Monday, December 22, 2008

thoughts on sleep

There are a lot of things to be self conscious about.  I have decided that the things I do when I am asleep should not be on that list.  I am sorry to say, I cannot control what I do when I sleep.  If you can, please share your secrets.

1- When I went to the dentist last the nice dental hygienist told me that I have a lot of saliva.  She said that it was a good thing except when you are at the dentist and they have to suction you excessively to keep you from drooling all over yourself.  Needless to say, I am a sleep drooler.  I can't help it.  I try to fall asleep with my mouth closed, and from then on it is anybody's guess as to how much I am going to drool.  There is nothing I can do about this.  Or maybe there is.  I could set up some sort of suction device that would constantly suction the drool out of my mouth at night.  But lets be honest, that seems like a little silly.

2- I know that I snore when I am congested.  I can't help it.  Breathing is more important than being quiet while I sleep.  Sorry.  If I learned nothing else in nursing school it is the importance of the ABCs: Airway, Breathing, Circulation.  I am just trying to take care of the things that are important.  I have no idea if I snore when I am not sick.  I have not recorded myself.  I may snore.  And, I don't really care, to be completely honest.  Is that bad?  I have plenty of other things to worry about, like being healthy and getting to work on time, and taking care of my cat, and cleaning my house, and praying for my car to work everyday.

The reason I bring all of this up is that I was invited to go over to a friend's house last night to watch a movie with a bunch of people.  I ended up deciding not to go.  The major factor in this decision was the fact that I had slept approximately 4 of the previous 36 hours.  Anyone who knows me well knows that a tired Andrea is not happy Andrea.  Anyway, I opted out of going because I knew I would fall asleep almost immediately and then I would have to wake up and drive myself home in a state of delirium.  This seemed like a bad idea.  The other drivers on the road can thank me for my decision.  However, it also crossed my mind that if I fell asleep I may drool or, heaven forbid, make some sort of noise that I was not aware of.  And then people may laugh.  Or judge.  Or think that I am some sort of crazy person because I cannot control myself when I sleep.  Pull it together woman.  And for the record, I fully admit that I am crazy.  And I firmly believe that we all are.

Because of all of this, I have decided that I am no longer going to be self conscious about what I do when I am asleep.  I think I can do this.  My brother decided not to be ticklish anymore when he was younger, and that worked.  So here goes.

1 comment:

Hilary said...

I hear ya. I know I snore when I'm stuffed up, and with allergies and stuff, that can be really often. My sister decided to stop sleeping over at people's houses 'cause she's embarrassed about her snoring, but my thoughts are that WAY more people snore than admit it (or even realize) and it's not anything you can do about it, so why let it stop you from crashing wherever you want to, but she won't here reason.
I did have a friend who would sleep with one of his eyes wide open. We all did stare at this in shock and horror, then got over it and was still his friend. :-) I don't know if that helps (because it didn't change our relationship with him) or hurt ('cause we did all stand there going, "Holy crap! His eye is open! Are you really asleep? He really is asleep! That's so creepy!) Maybe I'm just a bad person! :-)
And unfortunately, yes, Greg did decide he was no longer ticklish way back before I met him, so I have therefore never had the opportunity to torture him like he likes to tickle torture me. It's very unfair.