What keeps you awake at night?

[Frezzato]

I've been working overnight for the past ten months now. Only recently did I switch to what passes as a day job, but I end up being at work for around 12 hours a day. So when I get home I barely have enough time to get some sleep and wake up to start all over again. To put it lightly, I'm tired.

I've always had trouble sleeping, but this relatively new job has shown me just how bad my schedule has been screwed up. I can't remember last week, let alone last year when it all started. Everything just rolls up into a greasy, hair-filled ball.

I think the best way to put it is: I'm too tired to sleep.

Tell me, Escapists. What is it that keeps you up at night? If your answer is a double entendre then it's fair game I guess. But serious answers would be appreciated.

 

[Zontar]

Stuff to do keeps me up at night. I'm often on an unusual sleep cycle due to staying up late to get shit done like finishing a paper or "just one more mission", and as a result I'll sometimes sleep from early afternoon to very early in the morning (like waking up at 2am) then later in the week go to sleep at midnight and wake up whenever I've set my alarm to wake me up as need be.

I also tent do think about things a lot. Just laying in bed for an hour or two before I finally fall asleep will usually have me thinking of all sorts of things. Sometimes factual information, something trying to figure something out that isn't relevant, and sometimes just having a story spontaneously form in my mind (I'm a prolific writer. Granted it's nothing worth publishing, but there's a lot of it). I usually forget what it is I was thinking about like a dream, but sometimes it sticks, like one time I wondered who would win in a fight between a Battlestar (original BSG) and a Star Destroyer. Don't remember how it went down but I think the battlestar won.

Also realized at some point just laying there that the Native Americans in that one episode of TNG who ended up as stateless people who where in Cardassian territory probably got exterminated during the Dominion War.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

School, stress, etc.

Essay tonight, script as well. Exam in the afternoon. Glorious sleep for Friday/Saturday.

 

[davidmc1158_v1legacy]

Acid reflux. It's a cruel and harsh mistress that seeks to break my will.

On a more serious note, generally important deadlines approaching tend to wind me up and make it harder to get to sleep.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Um, this post. But seriously, my sleep cycle has been screwed up for years. Part-time (as in usually just below full-time) at a movie theater will do that. I sometimes worked 5 at night until 2:30 or more in morning, only to go back at 9 AM the next day. The randomness is still somewhat with me years later. Regular schedules have helped, but sometimes I do wake up for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night, like right now.

 

[Kallie]

My cat.
He's still at "playful kitten" age, and hasn't entirely learned that nighttime = sleepytime.
Plus, when he does go to sleep, he tends to lie on top of me and then... fidget. I'm sure he's nice and comfortable, at least

 

[Scarim Coral]

My mind is ever constantly wandering about, I just find it hard to simply stop thinking about anything.

Also it doesn't help that I'm not tried (as in sleepy) and being a light headed sleeper (most of the time, a tiniest noise like something drop onto the floor would wake me up as if I enter DefCom 5!) either.

 

[Darks63]

Sometimes My brain will go into overdrive mode if i obsess over something. It can make it so i get like 2 hours of sleep and feel like my brain is burnt all next day.

 

[Buffoon1980]

The knowledge that, given the inevitable heat death of the universe, all human endeavour is ultimately pointless.

 

[Super Cyborg]

It depends on the night for me.

On days that have been long and draining, I will fall asleep within minutes. This happened after weeks of studying then taking the GRE. All the studying took a toll on me and the next two weeks I was so mentally drained I didn't even have the capacity to think that much.

When I do think of things before sleeping, it varies greatly. The last few months have been a lot of thinking about the future. What do I want to study exactly for my Masters degree? How should I go about explaining my life journey to getting to this point? What do I want to do when I finally get back home after 3.5 months?

Other times I just reflect on the day, especially if it's a day on a trip going sight seeing and learning history. A lot of times I will reminisce about past trips.

Then there are times where I just have an ongoing fiction in my head where I'm just playing out the next part. This varies from romance, to action, to mystery, to stuff that wouldn't be appropriate to say on this board.

 

[Vault101]

[i/]have you ever?

...ever felt like this?

when strange things happen[/i]

OH GOD GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD

that's why its not a goods idea to go on nostalgic trips before bed

 

[Rosiv]

I have a cold before finals week so I can't really sleep...

In particular, sore throats ruin my sleeping.

 

[JimB]

Itching.

My need to pee.

Unexpected sounds.

Otherwise, not much. I'm a stressed-out dude, but when I go to bed, it's because my body is ready for it.

 

[Lufia Erim]

My boundless enthusiasm for life - I spend all night thinking about all the awesome wonderful things I could be doing if I didn't have to sleep.

Not really. As soon as I lie still and try to sleep I find I have an itch in a different part of my body every couple of seconds. Oh, my nose feels blocked; now my foot itches; hmm, the way this pillow touches my head is uncomfortable; what was that noise?!

Basically, everything.

That sounds like my gf. I usually wait for her to fall asleep before going to bed, or not she'll keep me awake with the constant moving.

As for me. Hornyness. No joke. If i go to bed, and i feel horny, i am not able to sleep. I have to get up, take care of it, then go back to bed. It's a curse.

 

[Xerosch]

Last night I was seriously worried because of a discussion with my about six years younger colleague and her financial plans. I wasn't able to save anything in the last years and really, really need to put up a strategy for my retirement plan. She apparently had it figured out from the start.
When I went to bed I thought about the two loans I need to pay off and that I could save at least a bit of money each month if I cut back on some stuff I don't really need. But it suchs when things you enjoy in your past time become a luxury.

 

[CeeBod]

I had a 4:00am start every Monday morning for just short of year, and every single Sunday night before that I failed not only to get the early night I needed, but also to even get to sleep before midnight: Worrying that you're going to suffer if you don't get enough sleep seems to be the main cause for not getting enough sleep!

If you regularly suffer with insomnia, it might be worth checking out meditation or even yoga. Practice in controlling your breathing, calming your mind and relaxing your body is something that can come in handy when you really need to sleep.

 

[Thyunda]

Crippling debt, and, most annoyingly, severe atopic eczema. I get frustrated thinking of all the money I should have been paid and simply haven't and then I end up being awake pretty late, and once we hit like 3am my skin decides it's time to be hypersensitive. The sheets end up sticking to me, my own beard starts to itch my cheeks like mad - and the whole reason I have a beard is because shaving makes me itch even worse - and my ears get all sweaty and itchy and it's really just a thoroughly unpleasant situation.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Several things can keep me awake.

-Back pain (Less frequent now that I've lost some weight)
-Contemplating mortality
-Allergies/Can't fucking breath
-This weird thing where my brain strokes out and can't accurately represent my physical features. My body feels like its a mile long, my feet, hands, and head swell up to the size of a bus, and my thoughts feel like their going faster then the speed of light. It's kind of terrifying, really
-My imagination telling me stories that it could save for dreams, but no, gotta think about them now to make room for the nightmares when I finally go to sleep
-Erections

 

[fenrizz]

Nothing.
I'm fortunate enough to be able to clear my mind and "daydream" myself to sleep.

I'm also a pretty heave sleeper, so I'm rarely disturbed when I sleep.