Or sometimes I sleep in a park, like a hobo.
This is a little change of pace, since this article isn’t really “about” anything, it’s more of a story. I still think it’s pretty entertaining, you might too:
I used to sleep in almost total silence in as close to total darkness as I could muster. I’m an incredibly light sleeper so any change in sound or light tends to wake me up. A lot of people listen to music or something to help them fall asleep but I found that if I tried that I would just lie in bed listening to music. This was doubly true if there was lyrics and triply true if it was just people talking. I have memories of sitting in the backseat of the car on a long road trip with my family with my older brother and mom fast asleep (and they had been for hours) while I was wide awake listening to what might just have been the two most boring people in the world talking about rocks. I feel like I may have inherited this trait from my dad since while those rock talkers would put normal people to sleep, talk radio has always been my dad’s go-to for long drives through the night to stay awake.
This became a slight compatibility issue when my girlfriend moved in. She had gotten used to falling asleep with movies on in her bedroom, something I would find to be impossible. She would always ask to play music and I would vehemently refuse since listening to music for an hour or two would just be completely shaving that time out of my sleep schedule. Eventually we settled on those nature playlists that Songza has. I could handle noise as long as it was basically a steady stream of the same noise. Crashing waves, crackling fires, steady rain, I could fall asleep listening to these no problem. Maybe they were even helping me fall asleep faster since I’ve always had a hard time getting to sleep due to an overactive brain.
After a few months of this I took the brave move of graduating to music, provided it was mellow and had no lyrics. We settled (and still frequently listen to) the “Muted Jazz” playlist. Quiet, unassuming jazz with no lyrics proved to be totally possible to fall asleep to. Although I will admit that my dreams definitely started taking place in smoky jazz bars in the 1930s. ↓ Read the rest of this entry…
