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Confessions Of A Narcoleptic Insomniac
February, 2000
Narcolepsy
is the scientific term for falling asleep anytime, anywhere, but
always during the daytime. My ability to doze off is more like
a magic trick than a syndrome but sit me down anywhere -- on a
plane, a train, a bus, a waiting room -- and my head will hit
my right shoulder, my lips will slide open and I'll drool. The
only way to prevent it is to keep my mouth in motion. I talk to
anyone and everyone until the plane lands, the train pulls into
the station, the bus stops or my name is called.
During the day, I can't sit and read a book past paragraph two
without yawning, nodding, then jolting to attention when the book
falls to my lap. Barely a moment will have passed yet in a dream
I've covered time and distance not in any way suggestive of what
I'm reading.
This doesn't cause any problems for me, other than having to tell
my plane mate that I might doze off and I'd appreciate a nudge
because I snore loudly. Oh, there I go. I'm so used to explaining
my snoring to potential victims, that I mouthed off about it here.
But, it's true.
The rare time I've been frightened by falling asleep is when I'm
waiting for a light to change and feel my foot easing off the
brake as I start to slump. A natural fear of falling comes into
play and I jerk alert, jamming the brake until I jolt forward.
True to form, I fall asleep, suddenly and soundly when my bedside
lamp is dimmed -- but not for long. I waken in two hours and am
ready to take on the day. Unfortunately, it's night time. It sounds
so melancholy and dreamy to hear Frank Sinatra singing "My time
of day is the night time," and drone on about the city sidewalks
and the streets being hosed down while behind curtained windows
the city sleeps.
The obvious solution to this phenomenon is to open a book. It
works all day, why not use it to fall asleep at night? I turn
on the light, fluff up the pillows, work my shoulder blades into
a cozy fit to the bed beneath me and read. And read. And read.
It doesn't work. The reading itself is pleasurable, of course,
but the page is superimposed with the knowledge that I must be
up in three hours and I haven't slept yet.
Which is worse, not having the vigor to enjoy the day or having
too much at night to slip into sleep? There are all kinds of home
remedies to soothe us to sleep. My husband swears by hot Ovaltine.
If I thought I had a problem, I'd have a cup of hot milk. But,
I can't convince myself that it will happen again so I go to bed
expecting to sleep. Perchance to dream? Don't we all?
Being awake and being asleep are perfectly normal. In fact, I
looked up the signs and symptoms of both conditions and under
Sleep Disorders in The Merck Manual it says, all symptoms and
signs are intensifications of normal phenomena. There you have
it: intensifications. A key word in discussing falling asleep
here is "untimely." There's nothing wrong, in other words, if
you fall asleep at an appropriate time.
Falling asleep or dragging yourself around all day is not as lonely
as being awake at night. Daytime, there's always someone saying,
"c'mon, get with it, move it." And there's always coffee, coke
or green tea for an energizing lift.
At night, though, there has to be a plan. Okay, there's the book
on the nightstand. There's the remote control in case something's
on television, there's the cat -- uh, oh, get him out of here!
There's the glass of wine to sip before bed and there's the bottle
of wine to refill the glass if it takes more than one. None of
it worked. I watched Law & Order at eleven, turned off the light
and nestled in, fell asleep and woke, really woke, at 1:30 a.m.
I decided to delve into the perfectly normal fact of sleeping
and waking and discovered as I read up on it that I had done everything
wrong. Although drinking wine early in the evening has no effect
on sleeping, sipping a glass just before bed is not a good idea.
It induces sleep but causes fragmentation, which is the term for
light sleeping.
So, where am I? I'm wide-awake, drowsy from the wine, promising
myself to do active daytime exercise tomorrow, when I read one
more line ... hmmm, here's advice that could work. Greet the sun,
it says. I can adjust my internal clock -- circadian rhythm, they
call it -- by getting 45 minutes of outside light as soon as I
get up. Inside light doesn't work. I look at the clock. It's almost
time for the alarm to go off, but I'll take 45 minutes to help
the pendulum swing in my kind of rhythm.
I pull on a sweat suit, lace up my shoes, adjust my Walkman's
headset, and, anxious to put an end to this upside down living,
open the front door with a flourish.
Guess what? The sun isn't up.
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