Insomnia

Why did it take Stephen King so long to write a book about it?

I am one of those poor creatures called, "Insomniac." Pity us, have mercy on us, donate to our telethons. We are, after all, up all night watching those same damn telethons.

It strides into your room in the night and strikes without warning. Ha ha, it says (am I stretching the "it" metaphor too far?), listen to the sounds of the man sleeping peacefully beside you. Don't you wish you could fall asleep in an average of 2.3 seconds, as he does?

There's only so many fifteen minute intervals that can go by before you sit up in bed and say, okay, fine, I'm going to go out and surf the web or play Escape Velocity because I'm tired and I'm cranky and I can't fall asleep.

I'm just glad we live in a quiet neighborhood. Or maybe not: the six months I lived next to train tracks in Menlo Park (and I mean next to the damn tracks) I learned to sleep better than I ever have in my life. The ability to sleep through a multi-car train rumbling less than a hundred feet from where I slept is an ability that I have lost by moving to more comfortable, and less noisy, surroundings.

Maybe I'm awake because I had endless quantities of green tea with my sushi dinner tonight. I keep forgetting that I can't even look at caffeinated beverages past about 5 in the evening if I want to get to sleep before midnight. Dinner was great -- the best sushi place in the world is Sushi-ya, on University Avenue in Palo Alto -- but I ate too much and my stomach got cranky. My stomach's not the reason I'm up though.

Maybe I'm up because I'm reading Fortune's Favorites, the third in a series of Roman novels by Colleen McCullough, and it's terribly exciting stuff. The machinations of the end of the Roman Republic made crystal clear. All those dry old names come alive.

The damnable thing about insomnia is that you're too tired to do anything like continue to read. Or do anything that requires much brain power (which is why, ha ha, I'm writing this).

I went to see a hypnotherapist once for help in finding techniques to get me to sleep. How long have you had this problem? she asked.

I thought back over the years: staying up late to listen to the Comedy Hour and the Mystery Hour, both on pre-fascist KSFO; staying up to watch Creature Features; staying up making movies in my head of what I wanted my future life to be like. Then I would find that I had kept myself up incredibly late, only not to be able to fall asleep.

"All my life," I said.

She immediately started asking whether I was afraid, as a child, if someone was going to come into my room. Sigh. Next. I got up and left. There's nothing I can't stand more than "one neurosis fits all" psychotherapy fads.

The session we did on getting me to relax all muscles in my body and go on a guided imagery tour of the universe didn't help either. I ended up with relaxed muscles and a very vivid picture of hurtling through space to meet my "guides." All of which I was clearly awake for.

I think that if you have to be an insomniac, the least you could have is lots of excess energy too. But no. I'm sitting here on the living room chair, curled up like a lump, typing away. I want to make sure I'm incoherent before heading back to bed. I can't stand lying there and listening to the humming of the digital clock as it counts off those fifteen minute increments.