I hate dreaming.
It’s not that dreaming is bad or I have nightmares or anything like that. It just seems that dreaming is a waste of perfectly good sleep time. In my dreams, I’m usually active or doing something or interacting… realistic dreams. I don’t have abstract, pretty color, flying / falling, or fantasy world dreams. Sci-fi sometimes, but still first-person and active.
So my brain acts like I’m doing things and thinking about what’s going on and trying to reason things out, which is difficult at times. When I wake up (or usually when I’m woken up) I have to switch gears, clear the dream out and get real-world functions going again. Since my brain has been active, I usually feel more tired after 6-8 hours of dreaming sleep than if I just crash for 3-5.
After 3-5 hours sleep I’ve had one sleep cycle completed, and my brain/body are still in recharge mode. There’s no time yet for imagination or brain play. Simply recharge the batteries and get moving again. When awoken from a short sleep, I may be physically tired still, but my brain gets going much more easily. Almost as if it’s on “standby” from yesterday and just powers back into whatever I need to do.
Even as a kid, I had a hard time falling asleep at bed time. I would stay awake for hours in bed. My parents tried all sorts of thing, back rubs, meditation music, guided imagery (not that I knew what that was at the time) and so on. The only thing that worked was for me to be tired when I went to bed. (Imagine that). In college, once I was allowed to decide my own sleep schedule, I would get tired around 2am, sleep till 6 (and get up for corps stuff), then either go to class or re-bag for an hour or 2. Then a nap from 7ish-10ish in the evening, then up till 2 again. So I would sleep 3-5 hours a couple times a day, got my 8 hours (usually) and was fine.
Having kids means, among other things, I don’t get to choose when I wake up. I guess I could choose to wake up earlier than them and start my day then, but I choose to stay up late with the house to myself and take my personal time from whenever Allison goes to sleep until I get tired. Lately I’ve been getting tired before midnight, which means I get 6-8 hours sleep and have time to dream. So I’m more tired on those mornings than if I crash hard around 2am. Granted I feel like I have more energy during the day, but those first groggy moments in the morning can affect my mood for quite a while.
sidebar — I didn’t really need much caffeine in my life until I was watching 2 children during the day. But it sure elevates my mood on those “dad’s grumpy” mornings.
