I don't sleep well.
I never have, so this is nothing new. As a kid, I suffered from bouts of insomnia and random wakefulness during the night for no apparent reason. This continued into adulthood, but I've learned to turn it to my advantage.
Rather, I've turned it into a game.
When I wake up during the night, it is rarely a semi-sleepy condition. When I wake up, I'm wide awake and raring to go, even if I've only been asleep for twenty minutes or two hours and twenty minutes. I can also hit dream-sleep within moments of falling asleep and have been known to wake up minutes later after vivid dreams or nightmares.
I'm not sure how much actual REM sleep I get since reports claim that muscles suffer a kind of paralysis during REM. I often wake up facing a different direction or in a different position or with the quilt on the floor, or sometimes I even wake up with an arm or leg twisted wrong. Yes, I've worn knee and elbow wrap-braces to bed simply because I wake up with the upper portion of a limb facing east while the lower part of the limb faces west. At my age, this is never good.
But, here's the fun of it all.
Whenever I wake up, I try to guess what time it is and gauge how much more (or less) sleep I can stuff into the night. Usually I'm way off. Maybe I feel exhausted but discover it's time to shut off the alarm. Or, maybe, just maybe, I'll swear it's time to get up and get my day going only to discover I still have hours left to hang out with the pillow and flannel sheets.
In the middle of a night's sleep recently, I awaken and feel that it must be close to alarm clock time. I get a good bead on how I feel -- somewhat overly tired, but feeling like I should probably get up and get ready for work. I quietly say, "If only it weren't . . ." and then I guess, "3:30 yet. I'd love to sleep some more."I look at the clock. It's 3:29 a.m. By the time I find the camera on my phone without benefit of reading glasses, the clock shows 3:30. I resist the urge to cheer -- I have neighbors, after all. Not only do I guess the time right on the money, but I can sleep for another two-and-a-half hours.
This is the game I play. Maybe other insomniacs play it, too, a little while after we've played the "Relax Every Muscle In Your Body, One At A Time, So You Can Maybe Fall Asleep Within An Hour" game. Or perhaps it's after a round of the "Who Thinks Counting Any Damn Thing Will Help Me Sleep" game.
No matter. I called it at 3:29 a.m. and totally owned it. Winner! Of course, when I wake up a little later, totally unable to go back to sleep, I don't feel so smug, but for that one brief moment, I feel victorious. Sometimes that's all I need to help me sleep at night.