The Monster of Sleep
by Pat McGarry
Sleep is defined as an active state that affects both your physical
and mental well being. The amount to which you are body is affected depends
on many things. You may suffer from a sleeping disorder, such as sleep apnea,
insomnia, or narcolepsy. You may be a college student that does not like to
go to class and decides to sleep through them. You may even be affected because
of an alcohol problem that you can not control. In that case you would pass
out or “black out” with no way of controlling your actions. These
three cases describe three different ways that sleep can be viewed as a monster.
The most scary and monstrous type of sleep is when a person “blacks
out” and forgets everything including how you even fell asleep in the
first place. Sometimes when a person does in fact “black out”
from too much alcohol consumption for example, he or she can not be easily
awakened. Sleep fits many of the monster qualities defined in class. Sleep
is inevitable. No person can exist without sleep. As soon as your body gets
used to a regular sleep schedule, the monster is lessened. But once you deviate
from your regular schedule of sleep, the monster of sleep becomes alive. Its
affects can easily be seen as your body and mind suffers greatly from either
the lack of or abundance of sleep. Although the two effects are different,
they still exist, and are only caused when a person decides to deviate from
the regular and normal amount of sleep. In the case of a person not getting
enough sleep, that person suffers because he is over tired and can not function
up to his potential. In the case when a person is lazy and never gets out
of bed, getting excessive amounts of sleep, the person suffers because he
is tired and never actually fully wakes up. In both cases the person feels
tired all the time which means that the person needs to adjust their sleeping
schedules. An optimal schedule, as advertised by many different people and
books that study the affects of sleep on the individual, suggests that the
person should sleep for no more than eight to ten hours per night. Under the
normal workload for the average worker, eight to ten hours of sleep is completely
sufficient. The individual runs into trouble and begins to feel sleepy when
he doesn’t stick to the recommended schedule.
The monster of sleep can get to you even if you do sleep the
right amount each night. In these cases, it is usually the disorders such
as sleep apnea, insomnia, and narcolepsy that affect the individual. Sleep
apnea is when the person sleeping does not breathe properly and has trouble
taking in oxygen. These people usually snore loudly and persistently. A person
suffering from insomnia has trouble getting to sleep. That person can not
relax and let their body naturally fall asleep. Usually people suffering from
this disorder can not stop thinking when they close their eyes which lead
them to stay active and not relaxed in their minds. A person suffering from
narcolepsy has “sleep attacks.” These attacks are when the person
can not control their body; and they fall asleep randomly such as in class
or standing up. Up to forty million unfortunate Americans suffer from sleep
disorders and the three stated previously are only a few that haunt people.
Once the person is asleep, many monstrous things can occur.
If the person is drunk or “blacked out” he or she has no control
over her actions and can fall out of bed or even throw up in their sleep causing
them to possibly choke on their own vomit. This can cause death and is very
scary. Alcohol has a supernatural quality here when it causes us to black
out because it places our bodies and minds in a marginal state where we have
lost control over our actions and motions completely. Sleep walking also occurs
when the person is actually asleep. People that suffer from this disorder
usually wake up the next morning and do not recall any of their actions while
sleep walking. This can be very dangerous as the person could do something
he normally wouldn’t do if he were completely conscious and functional.
Thus, this state of sleep walking exists as a nonhuman type state for reasons
described by Freud involving the uncanny. When a person is sleep walking,
it is unknown where the mind is wondering or why. Therefore, the person can
be described to be in a marginal state of mind as described by Mary Douglas.
This state involves the person’s mind during a dream or even a nightmare
for example. The subconscious of the individual takes over the mind of the
person asleep and guides our minds through extremely marginal areas causing
us to think of things we don’t usually worry about. Dreams become the
most monstrous and scary when we see them as real and can’t even tell
the difference between a dream and reality. If the individual has reached
this stage where the line between reality and a dream is lost, then mental
pain can ensue. People suffering from nightmares can be scared to even fall
asleep at night. Therefore, they begin to think too much about sleep and never
enjoy the relaxation part of sleep.
In college many of these problems with sleep are seen. Many
students stay up late at night hanging out when they should be asleep and
thus suffer in their academic performance the next morning; that is, if they
do actually make it to class. College students usually have the worst sleeping
habits and would most likely agree that sleep is a big monster in the world.
Whether the person is up late drinking or studying, the affects of sleep deprivation
will eventually catch up to that person. That person will regret staying up
the night before but inevitably do it again and again only to suffer the same
amount as before. If the person never sleeps regularly, then that person will
never operate at a consistent level.
The sleep monster is on every campus across the country. It
can also be seen in the real world, but the best examples of every possible
monster of sleep are right here on the college campus. Some may say that sleep
is not a monster at all because they can simply drop their activities during
the day to make up for the sleep they may have lost. But, in the long run,
any individual looking to succeed in the world will want to do something other
than sleep or at least not let sleep run their lives. People with disorders
will always see the sleep monster, but others who are fortunate enough to
be without such disorders determine for themselves how big their monster is.
The more consistent your sleep schedule the less the monster of sleep will
haunt you. The more you allow yourself to get off a regular schedule of eight
to ten hours of sleep the bigger your sleep monster will be and the greater
the amount of effects you will embody. My suggestion to you is to control
your own monster and start sleeping on a more regular basis. Although the
monster of sleep will always be there waiting for you, it can be “asleep”
itself if you learn to sleep to keep it away.
