Insomnia

Subtitle "...or why I am actually surprised that I'm pretty good at meditation".

The last few weeks have rarely seen me falling asleep before 3am. Despite cutting out my evening coffee, and despite the fact that my body may be absolutely exhausted and incapable of movement, the moment I try to shut my eyes, my mind goes into hyperactive overdrive.

I find this particularly frustrating because I've been trying to meditate regularly during the day, and can, in fact, sit still and calm for 10 minute intervals (as suggested for beginners by the nice Buddhist Centre people down the road). Nonetheless, my brain seems to think that sleep is for the weak and feeble - because apparently there are a million things to be done or thought of at 3am that absolutely, positively must be done Right This Very Second.

Ahem.

Here is a select sample of random thoughts that have kept me up over the past few nights. And no, I'm not exaggerating. It's really this bad.

Me - Ok brain... time for sleep.

K's brain - But you have to finish that letter to your landlord, because otherwise your lease is due for renewal in a few weeks and they won't know that you want them to lower your rent! How are you going to pay rent if you don't have any money? You really should call that recruitment agency and apologise for not taking the position they offered you.

Me - Yes but we've been through this - I don't even know how to operate a switchboard, and that's all the job was!

K's brain - Yeah, but who knows? Now maybe they'll never call you ever again because they think you're some sort of job-rejecting person. Nobody wants to hire someone like that.

Me - Ok, well I'll give it a few days and ring the manager again. Now can I sleep?

K's brain - But what about the money? Don't you feel bad for sponging off B all the time? And you weren't very nice to him last night... all he did was say he didn't like your dinner. Actually, scratch that. Your dinner was awesome. He was totally wrong to say that he didn't like it.

Me - Brain, we've been through this already.

K's brain - Well maybe you should wake him up and apologise again. Or apologise for not being able to go to Poland with his family like you'd planned. That's totally your fault even though you have no control over your PR course schedule so you should definitely feel guilty about that. I think you should apologise to B right now for that. Because did you see how disappointed he looked when you told him you probably couldn't go?

Me - I know but he's asleep right now. Asleep. Like I should be.

K's brain - I think you should definitely be working on ideas for your course project. Could you actually use your former place of employment? Don't you think that'd be a bit weird? Maybe you could use B's brother-in-law's company. That'd be cool. I have about a million ideas for them which I will now list for you in no particular order.........

So this has been my life for the last few weeks. Then, if I'm really lucky, once I get to sleep I will be woken up by B, either snoring, or throwing himself across me in an attempt to save me as our car hurls off a cliff (in his dream, mind you). No joke. It happened the other night.