You can sleep when you are dead. --Evan Nichols
When I was a teen, I helped out at an all night church retreat with middle-school kids. There was a great deal of signing, activities, snacks and talks. By the end of the retreat (maybe 4 a.m.) I was feeling dizzy, nauseous, exhausted and off-balanced. I recalled psychology readings where people who were allowed to sleep but were kept from REM sleep eventually went crazy. The lack of sleep could not be calmed by food, laughter, or activities. I think my parents picked me up by 8 a.m. and I promptly went to bed until mid afternoon. The experience showed that I was not a ngiht owl.
I am now in graduate school full time (15 units) while working full time at school. Fortunately I am in a resource position where I can slog through the day if I must. But I couldn’t imagine being a classroom teacher, which some of my classmates are, and doing this (they are also younger, but it is not easy even still). I have class on Mondays and Wednesdays andd some Saturdays, and must read and write in the evenings, staying up late if I must. Monday we got readings and an assignment for the Wednesday class-
-it had better be worth my losing sleep. What surprises me is that I am able to stay beyond my 9:00 bedtime and function rather well the following day. So I am trying to use sleep deprivation as an asset. At certain times of the day (early morning and mid-afternoon especially) I feel the waves of exhaustion and I am hovering just to be cogent and keep from crashing. Being sleep deprived can be a drug as it makes me loopy, puts me in a state of heightened energy I didn’t have. I wonder what other deprivation can bring me this vigor.
© 2011 Hector V. Lee
