Aww, sleep. Zzzzzzzz
What? Oh! Yes, where were we? I wasn't sleeping. Just resting my eyes. I swear!
In the world of dreams, I am often caught in that strange spiral reality of repetitious reality, a bit like Bill Murry's Groundhog's Day. Each time the dream has a kink in the seams, and as much as one attempts to fix it, some things are just bound to happen again no matter what new choices are made. It can drive a person so mad, they might wake up suddenly in fit of rage, only to find themselves slipping back into sleep to continue the same pattern exactly where they left off.
How much sleep is enough sleep? Rip Van Winkle (story spoilers) met some ghosts in the woods, drank some of their liquor, and then slept for 20 years, and for it he avoided being drafted into a bloody war that cost thousands of lives. Of course, he also discovered some other not so nice changes occurred. His grew a long gray beard. His dog had disappeared (died presumably). He missed the childhood of his children as they were now grown adults. And finally his wife had died, although he claimed that wasn't such a big loss.
20 years of life, gone! The average amount of sleep in a person's lifetime (75 years old, 7 hours of sleep a day), is 25 years. That's a lot of lost life to live!
A special gene mutation, known as the DEC2 mutation, exists in some humans. These uncanny X-Men have the rare ability to sleep on average for about 4 hours, waking up alive, alert, and wide awake without suffering any of the debilitating physical and mental drawbacks that others might suffer to their health on so little sleep. While the rest of the world sleeps, these mutants are liberated to live a second lifeline, and an alternate personality is often born. They often must find some solitary activity to occupy their time and work while their friends and family members are imprisoned in slumber.
Perhaps they are not the mutants. Perhaps we are! In ancient times, people slept according to the daylight hours. People often had three separate sleep cycles in a day. One at the onset of night. A waking period, monks often called _Vigils_, where they would sing and offer prayers to God. Another sleeping period until dawn. A final brief _ciesta_ in the mid-day. The bio-rhythms of the body were more naturally adapted and evolved from the changes of the sun and moon. Once the light-bulb was invented, the habit of an extended sleep period became the new norm forever.
Personally, I am a very heavy, long sleeper, often feeling lethargic throughout the day, with the exception of evenings when I become a night owl filled with energy and creative thoughts. Waking me in the early hours, awakens the monster inside of me, including my toxic dragon breath. It is strange for me to be awake too early, when it is still dark, and I develop an odd mental state in which I seem to hate everyone around me, perhaps because my blood vessels feel like they are swollen with cotton and bleach. I cannot do complex math and memorization. Without coffee, it may take three more hours to fully feel restored from this strange state of mind, and I may even find myself falling back asleep uncontrollably before the early afternoon. Some food and drink at lunch usually restores me to back to normalcy.
So instead, I choose to go to bed late, and sleep in late, allowing myself the full luxury of rest and dreams. Once I develop that feeling of loss of balance, slurred speech, slower brain function, headache, or droopy eyelids, I know I'm ready to crash for the night. It allows me to recover the most quickly in the morning. Although, physically getting myself fully awake and onto my feet is still a bit of challenge if there is no motivation and responsibility to do anything of importance in the day.
When mom and dad used to tuck us in at night to make us feel good about ourselves and the coming day before we went to sleep, perhaps that has more benefit to our daily health than we realize.