I don’t like going to sleep. Being asleep is not such a problem because obviously I am asleep and therefore oblivious to what is going on. It is the act of going to sleep which troubles me and consequently it has in the past taken me some time to fall into slumber. Once I do, I always sleep straight through until morning and awake refreshed and raring to take on my first fuel of the day. I recall a room mate on a football tour when I was 21 asking me why I was still up reading at a late hour when he had been asleep and woke to use the toilet. I explained I was enjoying reading my book, after all, I was not going to admit to him the real reason why I was still reading at midnight. I need to exhaust myself so that I know when I climb between the sheets I will be embraced by my deep and untroubled sleep straight away. If I cannot do that I have learned, after many fretful nights, that sleep will not come easily to me.
I know why this is. It is not, as a spiteful ex-girlfriend Tonia once remarked,
“You cannot get to sleep because your conscience won’t let you after all the despicable things you have done.” I laughed that one off. She had no idea.
No. The reason is that when I am going to sleep I believe that everything I have built up and created will disappear. I fear you will vanish because I can no longer see you. I am troubled that all my hard work in finding and establishing supplies of fuel will melt away once I am not able to control it. I need to be in constant control of what is happening and hate for that control to be taken away from me by asleep. Naturally, I must sleep like everyone else but it is in that few minutes as one settles down that the demons creep out from the corners of the room and threaten the destruction of my empire because shortly I will no longer be on hand to govern it. It matters not that I have woken the next day and found everything intact. I am terrified that one day that just could change. Accordingly, I need the transition from wakefulness to sleep to be swift and pronounced.