Sleep is precious to me. I’m an insomniac so when my eyes are shut and the world fades away, that’s a sacred time. I’m of a generally pleasant disposition, but if you wake me before it’s time to get up, I will rip your head off and stuff it down a toilet. Then I’ll go back to bed. I’ll feel bad about it in the morning, when I’m well-rested.
Early on in my marriage, this was a big problem. My wife made the mistake of waking me up one night and I couldn’t get back to sleep. I got so angry and frustrated, I got up on top of the covers and started pounding the bed like a gorilla. We had a talk the next morning and it was decided I had sleep anger issues. I’m much better now.
In college, I started going to bed at 1 – 2am. This was fantastic. I was working two jobs and taking a full load of classes and dating/marrying/having a baby. Late nights allowed me to get homework done, watch movies and play video games. Then I’d sleep for five hours and be out the door to work and/or school by 8am that morning. I didn’t drink caffeine, I didn’t take pills. That junk is for wimps.
Now that I’m not in college? No change. I turn 35 in January and this is still the schedule that works best for me. You know why? Solid sleep. If I try to sleep for 8 hours, it’s in fits and starts. But when I go to bed exhausted? It’s solid. I wake up refreshed. Just don’t bother me before the alarm rings. You will be missing vital organs if you do.
My wife is the opposite. She’s usually out by 9:30 or 10:00. This gives me about three or four hours a night when I’m on my own. After college, I was happy to use that time to watch even more movies and play even more video games. But somewhere along the line I realized that all that extra time was good for something and I was wasting it. That’s how SuperFogeys and other various projects were born. Now, I spend most of my time at night writing. Usually until I pass out on my laptop. It’s fantastic. I actually feel a little guilty on those rare occasions when I watch a movie instead.
What about you? What time do you go to bed? Have your sleep patterns changed as you’ve gotten older? Do you conk out at 8:30 like a punk? Sound off below!
Before my oldest son started school and had to be up for Breakfast by 6:30am I would stay up well after midnight and get up at 5:30am for my morning run. Now I’m usually out by 11 or 11:30, but at 4:30am for my run so I’m home and showered by 6am to start cooking breakfast for the family. My wife stays up with me, and she is definitely not a morning person, so when 6:30am rolls around and I’m waking them from their slumber (minus the youngest son, he’s up by 5:30/6am on his own) she’s feeling the woes of the late night before and swears to never do it again, though she does again and again.
I find I feel better with those few hours of solid sleep versus the long night, cause I’ll wake up generally at some point if I go to bed too early. That’s why camping is always rough for me. It’s dark and folks are ready to bed down, but my brain tells me “Hey fool, it’s only 9:30pm, you can’t go to bed now.”. So no, my sleeping patterns haven’t changed much since school, I just have more to do now when I get up.
I read somewhere that waking up in the middle of the night is actually normal. People would wake up for an hour or so and visit until they went back to sleep.
http://www.lifeslittlemysteries.com/bustin-the-8-hour-sleep-myth-1362/
I need a solid block of 8 hours of sleep. 10 pm comes around and I’m done. But I wake up ready to go at 6am, even on the days I don’t have to wake up that early. If my sleep gets broken up I do get a bit cranky.
I have sleep issues too so I usually fall asleep with my iPod or iPad. Probably should get a soft and pillowy cover for it…
My husband shares your special Jekyll and Hyde quality when awoken from a deep sleep. How can he be so wonderful during the day and so terrifying in the middle of the night??? I miss my days of staying up all night. I have a 6:00am wake up call in the form of two sprightly boys. Worth it, but oh I miss those late and quiet hours.
I’m usually (hopefully) asleep by 12 so I can get up at 5am to catch the train. I usually don’t sleep on the train.
When I was drawing the Jerry story, my sleep patterns were a wreck. The only constant was that I was up at 5. For nearly three months, I got by on 2-3 hours a night, sometimes less. If I was lucky, I’d grab an hour or so of sleep on the train each way.