The Big Sleep

I have developed the capacity and the compulsion to sleep for fourteen, sometimes sixteen hours a day. Much less time on my hands. This happened for periods in the autumn, but is quite a novelty for this time of the year where I haven't seen darkness all week.

There are some advantages:

• Sleep isn't subjective; when one is unconscious, one doesn't spend too much time worrying about what might be achieved if one made a little more effort.
• The body is far more comfortable when asleep and rather more comfortable having been asleep for most of the day.
• Being unable to resist sleep is far better than being unable to sleep when one needs to.
• The nightmares are getting easier to manage.
• I'm not missing the laptop as much as I would otherwise.
  

There is, of course, a downside:

• Time is passing at a tremendous speed; my days are literally half the length of those for folks who only need eight hours sleep in any twenty-four period.
• It isn't following a strong pattern which allows me to know how long I'm going to stay awake for in between times. This is playing hell with my powers of organisation.
  
• For some reason, I am feeling incredibly hungry. The effort of eating tends to send me off to sleep again. Thus my appetite and food intake has increased at a time when I am (presumably) burning off even less than usual.

And of course, all this means I am ill ill just now, being strangled by my lymph nodes and feeling weak and feeble as well as the everyday efftects of ouchy-slouchy-grouchy syndrome. Still, it is all right. A few weeks ago I was being awake in the middle of the night and this is much better. Just hope it stabilises before we go down south.

Apologies to all those to whom I owe e-mail; I'll get to it but now I need to go sleep again.