There are various phases of sleep and although I’m not a sleep scientist, I am able to recognize some of these from a personal experience. My least favorite, when I am done sleeping. This morning I woke up at 3 am. My 2 year old daughter climbed into bed with my wife and I. I got her out, changed her diaper, and made sure she got back to bed ok. I went to the bathroom, had a glass of water, and laid back down. I laid back down for an hour and thirty minutes saying to myself, “Self, you can go back to sleep,” and also saying to myself, “Self, I think we are done here, you are done sleeping.”

I was done sleeping for the night. I didn’t want to be awake and active, I still wanted another two hours of sleep. I tried counting sheep. Which brought me to thoughts of wool and if sheep had blankets, would they just be made out of their wool? Or, would sheep use llama or alpaca for their coverings? After that, it was only natural to think of the similarities of alpaca and I’ll pack a… then, I started packing for a trip in my mind, that I may or may not take. There’s always a balance of what you can and can’t bring whilst traveling. George Carlin described it as, “bringing a smaller version of your stuff.” If the place I am visiting is going to be cold, how many coats can I logically bring? Cold is a spectrum from kind of cold to really freaking cold.

At this point in my sleep journey my thoughts are racing, my CPAP is hissing, my feet are cold, and my mouth is dry. There’s an overlap of time where I could go back to sleep or be awake, but that overlap is gone at this point and my mind has screwed me again. Now, I need to decide if I should make coffee now or push it out another forty five minutes or so. Do normal people even sleep normally anymore?

Thank you for attending my GREG talk