Wednesday, January 11, 2006

NyQuil: Not Quite

For reasons that I don’t understand, my body doesn’t seem to appreciate it when I want to chemically induce it to sleep. I never try to do it at inappropriate times, I swear! When I have a cold or the flu and desperately need to get some sleep – I don’t think I’m out of line. But my body fights it. It seems to take a long time to kick in, and when I do finally fall asleep, I have the most vivid and jarring dreams. The kind where you wake up tired because your brain has been so active all night. The minute the drugs wear off I could sit straight up in bed, alert and awake, as my body assumes it’s been drugged against its will and kidnapped. “Where am I? Am I at home? How did I get here? Let me think…. I put myself to bed… and that’s exactly where I woke up… Something is just not right and I’ll be damned if I’m falling for THAT again!” Stupid body.

A similar thing happens when it’s really hot and/or humid outside. I enter more of a half-sleep state than a deep sleep. Dreaming when you’re half awake can be very disturbing because you really have a hard time determining what’s real and what’s not. It’s not very restful. Stupid body.