30 minutes, I might as well have had M&M's instead.

Have I mentioned yet how much I hate sleep?