Sleep deprivation theater.

[rivka]

During most of Alex's night wakings, I am neither fully awake nor fully asleep while I care for her. I am at the crossroads between sleep and waking, the place where hypnagogic imagery happens.[1]

The way it usually works is that recent cultural influences weave their way into the baby care process, usually in the form of momentarily convincing theories about why Alex is awake. Last night, for example, before bed I was reading Diane Duane's latest book, Wizards at War. At midnight, while I was giving Alex her bottle, I realized that she couldn't go back to sleep because we had to stay up and save the universe.

This beats all hell out of my previous theory, which arose very late one night after I'd watched the World Series of Poker before bed, and which involved Alex sleeping or waking depending on the strength of the poker hands she was dealt. I could never really figure out the details of that one.



[1] Dreams that happen while you're still awake, as you're passing into sleep. I notice that, in the skeptic's dictionary, the definition of "hypnagogic state" says, "see also alien abduction." Huh.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I once dreamed that I had to hit the snooze button because all the spirals in the universe had come unraveled (DNA, galaxies, etc.) and I had to give them time to twirl back up again. I imagine an infant could make things orders of magnitude more interesting in that regard.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

What the French call, reverie.

TK

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Wow, that almost sounds cool.

Almost. :-)

-J

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You just say that because you've never had to save the universe with the help of a 6-month-old baby. :-)

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

And now, it's Sleepy Woman and her faithful companion, Spitup Girl!

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

Hah. I've had to fight off alien invasions all by myself; I'd have welcomed the aid of a 6-month-old baby, especially one imbued with the advantages that must come from her amazing parents. You think Franklin Richards had powerful genetic gifts? Hah! Alex has it all over him! Well... given that he's fictional, I suppose that was a bit of a truism, wasn't it?

But seriously, you were lucky. I had to fight off alien invasions in clothing I had to buy with my own allowance, using weaponry I had to make on my own after school, and did I mention that the schoolhouse was six miles away....

[kcobweb.livejournal.com]

Sometimes when I'm up, rocking (and rocking and rocking) in the chair trying to get the EB back to sleep, I realize that part of my brain is still continuing my interrupted dream. It's always very vivid then, but in the morning, I can't remember any of it.

[phantom_wolfboy]

I've had that kind of thing happen to me, usually on public transit. It can actually get kinda scarey, especially once you realise that you haven't been asleep but you have been dreaming.

The hypnogogic state/alien abduction thing seems a lot more likely as we move into the later stage of alien abduction mythology and people are being abducted out of their own bedrooms or living rooms without anyone else noticing . . .

[chargirlgenius.livejournal.com]

One good reason why I don't watch horror movies...

[wcg.livejournal.com]

I'm just relieved that you and she managed to save the universe. Please pass along my thanks.

[platypus]

I'm often in a state like that when I wake up during the night with stomachaches. I dream the most outlandish stories to explain the pain, and often only become completely aware after I've been up for a good fifteen minutes.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

The other night when I was half-asleep like that I was in charge of arranging all these people in an elevator in a Sudoku pattern.

Didn't know there was a word for that!

[trienne-hovus.livejournal.com]

I managed once to *keep taking notes* in class while falling into hypnogogery. They weren't very legible, but there was something about a hippo on a bicycle in the rain... and how I got from History of Marxism to rainy day hippo-cycles is probably best not examined too closely :)