Have you ever had insomnia?

And I mean like, REAL insomnia. Real, hardcore insomnia that leaves you awake for four days in a row on a regular basis even though you lie there in bed with your eyes closed praying for sleep to come.

If you haven't ever suffered insomnia, no worries. I'll clue you in.

True insomnia is not just a bed association deal. Some people can't sleep because they associate their bed with homework or TV. So find another place to work. Use the desk in your dorm, use the library. Get a sofa.

And true insomnia doesn't strike because of a family tragedy or seeing someone you love die right in front of your eyes while you are left powerless. Nope. Thats treatable. A psychologist who knows what they are doing will help guide you through the process. Psychologists do not exist ONLY to help people figure out what in their lives spurred their crazy. They also help people deal with crises and help them adjust their way of thinking. Psychologists have a multitude of specialties. Use them.

True insomnia comes from nothing. Its the sort of thing where you go to bed one night and you wait to fall asleep and before you have fallen asleep the dawn has come and you have to get to work. And the first night it happens you say to yourself "Oh, its okay Ill just have an extra cup or two of coffee to get through the day and I'll catch a nap on my lunch break."

And you get through the day. Then when you get home you grab a warm bath, which is super relaxing, you have whatever little foods you eat to help you fall asleep. You are good and drowsy while you are sitting on the sofa watching the news, and you relocate to your bed. But alas sleep doesnt come. So you lay there and wait. And wait.... And wait...

Finally you decide that if you arent going to sleep, you should accomplish some stuff. Afterall, how many times have you caught yourself sighing and saying "There just arent enough hours in the day." And you get up and pick up clothes, fold that clean laundry, get those last few dishes in the dishwasher. Its 3am and you arent tired but the house is clean, so you wander back to bed and wait til dawn to come.

And this is how it continues. Some nights you actually manage to catch a few hours of sleep. But most nights you stay up and clean the house. Once you managed to rearrange the entire study in 5 hours, and in the process you threw away clutter, evicted the family of dustbunnies that had been living under your desk, and alphabetized and categorized the bookshelves.

This is where you learn that there are things other than awake and asleep. There is this place where you are wide awake, and your eyes are closed, and you can feel and hear and sense everything around you. And its really weird because if you lay perfectly still it gives you the same sort of recharge as sleep, but you are not actually asleep. You can feel your muscles And if you actually move, the spell is broken and you are back to being fully awake.

Theres also a state of being where anything that is completely routine can be done in a half coma like state. You can drive to all your normal places, and somehow your obstacle avoidance is still miraculously on point.

Now not all the time does insomnia linger around and there are many nights where you can actually sleep. And those nights are worth celebrating.

The craziest part about insomnia is that sometimes it goes away for months at a time and there wont be any real change in your day to day life. And when you have it, you try EVERYTHING everyone tells you. You drink the warm milk before bed, lavender scented pillows, chamomile tea, cutting caffeine entirely from your diet, exercising in the mornings (which doesnt help you sleep any but does help you stay awake during the day), reading in a different room, aroma therapy candles, white noise machines, TV, no TV, radio, no radio, herbal supplements, and sleep medications.

None of that nonsense worked for me. The worst part was I had borrowed an Ambien from a friend of mine who used it and I was bouncing off the walls all night long. I also tried Tylenol PM and again twitching and tweaking all night long. But my metabolism is very bizarre to begin with, and that is a whole other story.

Another face of insomnia is that when you get into a work week where you start working your butt off physically and mentally, you learn to take a cat nap anywhere. You can sleep on the floor under a desk, ontop of a box, under a stage with a full concert going on, which I have done and when you are that tired, you could sleep through the end of the world. You learn to adapt around not getting a full nights sleep. And when you lose sleep for too many nights in a row, it starts getting very surreal.

When I was young I had minor insomnia so I would imagine scenarios and play in my bed until I fell asleep. Once I reached high school though, my insomnia kicked in full tilt. I would often go 2 or 3 days at a time without being able to sleep at night, and one time I went for 7 days without getting any sleep at all. By day 4 I had started hallucinating. I would be riding in the car with my mom and I would look out the window and there would be men in bio-hazard space suits walking down the street. I also saw them walking down the hallway in the school and other places. There was also a man laying on my ceiling above my bed when I went to lay down at night.

During college I learned to just go with what my body wanted to do. Which turned things into a 36 hour sleep cycle. I would be awake for 24 and sleep for 12, which is the closest I have ever come to having a real sleep cycle.

Basically if you have severe insomnia, sleep becomes a luxury. It is a precious thing that you long for like a junkie without his dope. I hope this allowed people to get a feel for what its like to live without sleep.