Between Sleeping And Waking

[exhilaration]

Strange place to be, isn't it?

The subconscious tells us some strange stuff.

A while ago I wrote in an entry that these days, even when I first wake up I am aware that I can't just jump out of bed. I don't even forget for a split second - that part of my brain has finally learned that I can't do that any more. Sometimes in that moment before I'm totally awake I'm not sure where I am - I think I'm in my old house in Philly and Daniel is in the next room - actually, that's a big one. I often think when I'm half asleep that I'm in that house and Daniel is somewhere nearby. Sometimes I think I'm in Italy or I'm in South Africa, and sometimes I even think that I'm in Africa and never left, and the past five years have all been a dream and I never really left at all.

But I always know I can't walk. I mean, not that I used to go to get out of bed and like fall on my face instead (although I did do that a couple times getting out of a car, but my defense for that is that drinking was definitely involved there) but there used to be this split second where I'd remember "oh yeah, I'm paralyzed now" or something like that. Not anymore.

OH BUT EXCEPT FOR TODAY.

B and I both have sleep issues. We both get up early but if we have to get up we never want to and have to be dragged out of bed. So he does this thing where he'll set his alarm and then put it on the other side of the room, so he has to get up to turn it off. I like to think I have better self-discipline than needing to do this, and anyway it would take me forever to actually get out of bed and across the room to turn off the alarm and that would drive me batshit first thing in the morning. He does stuff like turning the alarm off in his sleep and whatnot - I don't do shit like that, but I still feel like the only time I can really sleep soundly is when I'm supposed to be waking up.

Today, though, today my alarm went off and I grabbed the phone and threw it across the room. Before I was totally awake. What ever possessed me to do this? I don't know, ask my subconscious. So then there was my alarm going off (which is currently Ace of Base I Saw The Sign) over and over again, not the whole song just the ringtone, annoyingly, and there was me in bed on the other side of the room. So I went to get out of bed and was like, "oh yeah, I can't walk."

And the very next second I was like, "I can't believe I had to remember that."

At which point I'm completely awake and I'm all OH FUCK THAT and B wakes up halfway and is like, what is the matter with you? And I'm like, oh, I threw my phone over there and it's still going off - maybe you should go get it? Hint hint?

And he, he was like, no way, I'm going back to sleep, get it yourself. And promptly did exactly that (and was probably never awake to begin with because I said something to him about this later and he swears this entire event did not take place BUT IT DID) so my day began with a lovely vamp of "I Saw The Sign." For a good five minutes.

And apparently there is still a miniscule area of my brain holding out on me and refusing to retain the information that my legs no longer work.

Strangely, I find this extremely comforting. As if somehow it makes that fact just a tiny bit less true.

Go figure.

Comments

[ellisbell1848.livejournal.com]

CCg has two alarm clocks on the other side of the room. TWO. He still manages to either sleep through them, or turn them off and go back to sleep. I have to prod him to get him to wake up and turn them off.

My alarm is my cellphone, and it's set to my ring tone. Some mornings I get confused and stare at my phone trying to figure out if I need to answer it or turn the alarm off...

[lara-everlong.livejournal.com]

I had a room mate in college who set her alarm for 5am for an 8am class, and would let it go off for two hours before she would get up. My choices were either get up at 5, or learn to sleep through it.

So now I use my ringtone as my alarm because a buzzing/beeping alarm-type sound still to this day registers in my half-asleep had as "oh that's not for me, ignore it."

[pinesandmaples]

I put my alarm in the other room, which is to say that I sleep with Aliyah and leave my alarm in my bedroom so we have to get out of bed to turn it off. I also have an alarm for deaf people, and I have been able to sleep through it.

Sleep is one of my weaknesses.

[lara-everlong.livejournal.com]

My boyfriend will sleep straight through an alarm that sounds something like and air raid siren, but will wake up immediately if I leave the bed.

I wake up at the same time every day, alarm or no, but if I go back to sleep after that time has passed I'm usually impossible to rouse as well.

[ivy-poet.livejournal.com]

Remi has all three alarms on his cell going off in the morning. But that's sometimes not enough so I always set one of mine to go off ten minutes after his. I've got it down to a science. When my alarm goes off, I turn it off, roll over and kick. If he's not there, I fall back asleep. If he is there, I keep nudging/kicking him in the butt until he's out of bed (and then go back to sleep).

Oh, the strange things we do for love.

[lara-everlong.livejournal.com]

Apparently throwing things in my sleep is my "thing," or so I've recently been informed. I have thrown my phone more than one time before - it was just this time that the alarm kept going off. Usually I guess throwing the phone knocks the battery out. And I have no idea I'm even doing it until I find the phone later on the other side of the room. Also if I find things in the bed while I'm sleeping (like a book, or a lighter, or change...) I throw that stuff too. Supposedly. I'm not really awake to know either way...