© Lauren Baxter 2021.
Hi everyone, my name is Lauren and I’m a sleep addict.
Psssht, are you serious bitch? You’re a university student. In what universe can you find a student who doesn’t crave that extra five minutes after repeatedly hitting snooze in the morning? Perhaps hitting is too light a term? Brutally throwing the alarm across the room, destroying everything in its path seems a more truthful statement.
No but seriously, I am a legitimate, medically diagnosed sloth. This perhaps explains my “Kristen Bell, Ellen Show meltdown-esque” infatuation with the lazy critter. I am pathologically sleepy. It sounds ridiculous. I spend almost more time asleep than I do listening to Biggie. After being hooked up to electrodes and having a sleep study done, they found at any given time during the day, even after a previous good night sleep, I can fall asleep in approximately 1.9 minutes. That’s pretty impressive, come on. I’ll put it into some perspective and say 10-15 minutes is normal, and anything consistently under 5 is “concerning.” I would be in my element at a sleep Olympics. Boiz only want girls who have skillz. Currently I am waiting on some medical board of Australia to approve my prescription for psychological stimulants to “promote wakefulness,” cough cough amphetamines…whut.
Let’s just pause and reflect for a moment here. Sleep is a pretty interesting concept. If I asked Kanye, the fact that we lie down and fall into a state of reduced or absent consciousness, relatively suspended sensory activity and inactivity of nearly all voluntary muscle, for approximately a third of our life, is most definitely “cray.” Research-wise, not a great deal is known about one of life’s most basic activities and it may be the biggest open question in biology. My inner science nerd is coming out, so I’ll rein that shit in.
How much sleep do we actually need though. Visionary genius and all around loon, Salvador Dali, once said all the sleep he needed was a micro-sleep. He would fall asleep in his chair holding a metal spoon above a metal pan. (Or was it a key? Stories differ, I don’t know. The amount of acid that man took, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was an ibis wearing a floral headpiece). When he fell asleep, he would drop the spoon making a loud clatter and wake up refreshed. But Dali aside, most experts agree that 7-8 hours a night, consisting of rhythmic cycles of REM and non-REM sleep is ideal. Who wants to read about that though? I’m much more interesting. The ideal sleep schedule is a long way from the 20.5 hour sleeps I can pull out.
And let us not forget our friends the insomniacs. I’ve been there. I go from one extreme to the other. I’m sure no one here is stranger to the tossing and turning, clock-watching, longest night of your life, lying in bed unable to sleep. Your mind is ticking over and over and you can’t get that infernal thought out of your head, which spurs another one. And another one. And another one, until your whole mind is swimming with endless questions, musings, possibilities. And then there are those of us who sit on the Internet, Kinks style, sing in with me now, all day and all of the night. Mindlessly scrolling our newsfeeds that are full of “lyk for a lyk” status updates, and promotions for the next “lewse event of the year” at Oh Hello. My advice is put your laptop down. I realise this easier said than done. And as Little Britain’s Carol Beer famously speculates…”Computer says no.” Fortunate enough for me, my 1.9 minute dose off time cuts me off before I can waste my time waiting for the next Community episode to load. You go gurl.
The only solution I have found for my sloth-like sleeping mania, is that surprisingly enough, whenever I drink I always manage to wake up early. I take this sign as the universe giving me express permission to become an alcoholic. I’m awful with word counts so feel this is an appropriate place to end my saying in light of this, I’m starting a group called Alcoholics Unanimous. Instead of meetings we go to parties, and if anyone ever doesn’t feel like a drink, call me up and I will cover over and persuade you.
Drinks and finger food provided.
Original article: Occult Zine Issue 1