Desperately Seeking Hypnos

I’ve always taken sleep for granted. You lie down. You read for a while. You think about the day that has passed and the one approaching. You fall asleep. You dream sometimes. You wake up refreshed. Exactly the way it is described in the FLE text books : Je me couche. Je lis un roman pendant une demie heure. Je pense à ma journée et je m’endors. Je rêve des vacances, des belles journées, de mes amis etc et je me réveille le lendemain en pleine forme.

Simple as that !

Not really.

After having been through a spell of insomnia where I slept barely 2 to 3 hours a day for several months, and had to drive myself to the brink of collapsing from sheer fatigue, in order to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, and yet find myself awakened rudely just a couple of hours later because of a nightmare that left me in cold sweat, I have a new-appreciation for sleep. I know how precious it is and what a delight it is to be able to sleep through the night without being disturbed by nasty thoughts and nastier nightmares that come creeping up on you and plant fears that are difficult to shake off.

Since I’ve come here, the nightmares have reduced, and most nights I fall asleep soon after getting into bed. But I still don’t sleep like I used to sleep; I still don’t sleep like a baby. My sleep is fraught with the stress of pending work, of expectations I have from myself, of wrong decisions, of unfinished work, of unrealised dreams, of regrets for the past and fears for the future. My sleep is fragmented with wisps of the nightmares from last year and strange, illogical dreams that make me wonder what my unconscious and sub-conscious are trying to tell me – for instance, the other night I dreamt of a friend, with whom I used to love arguing and of course we were arguing in the dream. Only, we were both sporting grey hair and very obviously in our 60s! I was berating my friend’s choice of film, grumbling about having being dragged to yet another terrible film with Abhishek Bacchan (don’t ask me) and Mahima Chaudhary (I’m just as flabbergasted as you) and not having learnt the lesson after Dus (that was the last Bollywood flick I saw with this friend)… I woke up just as I started beating up my friend in the dream! Now tell me what to make of that!

Last night as well, my sleep was broken several times during the night because I knew I had a pile of work waiting for me and when I finally had to get up at 6 am, I couldn’t drag myself out of bed because I was still feeling exhausted. Perhaps more so…

Is there some special fast or prayer we can chant to please the gods of sleep? If there is, please tell me! I’m willing to change my stance on these dogmatic rituals if it brings back my sleep.