Insomnia ex vinum est ingravesco!

Star Date, October 27; the year, 2008. This is Captain A.E. Bayne coming at’cha from the Mothership, just inside the Dreamian Galaxy, orbiting Somnia 1027. Starfleet Command lost contact with the Somnians during a routine transmission three days ago. With growing concerns, they tore the roof off the mother sucker and sent us to turn the mother out. Thus far, we’ve had no luck in reaching the Somnians; but we chill, we chill.



Actually, it’s been quite some time since I was hit with a bout of insomnia, so I suppose I am due. In this case, my battle with the Sandman stems from a little thing called Wine-Awake. As I seem to have some time on my hands, I decided to do a little research on the subject. According to the medical web journals that I consulted, wine does commonly cause insomnia. Unremarkably, wine acts as a sedative, hence the warm toasties after a glass or two. Mmmm, love those warm toasties. It makes you very sleepy, but then it plays a little trick on you. Just as you are preparing to plummet into REM sleep, it flips a switch and acts like a stimulant. Those warm toasties become wide-eyed confusion around two or three in the morning. This effect, coupled with its diuretic and dehydrating qualities, may even last after the alcohol has left your system through the kidneys. A sedative and a stimulant in one handy-dandy package; why, someone should market this stuff. Oh…yeah, they already have.

So, why is it that when I experience insomnia it always wakes me around 3 a.m.? Ray Bradbury gives an answer in Something Wicked This Way Comes, a gorgeously written novel for those of you looking for some purely poetic literature. Bradbury’s protagonist, Charles Halloway, postulates that 3 a.m. is the soul’s midnight. He ruminates, “Doctors say the body’s at low tide then. The soul is out. The blood moves slow. You’re the nearest to dead you’ll ever be save dying. Sleep is a patch of death, but three in the morn, full wide-eyed staring, is living death! You dream with your eyes open.” Now there’s something to chew on and spit out. Perhaps my subconscious mind is simply trying to cheat death by taking back a bit of the night. Maybe there’s something in me that doesn’t enjoy the ebbing of the blood, or the turning of the tide.



Ah, but why be so morbid about this situation. I choose to place a positive spin on things; so, rather than tossing around in my balmy flannel sheets for an hour or two I will view these hours as life gained. What to do with my extra hours? Why, I could write the fourth chapter of my web novel; or I could clean my room (yikes). I could work on a hat I’ve been knitting, play with Photoshop, or clean up the dishes that I left on the counter last night. I could join countless other humans in surfing web; or I could draw in my sketch book. I could play with my Rhapsody account. I COULD try to go back to sleep. Nah! There is definitely something to be said about gaining three full hours of waking life on a night when I hardly expected it.

I am feeling a bit drowsy now. The writing helps, as does the missed hour of sleep. Maybe I’ll climb into bed and try to get comfortable. Yes, those flannel sheets are beckoning. I forgot how chilly it gets at this time of the morning, and I do have a long day of teaching ahead of me. I have exactly…fifteen minutes until I have to make my funk the p-funk. Shit! No time for sleep; the Somnians have all left the building. Now the only choices are whether to lace the coffee with rat poison or heroin-substitute, with shower to ensue. Maybe next time, eh?