You are so awake that your eyes feel open, even though they are closed.
Your eyes feel wide-open, like you are bug-eyed. This is also the feeling of the rest of your face. Your eyebrows are way up there. You feel like you have a very surprised look on your face, even though you know your eyes are closed.
You are in a very dark and very tiny bedroom, made from a barely walk-in closet. And yet, being in such a state of super consciousness, your eyes feel like they are magnets for any available light. You feel as if you can see bright lights through your eyelids. All the light in the apartment and the building (including the lobby!) and the neighborhood and the city outside is all being streamed into your pupils on invisible wires. It is all streaming in, filling your head with photons.
You feel as if your mouth is wide open, teeth showing, crazy smile. You feel as if your tongue is sticking way out of your mouth for no reason at all except that you are so awake.
In reality there is no light coming into your room. It is nearly hermetically sealed, with no windows. Even if you dared open your eyes, you would most likely not be able to see anything. And, although the room is not completely quiet (there are muffled street noises coming from a room away) it is nowhere near over the sleep-interrupting threshold.
In reality, you are lying in your bed. On your back. You are in comfortable sheets on a comfortable mattress with a nice blanket over you. The temperature is the optimum temperature for sleeping. The air quality is really pleasant. A very nice evening for a full, eight-hour snooze. The rest of the world is sleeping. They are taking advantage of the atmosphere. They will be fresh in the morning.
You have spent nights like this for over ten years. 4 a.m. is your time. You wake up and spend your energy trying to go back to sleep. Really trying. Mostly, you are used to it. It does not bother you anymore. You know you will get back to sleep on most nights after an hour, sometimes a little more. There will be more sleep. You’ve found ways around it. You sometimes, but very rarely turn on the light, and do some reading. You used to live in the living room, and would sometimes turn on the television. That set a weird precedent. You got a little ipod. Now you can listen to music or podcasts or books on tape (whatever ipod tape is called) until you fall asleep. Basically, any type of human voice puts you to sleep. You feel that maybe this has affected your awake human relationships.
You have to be careful. The idea is to not let consciousness take over. Unconsciousness is the goal. Relaxation is key. But it’s difficult. You are fighting a battle where you cannot use any aggression or effort. Any kind of movement of your limbs seems to energize you. Opening your eyes seems to rev your face and head. Any kind of thought seems to feed other thoughts, which, in turn, wakes you the fuck up.
Gene taught you how to meditate. So, often, you will do controlled breathing exercises and recite the mantra. Ah, the mantra.
Some thoughts are more destructive than others. They trigger panic, guilt, or frustration. The worst is the thought that you are wasting time, lying there. You should get up and do something. The night is yours. Think of the things you could do.
That is unfair. You deserve to sleep at night. It must be a right, somehow. But you remember sleepovers when you were little, how everybody seemed to go right to sleep. You remember your younger days, when there would sometimes be a guest staying in your bed. How they would fall asleep and begin heavily respirating, while you listened uncomfortably. Someone you had just felt a pretty strong connection with, has now left the building, gone to some wonderful fairy dream-state. Left their junk behind.
And tonight, you have blown it. You have thought too much tonight. And now you are not relaxed. Sleep is out of reach. But you are too angry to get up and make use of the time. You will lie there until the world ends if you have to. You open your eyes and realize that your room, just barely bigger than your lonely twin bed, is dark and square and high-ceilinged. You realize it is just a little bit bigger than a grave.
And that, of course, is your terrible dream of the afterlife. Forever awake, with nothing to do.
