Lewis Carroll, St George and the Dragon
I love this picture, it's one of my favorites (it is also on the cover of Madeleine is Sleeping, one of my favorite books.) I have been having disaster dreams again, this time involving figure skating and a floating amphitheatre sinking to the bottom of a lake with my mother possibly inside it (or possibly not inside it but it escaping with amnesia a pale blue volkswagon to another city.) I'm getting that crazy panicky overwhelmed feeling I sometimes get, though, so that might be part of it. Also, just a general glumness.
Oddly, lately I've been talking to alot of people who talk about how they can't sleep, can easily function in some sort of manic insomniac state. Me, one of my greatest pleasures is sleep, hours turning into days stretching and unfurling like an endless white sheet. When I'm stressed or troubled, I sleep. Sort of like those fainting goats, but not that abruptly. I could easily sleep half my life away if I didn't have to get up and go about the business of living. Not that insomnia doesn't occasionally strike, and when it does, I'm totally zombie girl. People have had entire conversations with me after all-nighters that I don't remember. I'm a mess, walking in front of cars, biting people's heads off, unable to concentrate. As I've gotten older, I've noticed that my body actually hurts when I haven't had enough sleep. Everyone who has normal jobs always teases me for complaing about having to get up before 10am, but since I don't get to bed usually until 3 or 4, those early mornings kill me.
1 comment:
All your talk about sleep made me remember this study I read about years ago. Thousands of people were asked how often they had nightmares and, like, 99 percent of them said almost never. But then they had all these people keep nightly dream journals and it turns out that, like, 99 percent of them had nightmares almost every night. I don't know if I'm one of these, since I don't keep a dream journal - but, like you, I too need my sleep. I hate that my job makes me wake up early!
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