What keeps you awake nights?
Not a fan of coffee or cola, chocolate had always been my prime insomnia suspect. That was before my doctor (a sadist who shall not be named) asked me to drop chocolate for six weeks, four of which have now expired.
Miraculously, I have not.
Despite my splendid abstinence, I'm writing this at 2 A.M. both wired and stimulant free. Or am I?
Here's my theory of sleeplessness. Input through the senses are the ultimate stimulant. Your mind wants answers to questions asked by your senses. All day long you audit the world but, if you are at all like me, you filter out certain input that pains or derails you. Too messy. Distracting. Discomfiting.
But the truth will out. Your mind is savvy. She pries your eyes open with pure light and drawls, 'process this' at your fluttering lids.
'Go away!' you say. 'Dreams are the arbiters of subconscious truth. Let them process reality. I'm tired!'
But conscious mind is a vixen. Hell bent on your best intentions, she dangles exotic dreams at you like shiny spears. 'You can have your dreams,' she says, 'once you respect your senses.'
'You're full of it!' I say, too lazy to be specific.
The mind proceeds. 'Get out of bed and write something,' she says 'because if you don't, sorry, no dreams tonight.'
Once I drag myself out of bed and play with words awhile, I start to feel very very tired. It's as if the mind just needed some quiet, alert time to work things through.
Do you and your mind ever have the late night confrontation? Tell us about it...
Public Domain painting Carl Larsson
- Susan Weber's blog
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The mind acts like a sense;
The mind acts like a sense; it creates items for itself to perceive. Mine often decides to act as you describe..."pst, hey! wake up, there's THIS to think about..."
It requires action. My hunch is that each of us has a different action. Mine varies, from writing, to music, to just sticking my nose in the dewy grass. Yours seems to be writing brilliantly. And what is that cool painting???
The 1906 painting's name is
The 1906 painting's name is 'Model writing postcards', Jay. If you look at the bottom of my posts, I always give credit to the creators of the images and a link, where possible.
Keep writing - I'm very much enjoying your thoughts!
The We Hours
APRIL MORNING
Late April.
Very early in the morning.
Only the sound of the fan
in the bedroom.
Only the soft light
in the great room
from the lamp next to my chair.
A window open,
brings in an occasional
sound from outside.
A soft, cool, breeze
tip toes into the room.
How peaceful this time of day.
I'm a hardcore night person. My average bedtime is some where around 2 AM. I don't necessarily write or create during my staying up, but there are times that I do. I seem to get more projects done during the early morning.
When it comes to creating, for me it's all of the time. By the time I'm done fooling around and such. By the time I'm ready to go to sleep. I'm so darn tired that I doubt I could create a word, let alone a poem.
Many times during the daytime I get an idea for a poem but because I'm so busy, I cannot take the time to sit down at that precise moment to write it down. That I really do not like! Evening is great! I love it! That is why I stay up.
Wee Small Hours
I have to say that the times I am most creative are the times I don't sleep well - I don't seem to get the impulse to draw or write much before 8pm, and it seems to peak in the wee small hours of the morning. I imagine it's a taste of the charge night owls get, being awake when others are asleep - maybe then I feel like I have my very own space to create, as no one else is awake in it!
(Susan, I am still having something funky going on with my signature - I'm trying to fix it, I'm so sorry! You should feel free to go in and edit it out if you like - I don't mean to take up tons of space with my IT problems!)
__________________
'Everybody has a secret world inside of them. All of the people of the world, I mean everybody. No matter how dull and boring they are on the outside, inside them they've all got unimaginable, magnificent, wonderful, stupid, amazing worlds. Not just one world. Hundreds of them. Thousands maybe.'
Neil Gaiman, Sandman
I think it's OK now...
Not to worry - from here it looks like your lovely signature quote is intact, with the IT extras now gone. If that's not the case, from your view, let me know!