Insomnia a personal perspective.

If you are having trouble with insomnia, this is not the place for answers to your problems. Instead, this is going to be a descriptive way to look at life in a perspective of the sleep and wake. Average adult sleeps 7-8 hours per day, even more. If we consider this a fact, 20 years of your life you'd be sleeping. While rest of the world is functioning, the earth is rotating, while the ships are sailing and aero planes are flying all around the world, quarter of the world population is sleep at any given moment, if you consider the fact proximity of India and China maybe more than half asleep sometimes.

Not Insomnia

Since I started to fascinate by the world of books, novels specially, I became a night owl. I used to watch TV series late into the night. Often sleep after the midnight. I couldn't stop myself from reading a novel up until it finishes. One more chapter, before sleep. One more chapter before sleep. I would say to myself all night. Falling asleep only when I fear my parents figuring out that I have been up all night reading stupid novels. Later this passion would change, into watching films, TV series, learning programing languages, doing math while others are sleeping. It seems, I find interesting things year after year, which I cannot chose to stick to. But I would grab them with greed, and this had an effect that it became obvious to me, Sleeping is my enemy.

My insomnia lesson

So, all my youth even into middle life, sleeping I considered the enemy. Enemy which stopped me reaching a certain goal. Perhaps its finishing a novel, passing an exam or even partying with friends. (Latter was very rare, but we all want some nights not to end) Until I learned that there is a thing called insomnia. One day after middle years, I found I couldn't sleep. This time, for some reason, I was tired. I was tired, working away from home, depressed to the core from isolation, howling wind batting the rooftop, passing through the tiny holes of the ceiling bringing in freezing air inside. And I couldn't sleep. There was no one to talk, nothing to do. I didn't want to watch a film or read a novel. I wanted to sleep. But sleep did not come I was wide awake tired. I suffered for hours. It was agonizing. Sleeping was my enemy for my whole life, maybe I hated it so much that it was angry that night. It didn't come. I wasn't myself next day, but a tired broken drunkard who was daydreaming about sleep at work. Luckily, I embraced sleep following day soon as it arrived. And since then, I consider sleep as a privilege.

A dream

So, now I know how an 80-year-old man in a hospital bed struggle to sleep at night. I didn't realize what suffering they must be feeling, when they cannot have that peace which is provided free of charge by nature. Maybe you are a workaholic, in youth, and still would not value the sleep as much as your work hours, or leisure hours.

As I said earlier, this gives me another perspective to look at my life. If the life is a continuum which is filled with tasks, any value we give to each, and every task is purely arbitrary. As an example, reading novel is not more valuable than watching TV, or studying, or sleeping or eating. The value given to any task is purely circumstantial and situational. When we say, studying is better than, sleeping that is just the perspective of a youth full of ambitions. But for elderly, they would not care for anything other than a simple sleep at night. One insomniac night taught me how to appreciate sleep. The question is What else are we taking for granted?