Doublesleep

Most people don't sleep enough. It isn't that we don't like to sleep; most of us do. It's just that we have so much to do that we end up staying up too late. Unwilling to put aside pleasurable activities to get our important work done, we fill up our day and lose most of our night. And then we're left groggy in the morning, hugging the pillow and hating the alarm clock, wishing to slip back into dreamland forever (or at least five more minutes).

Well, there's a solution, if you can master it.

It's called doublesleep.

This is something I invented when I got sick of being told it was obvious I wasn't a morning person; when I kept hearing that I looked "tired" (translation: Like crap); when starting the day seemed so hideous that I dreaded it the night before.

I decided if there was a way to get two minutes' worth of sleep for every one minute I was actually asleep, perhaps I could reap the benefits of double sleep!

It's all about tricking yourself.

Go to sleep at night and settle into the bed (or couch, or floor, whatever you sleep on), and try to feel as if you've actually already been asleep for a while. Concentrate on making every moment in the bed before you fall asleep seem like an eternity. And time will seem to slow down; you will keep looking at the clock and noticing with surprise that the numbers haven't changed; the hands haven't moved. Time is molasses. Drift into slumber just knowing you'll wake up rested. When the alarm rings in the morning stretch and know you had a great night's sleep in only three and a half hours. You can trick yourself into doing this; I've done it many times. The only downfall is the fact that you very much want a nap when you get home.

(Note: This is not the same thing as the "Uberman schedule," which is a different sleep experiment I'm very much a fan of. Uberman is even more intense, involving six [or, in my case, sometimes FIVE] twenty-minute naps a day with no other sleep. If you want to read about that, check out the article on E2 or my journal entry about when I began that sleep experiment.)

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Comments from others:

Mikey: I find this interesting in many ways I myself have done something like this and it does work most of the time, for me it is more a bit of meditation. But it works to calm the mind and seek rest.

Synesthesia: You do not have a link for nighttime by the way. The poem would be ideal for a song with guitars and possibly a piano.

I am a nocturnal girl living in a diurnal world. Left to my own devices I will stay up until the crack of dawn. But because I work I try to go to bed before midnight but it's hard to do that without being drugged with chamomile tea or sleepy time with valerian.
Which makes me drunk.
This nocturnalness has been a bit of a problem because I can blank out during the day when sitting trying to be alert and responsible and sadly I can never drink coffee again. Especially the super strong mega coffee drinks.
I dream of being able to be my nocturnal self as getting up early is so painful! And it's just too early. Plus the night is so much nicer.

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