Oneirism
In the science of sleep, I hide my memories
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How eruptious to talk about sleep. Those that nap in this moment instead of talking are 10 percent healthier actually. Because it is 4 pm on a Sunday and a nap is currently a very generous gift.
Yet, I find myself attracted to this topic. Sleep is made of interesting jewels and complexity. Fascinating to me. How the mind transports into stages and cures cells?
The dive in sleep analysis
My preferred method to look into a new topic start from Coursera. I am a big advocate of acquiring knowledge that way.
To be candid, of all the courses I love to follow and learn from, sleep has been the most difficult. Oh, it is a true science from the alpha to omega, all the way to its veins. Almost, like the seven oceans, I do not think we are even close to understanding half of it.
When the first course began, I was incredibly motivated. I had just finished a course on terrorism, and I couldn’t believe, how knowledge can grant you power. How much bigger the world actually is. Terrorism as cruel as it was, taught me a lot about human impulses, as well as, psychology. And sleep is just… as close to Atlantis as we will ever go.
In the first course, the director of the video began talking about the nerves and how they dance from one disconnected plug to another during our sleep. My fascination turned to pure inquisitiveness. I prepared my green notebook and I wrote down about how sleep cures the body itself when I rest. When the director dived in, no really, dived in 100 meters into the sleep depths about the NREM cycle and how the brainwaves change into a slower seductive rhythm, I became utterly confused.
And, worse of all, lost.
I couldn’t find a rock to grab on to keep me on the fast course cause I simply couldn’t understand. She, the director, had disappeared too fast and I couldn’t find a focus point.
I left the sleep subject as a science that is too complicated for me to even grasp, or even get to the benefits part. And, I left myself with the accurate fact that yes, I do have fascinating dreams in general and that is my relationship with sleep.
The slow journey of sleeping memories
Years after that, I grew to be rich. That is to say, I had an extra 50 in my pocket every 2 months. I could get a small sip of treasure. Books. Because believe me, books are a luxury, an advantage, freedom that not everyone can access.
The books gave me the gift of time and space. I had space to make notes on it and read at my own set pace.
Holding this experience close to me, I don’t want to suggest any books. I think everyone should get the book they trust and understand. Some people often have favorite authors that are still writing the sixth book of the series.
And so, I read. I would end up falling asleep for every 4 pages read, I kid you not. As simple as the scientists writing them might think they made them, they did not. I am a content writer and a preschool educator and I can say, sleep is beyond the stars. It is a galaxy unseen and created from a seashell of memories, passions, and soul.
Daenerys Stormborn herself said her dreams come true.
With a cup of coffee, interestingly, the first book spoke to me in each own language. About the importance of all sleep stages. REM, NREM, early morning dreamland. None is less important. And they are dependent but also not in a way. They happen on their own individually without messing with one another. And yet, all the neurons know when it’s time to sleep, they all flow together to one place of the brain like fish in the water, following the same light turning on. It is extraordinary. How every neuron in the brain stops and comes together for the entirety of the body to rest.
In the second book, read about how sleep and memory are interconnected. Oh, if I knew all that as a high school student waiting for my exams, I would have slept much more. Because not sleeping and studying repeatedly was glorified. Lies, lies, paranoia. According to studies, scientists and people that volunteered to be studied, during our sleep, that’s when the happenings of the day or any knowledge acquired are restored to the proper places. Like secret ladybugs, they move the memory onto the permanent sort of the brain.
Anxiety, memory loss, truth
All of that work deducts itself as I sleep. Oh, how I remember the time I peed under the stairs of my childhood home. Learning how to ride a bicycle, the sight of the blood as both my knees scrapped for good. My head seems so small in the mirror to be holding such a size of memories. But, apparently, we are designed, all of us, animals, and all creatures n such a loving way by god and the universe, so that what is necessary stays and what is not goes away.
After days of infatuation, I thought of myself. My fear. It was a couple of years ago, as I was entering a new stage of struggling with mental health. It is as it sounds, he soul has seasons I can not always predict. And in that change of era, I would start to lose memories and be most anxious about this new procedure.
I never once thought if I was sleeping okay or enough. I was more anxious, losing more, more anxious, sleeping less. My identity felt frail and my memories were whisking away as if the wind was a torpedo gun. It makes one wonder, if I had slept better more consistently would I have felt safer in that time? If I sleep better now, will all the progress of now remain stable steps instead of a societal mess?
Because sleep can give us back so much. We could be truly powerful. More so than we realize.
As I continue to read on this, I wonder even more.
