It's 6.05am. Who really cares. Time is an illusion apparently. I've been awake since 3am. It is a regular occurrence, this self imposed jet lag state. What better drug is there than sleep deprivation, my dear stoning friends of the past? I should wear leopard print in the jungle, in hope of being hit by a tranquilizer dart. Anything for sleep.
So why does this happen? Well, it is part of a developed human condition called over-thinking. Before you know it you end up booby trapping yourself with that ridiculous brain thingy. And then you're stuck in some kind of retarded mental loop you created. Waking up at 3am is not the problem. Initially there is a glimmer of hope that you may fade back to sleep, to the land where the soul takes a vacation from the conscious mind and body. But that glimmer of hope becomes a thought and that thought becomes another thought and another thought. Before you are even aware you are being dumped upon by your own thought avalanche. And what's more, it's a hollow avalanche. The thoughts are empty, redundant.
'Yeah, toast is pretty great. hang on, what is the toaster set to? Yeah, 4, I like it on 4, just the right amount of crispness. There are 3 avocados in the fridge. Is the toaster off at the wall? Not sure, it wouldn't matter anyway. I mean, I'm not about to stick a knife in there, but if I did what would happen? No, I know what will happen. Of course, now I wanna try it though, like when you're near a cliff face and you know you could just jump over the edge. When was I last on a cliff face? Maybe that was in a movie and not me. Oh wait, I'm thinking of 'The Fugitive'. That wasn't a cliff though. There is no way he would've survived that. Maybe I could do stunts. Nope, arms are too long. I could be a stunt person for spaghetti, but I don't think there are any scripts with spaghetti as a character. Oh, I'll write one. Man, I'm tired. 3.01am.'
It's all down hill from there, the thought avalanche gains momentum. It's a one-man show of shoulda-coulda-wouldas. You are the director of a paranoid paradise. Ah, way too many metaphors. Take that! So when it gets to 6.05am you realise that you are not getting back to sleep. In fact for the last hour you mostly thought about trying to fall back to sleep, and that is precisely why you could get to sleep. The more you think of sleep the less you will, because to sleep requires enough moments of unthinking.
Try different sleeping positions, that might help. It doesn't, not while your mind is busy inventing pretend problems to fix. And you end up looking like a pig on a mattress spit, sprawled across dishevelled bed sheets, rotating every 5 minutes.
Try counting sheep. Really? Has anyone, aside from Burt and Ernie, ever done that? I've actually tried it and all I can think about is how ridiculous it is, but then I wonder if they are muppet sheep or real sheep. Then I reassess and conclude that I would be a below average sheep dog.
Try drinking some warm milk. Oh great, so I actually have to get out of bed and heat up milk for this, or is there some giant warm milk-filled teet in the sky that gets lowered on the hour. Hmm.
Ok, ok, I'm getting up. Hazy days.
Too funny!!
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