My Messy Divorce from Sleep

My sleep schedule lately has been turned completely upside-down. Having classes at two in the afternoon means that I can stay up until five in the morning without feeling the effects – unless I want to wake up early or do anything before noon. So I tried to remedy that on Friday by staying up all Thursday night. I don’t recommend this to anyone who takes a class on medieval literature in the afternoon.

We’ve finished with Dante, and have now moved on to the “medieval culture” part of the class, starting with the works of Petrarch.

                Sidenote: I actually really like Petarch sofar. We’ve started reading from a collection of sonnets and letters he’s written, and I really, really love the sonnets. Most of them are about the pain of love and are addressed to “Laura” (in two sections: Laura alive, and Laura dead). They’re definitely better than Dante. He’s just too severe and political for me. I mean, does everyone who has ever done anything bad deserve to burn and suffer for all eternity? Probably not. Does Dante think so? Definitely. Petrarch is like a breath of fresh air blowing through hell.

I was totally fine in the morning and early on in the afternoon, but when 12 pm rolled around, my mind was gone. Completely. I could barely process anything, but somehow remembered two vital things: keep eyes open at all costs, and try to maintain eye contact. Both were easier said than done. It was, I imagine, similar to being on an acid trip. There were some moments of out-of-body experiences, and others when I realized my eyes seemed to roll back into my head a bit. It’s highly likely that my professor now thinks I have some kind of neurological disorder. Which is always good in an academic setting.

For some reason, all symptoms (neurological and otherwise) seemed to completely disappear by my next class. That’s not to say that the next class was more interesting. In fact, the opposite was true. While I like my psychology class, and find it really interesting, the subject of internet research and academic databases is not my idea of fun. On my own time, researching my own fancies: definitely, 100%. In a room full of a bunch of other people, researching their favorite topics (twin research, nature vs. nurture): not so much… not at all, really. I spent that class trying to illustrate a Tom Waits song, with okay results.

My bizarre sleep pattern has resulted in some seriously bizarre dreams, though. There was one with a man carrying his severed ham/leg in a plastic bag around the train station. There was another with a bus stop in the middle of a farm that sold psychedelic drugs (and psychedelic drug accessories). In another, I was Scully, and Mulder and I were investigating a haunted house in which I became possessed. There are several dreams from which I only remember small details: smashing through aquariums, throwing children down a hill, shouting at people for instant coffee (I don’t drink coffee). Graveyards, UFOs, government officials, frozen people, sporting goods stores: everything juxtaposed in weird circumstances. And then there’s the one main, recurring character in all this. I wonder if his ears are burning.