I’m sittin’ at a coffee table unable to see straight,
watchin’ parallel lines unwind and undulate,
across the steam-streaked windows the scene seems bleak,
another train leavin’ home
conceding defeat with a low moan.

Hanging in a sky made of stone,
everybody’s leavin’ home,
I call my man Jerome to come meet me in the Twilight Zone
“Leave your mobile phone at home and come alone.”

It’s been a recurring problem throughout my life, but the last few weeks have seen it take new shape. The last time I managed to get a full night’s sleep must have been close to a month ago, with the 30 days since consisting of remaining wide awake for close to 20 hours a day. My wired consciousness interspersed with short power naps; the kind that leave you with bloodshot eyes and the sensation that you’re here, but not.

Insomnia has been both a benefit and a curse for as long as I can remember. In my youth the uncaring touch of wakefulness helped me accomplish some of my most obscure writing which has since been lost to the sands of time. This was back before I had paid much attention to computers and what they could do. The sound of binary code being manipulated by a sliver of silicon with etched lines had yet to seduce me. This was a time of paper and pen.

As I grew older and new hobbies and passions were discovered, I started to develop software in the early hours of the night. My fingers would hammer away at the keys until two or three in the morning, when a voice at the back of my head would then remind me of the alarm that was due to pierce the otherwise silent and dark cavern that was my sanctuary, heralding in the start of yet another day and yet another dollar.

I had thought this was something I could “grow out of.” My older friends had always complained about how tired they were once they reached a certain age. It was something I looked forward to. A full night’s rest, every night. How relaxing.

But it never happened.

Once I Was Fat, Now I’m Not

Since moving away from Ontario in 2002 I’ve had only a handful of restful nights each month, the majority of which have been here in Japan. Aside from these few days of peace, my mind has been constantly battling for sleep while deriding me for all the things I’ve yet to accomplish.

Where’s Embink? Why haven’t I put more efforts into studying Japanese? Why is my Arabic so rusty? Why haven’t I finished my books? Did I fill out my reports at work the day before? How will I present new material to the people who are notoriously resistant to assimilating a new language … despite their presence in the room?

These are but some of the things that run through my head on a minute-by-minute basis. But when the thoughts get quiet … that’s when things get interesting.

I’ve been having lots of “alternate story” moments running through my head lately. Things that I could have said in a given situation had I thought of it or if I were far more rude. One that I had posted to an open community reminds me of something I had read on CraigsList a while back, but most have been rather odd collections of “what ifs” and “who are theys.”

What Ifs are my favourite, as these often turn out to be pretty funny. My mind has a rather poor way of coping with stress in that it makes everything funny … even if it’s not. When things get really serious, I’m often reminded of something I had seen in a book, or online, or on some TV show. It makes me laugh … sometimes out loud. Naturally, this does have consequences, but it’s kept me alive thus far.

Who Are Theys are sometimes fun, but often just an exercise in boredom evasion. I see some people and try to imagine what their life is like. It’s done by taking into account how they dress, what they eat, how they walk, and just about anything else I can observe in the space of five to ten seconds. With this piddly amount of information, I then take it upon myself to guess what kind of house they live in, how materialistic they are, what kind of education they might have and just about anything else a guy in his late-20’s might think about. Suffice to say, it’s the biggest time waster at my disposal outside of reading the Daily Yomiuri.

Thought experiements occasionally mix things up by filling my head with mathematics, the varying laws of physics, and things I’ve learned from sources as respected as a post-secondary institution and as under-appreciated as a children’s science-related TV show (thank you Bill Nye, you science guy!). All of these things combine in order for me to think about the problems with interstellar travel, the amount of energy required to escape the gravitation pull of a black hole right before slipping into the event horizon, the amount of energy created by a star in its life, and just about anything else related to reality … be it inside or outside the Earth’s atmosphere.

But, despite the amount of time I spend in my head, and despite how tired I might get with the various types of thinking exercises, I just can’t fall asleep. Nothing has worked, and I refuse to take sleeping pills. If I wanted to be knocked out, I’d just hit my head against a brick or something. So pills are not the answer.

What have I tried? Everything I’ve been able to find in books and as recommended by doctors. Before sleeping I would:

  • drink warm milk
  • drink a few beer or something stronger
  • get a comfortable bed
  • get into a set routine, where I would wake and sleep at the same time
  • exercise physically for an hour or two
  • meditate
  • listen to music
  • listen to nothing
  • listen to traffic
  • watch TV
  • sleep in a dark room
  • sleep in a well lit room
  • not eat or drink three hours before bed

The list has a few other items that I’d rather not discuss but, suffice to say, it’s a pretty extensive list. I’d be happy to get a good night’s rest for about 80% of the month if it were possible. Sadly … it’s not. So perhaps I could enlist a little wisdom from you. Do you ever suffer from insomnia? What do you do to overcome it?