NAP TIME

I recently read an article about a study, where researchers reported that cooling the brain may help insomniacs fall asleep. They found that a specially designed cap, that circulates cold water, slows down activity in the frontal cortex and helps to promote sleep.

Some of my friends have insomnia. One woman I know dozes while watching television, and every night, she awakens just in time to get ready for bed. I, on the other hand, fall asleep the moment my head hits the pillow, and I don’t wake up until the summer sun shines into my window at 5 a.m. Then I wake up hungry and ready to go hiking.

I once bragged, “I sleep like a log because I don’t have a guilty conscience.” Whereupon, a friend wryly replied, “Or no conscience at all.” Getting up at 5 a.m. does have its drawbacks, because at 1p.m. I have been up for 8 hours and need a nap. However, sometimes that doesn’t work out. So consequently I find myself dozing at inopportune times.

A boring lecture or inordinately long sermon puts me to sleep. I learned in college to sleep with my eyes open, but stopped doing it when they handed me my diploma. In the olden days, congregational ushers used to walk up and down the aisles to awaken snoozing congregants with the touch of a feather. Once I fall asleep, they’d have to hit me over the head with the entire chicken.

Oddly, there are times when my body rejects methods of artificial sleep. One shot of Novocain will never numb my tooth. Two shots of Novocain will never numb that tooth. I don’t know where the stuff goes, but when my toes get numb, the dentist knows he can start to drill.

Some people have tricks they use to fall asleep, such as counting backwards. I would NEVER do that, because I’d be afraid that I’d wake up with my gall bladder missing. I usually don’t sleep on airplanes, because I want to be alert when the flight attendants come barreling down the aisle, so they won’t run over my foot. However, on a long flight to China, against my better judgment, I did fall asleep. When the flight attendant shouted, “You want a drink?” I awakened and screamed, “Oh, My God!” and hit my head on the side of her cart.

My dreams must be very dull because I rarely remember them. So “To sleep, perchance to dream” doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. My in-laws had an oxymoronic sleeper sofa with a broken spring. It was like starring in a horror movie, ”Turn over and you are impaled.” That can definitely cause insomnia.

Esther Blumenfeld (“Oh, sleep, it is a gentle thing.” Coleridge)