A Sparky Question

Today, meaning yesterday, Sparky asked me a question. It was rather simple, really. He asked what goes through my mind when I can't sleep. My insufficient answer was "a lot of times the stuff that ends up in my blogs." This is true, although not as true as it once was now that I stop to think about it. When I stop to ask myself why it's not as true, I realized it's because I live alone. And living alone, I feel free to turn on the light and do something, such as read, in order to make my eyes more tired and, hopefully, fall asleep easier. I no longer lie there for hours, trying to sleep, but not wanting to disturb anyone else in the household by having too much light or making too much noise. As a result, my mind doesn't wander as far.

So what does go through my mind, when not otherwise focused on a book, a blog, or some other idle distraction? I think that 3 in the morning is a good time to answer that. Usually, it starts off simply "rewinding" through the day. After that, it wanders around from topics of the day or things that have been pestering my mind lately. Often enough after that, I simply grow restless. But if I stay there, still completely awake, I usually manage to latch on to something or another and analyze it to death. This part of the process is often enough duplicated when I'm posting one of my random theory blog posts.

My goal now, though, is to start forcing myself to take this time to meditate, which should both relax me, help my mind center itself, and probably help my mental control and possibly memory by exercising my mind more. In theory, I should begin to sleep better, although I'll wait for results on that one to say more than "in theory."

But, I admit, as I did to Sparky, there is the down side of thinking too much at night. People, especially those who are sensitive to the weather, changing of the seasons, and a lack of sunlight, tend to be more depressive at night. I am very much one of those people. If something bothers me, it is always much worse after the sun goes down. Doubts and fears run amok if they're not carefully contained.

Fear... now that's an interesting topic for a post. Perhaps I'll go turn the air down a touch as it's way too warm in here, then go lay down, focus on fear, and write about it sometime later. Who knows, maybe I'll get three posts done in one day. Wouldn't that be.. pathetic.