Sleep Tight

I have a troublesome history with sleep. Having had glandular fever at 14 and then a recurrence at 19 which turned into Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or ME or whatever you wish to call it, I have spent a lot of my life asleep. I think I missed out on things when I was younger because I slept but then again, maybe sleeping stopped me from experiencing way too much! I partied hard, despite being ill, imagine if I had not had to sleep sooo much....

When I first met F, nearly eight years ago, I still needed the occasional nap at weekends or when I got home from work. I was probably still sleeping ten hours a day and that had gone considerably - there was a point when I was only awake for ten hours a day. It has been slow progress but I have been getting there. I rarely nap now and my sleep was down to a maximum of nine hours a night.

Thing is, you read about sleep and you soon come across the apparent fact that too much sleep is as bad for you as not enough. And I was still having too much really. Sometimes if I was feeling enthusiastic about stuff, I would go through a phase of waking up earlier - maybe at six but it would not last. Before long my sleep would be drawn out with a foggy, snoozy bit that didn't leave me feeling good really.

Something in my sleep has changed though, with this onset of dreaming. Apparently we have sleep cycles. Each cycle is approximately one and a half hours long and ends with a period REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep during which we dream. Becoming more conscious of my dreams has resulted in the end of my sleep coming much more cleanly. That last sleep cycle comes along, I dream, the dream ends and I wake, straight from the dream. No half hearted attempt at another sleep cycle which ends badly.... You see, to feel rested you need to wake at the end of a sleep cycle, and being conscious of my dreams helps me do this....

The time I wake varies but I can see it is a pretty constant amount of time from when I actually managed to fall asleep. Before I used to fill the available amount of time with sleep.... The only thing that would wake me except for the alarm was the sun... Dreaming is helping me to learn how to sleep in a more healthy way, and that I never expected. I feel better and happier for it to. Who would have expected that the final piece of the answer to my long term sleep issues would be dreaming?