To sleep, perchance to dream- ay, there’s the rub.

National Blog Posting Month – January 2013 – Energy

Prompt – If you could be given the option to never sleep and also never be tired, would you take it if it meant you’d also never dream again?

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In my current state of affairs, there is a particular appeal to never sleeping and never dreaming again. I’ve been having some bouts with insomnia of late (which I will be discussing with my doctor), so it seems that I’m inclined to not sleep anyway. And last night, I had a dream that my parents had died, which was a little jarring. Maybe dreaming isn’t such a great thing.

Add to the mix the complete overload of work that I need to be doing and the continuous, low-level state of panic that I’ve been in for the last couple of months (which might be the origin of the insomnia, you think?), and the concept of being able to function for 24 hours a day is pretty exciting!

Then again, I’ve had some fascinating dreams that have sparked some fun thought paths, some toward fictional plots and others, resolving work- or school-related problems. I do remember the time I suddenly understood the strange NMR pattern I got from a compound that I had synthesized. I remember waking and sitting bolt upright in bed. “Intermediates!” I shouted to no one. Or how about this story seed I wrote about back in November? Without sleep, I would never have had this dream.

Now, if you could offer me functionality of four hours of sleep a night, I’d probably go for that, but in truth, I think I like the down time that sleeping offers. It forces you to shut down for a while. I need that. If my mind is allowed to range for too long, my anxiety kicks in and suddenly I’m in trouble. So, no, I’ll keep my sleep and my dreams. Dreams are something to look forward to. I don’t want them taken away.

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Note added early AM on January 8: Last night I dreamed that I was covered with black widow spiders. I take back what I said about wanting to keep my dreams. Nevermind.

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