All in all, I’d rather not have to. Far as I’m concerned the only redeeming thing about having to sleep is that you get to dream. Dreams are very cool things. But having to skip eight hours or so out of every day is something I could live without. Life is short enough as it is to be playing dead for about a third of it.

But our bodies demand it, and you never know that more then when you can’t sleep. I’ve had this chronic insomnia problem now for nearly a decade. It started out with occasional bouts of sleeplessness and now it’s at the point where a single good night’s sleep is a rare thing. My night consists of alternating periods of restless sleep and wakefulness, followed by a day that consists of many little naps that don’t refresh me at all.

It’s taking it’s toll. For the past year I’ve felt as if I’m living half a life and as I said, life is too short to be missing a lot of time out of it. I’ve tried meditation. I’ve tried diet adjustments. I’ve been prescribed sleeping pills, but the ones that actually work for me are horribly addictive. Something is wrong here. It’s taken me years to convince a doctor of the seriousness of it, but recently I finally managed it, and got referred to the sleep clinic at Johns Hopkins.

I went for the initial interview last month. They took my vitals and medical history, and asked me a battery of questions, not only about my sleep habits but my personal lifestyle. What kind of work do I do? How to I usually spend my evenings? Do I smoke? Do I drink? Do I exercise? How often and how much? Then they scheduled me for a sleepover, where I’ll be wired up and monitored as I (try to) sleep.

That happens tonight. Hopefully they’ll see it all happening, and then I’ll know what the problem is. They asked about snoring and since I’m single I haven’t a clue whether I snore or not. But the snoring question is I think, about sleep apnea, and I’m hoping it’s that, and not some kind of brain/sleep problem that requires drugs to treat.

See…the thing about my sleeplessness is that my mind is almost hyperactive while it is happening. It’s the oddest, most uncomfortable feeling you can imagine: my body is dead tired, almost immobile with tiredness, and yet my mind is quite active. I want to get up and do things but I can’t because I’m so dog tired. So my mind just wanders and wanders until I finally get a few moments of sleep and then I’m awake again. A diagnosis of sleep apnea would be a relief actually.

I pack an overnight bag and check in tonight. They said I could bring my laptop and books to read. I’m hoping there’s a wireless access point there somewhere I can connect to, but it isn’t required. I can live without Internet for one night. My iPod comes along but my white noise maker doesn’t because they need to listen to me. I don’t think that will make much of a difference since I expect this room to be pretty quiet. They say it’ll be like a motel room. I had to buy pajamas (ugh! But I’m modest around strangers…) but I don’t think that will make a difference in my being able to sleep or not either. They say the wiring won’t bother me. I suppose they have it all down.

I’ll post about it when I get back. I’m curious to see how it all works. But then that kind of thing keeps my mind active, and my active mind is what I think is keeping me from getting sleep…