Sleep and Dreaming

Francisco Goya, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"

I've decided there are not nearly enough hours available for me to accomplish all I'd like to in each day; therefore I've recently attempted to cut down on the amount of time I spend sleeping in an effort to maximize productivity. The plan was to see how well I'd do averaging six hours of sleep a night instead of my usual eight or so, giving me an extra two hours for schoolwork, schlepping around the house, or whatever random things might need doing. So far, things haven't been working out so well.

I'm a person who enjoys her sleep. This is likely because I tend not to get much quality sleep time. It takes a while for me to settle in and get comfortable: I have to make sure my pillows are situated correctly taking into account neck support, ear restriction, and respiratory ventilation; I need to make sure that I'm properly covered according to the climatic conditions, with extra layers added as necessary; and I definitely have to swim around changing position several times until I find the one for that particular night which best suits me. Once I've settled and do finally manage to doze off, I usually float in that half space between waking and unconsciousness for an undetermined amount of time. I also have a tendency to wake up at least once a night, though sometimes it happens more often.

The most certain method of guaranteeing I have a good night's rest (disregarding outside variables) is to physically exhaust myself over the course of the day. That way my body is so tired out it has no choice but to rest soundly. I remember one summer where several long work days piled up one after the other, and when presented with a long stretch of unaccounted time, I managed to sleep almost uninterrupted for twelve hours, waking briefly only once when my housemates returned from an outing. The one disappointing thing about exhausting myself physically though, is that under those circumstances I tend not to dream.

Being one who enjoys sleep, I also enjoy dreaming. I find it to be an escape from the mundanity of reality and a chance to revel in the abstract situations produced by my brain space. I'm not sure what others' dreaming is like, as it varies from person to person, but my dreams tend to happen in segments, progressing from one to the next with some sort of common thread. As someone who has always loved the escape offered from fantasy novels and imagination, I look forward to each dream as a chance to discover something new, and am constantly amazed at the strange and wonderful things my sleeping mind produces.

In dreams the limits of the "real world" (for who can truly describe the nature of Reality?) are thrown off; people can fly, or walk through walls, and become capable of all sorts of impossible tasks; animals talk; the landscape of the earth changes before your eyes, or you leave this sphere completely. I find in my dreams I'm more easily creative, composing music and poetry, choreographing dances, making art without the effort that's inherent in the waking world. This leads me to wonder if this creativity is just an illusion created by a bored mind--or if in sleep, when cut off from the distractions of the outside world, we are at our purest intellectual form, and free to create unconstrained. This may be why many flashes of inspiration come when you least expect them; once you've stopped over-thinking an idea, your unconscious mind is given a chance to work on it without conditioned assumptions and expectations, leading to some ingenious solutions. I think artists who can tap into that unconscious creativity have a distinct advantage when it comes to creating their work, with the results being, on a subconscious level, more immediately relatable to the viewer.

My lack of sleep however, has done me no favors in terms of energy or creativity, and after a week of averaging only six hours of sleep a night, I caved and temporarily abandoned my quest. I found my dreams during that week to be stranger than normal (and even under regular circumstances, my dreams are fairly odd), and upon waking I realized I couldn't hold onto them as easily. Having given up my plan of reduced sleep, I'm currently in need of a new method of increasing my daily productivity. Perhaps the trick to dealing with the buildup of daily tasks is to stop dwelling on them, letting go of my anxiety, and allowing inspiration for dealing with them come when it will--whether in life or in dreams.