Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Can’t Get No Z’S Insomniacs - We Are A Frustrated Group With Strong Characters, Racing Minds And Bloodshot E

Tom Long Ottaway News Service

We are the wide-eyed, the restless, the jittery and yawning. Too tired to work or play, too wired to sleep.

We are sleepless and so addled. Insomniacs.

And we’d pay good money for a decent nightmare.

There is a cook in Des Moines who hasn’t had a full night’s sleep since 1974, an electrical engineer in Newark whose buzz never stops. A housewife in Pismo Beach began feeding her baby in the middle of the night in the early ‘80s and she’s still getting up three times a night, even though the kid is 14.

Usually, though, there is no rhyme or reason for the sleepless. We just lie there: wondering, worrying, terminally spacey but unable to phase out completely.

We close our eyes, open our eyes. Mad, pointless, obsessive thoughts take turns racing through our brains. We turn over, close our eyes, open our eyes again. Nightly, for weeks, months, years, lives.

Statistics show that there are more than 50 million insomniacs in America. One out of three schoolteachers, two out of three horror film directors and three out of three methedrine abusers cannot sleep at night. Newlyweds also commonly suffer from this affliction, as do bomb squad members and parents whose children are spending the night at Michael Jackson’s house.

But don’t get the idea that only Americans suffer from insomnia. This thing is worldwide and it is considered a plague (except in Paraguay where, oddly enough, it is treated as a spectator sport).

Think of it. Every minute of the day, as time zones turn along with the world, hundreds, thousands, millions of bodies writhe in their beds, hoping to achieve the blissful state of sleep, sweating, shaking and groaning in frustration.

At the same time, millions upon millions of others walk through their daily lives blinking back the exhaustion of the prior evening’s lost battle, sluggishly trying to compete with the dreaded deep sleepers who are their psychic counterparts.

It just isn’t fair. Those who snore easily have an unfair advantage.

And we’re not going to take it lying down anymore.

In our heart of hearts, insomniacs know deep sleepers are good, honest, hard-working people.

But in some dark corner of our sleepless souls we think of them as cloddish dogs, able to lie down and turn off their obviously dim-lit mental capacities at a moment’s notice. Bang a frying pan with a spoon in the same room and they will doze on. Loud TVs, earthquakes, machine gun fire, none cause eyelids to even flutter.

There is something of the sea slug in deep sleepers, some ancient connection to mollusks and things that crawl along the ocean floor.

Not true, of course. In fact, in a recent study it was determined that more than 80 percent of insomniacs marry deep sleepers. (The rest apparently simply do not get married. They just hang out at singles bars and toss and turn by themselves through lives of bleary desperation.)

Now this at first might seem a bit funny. Why wouldn’t insomniacs marry one another? Aside from the sympathy issue, it would give you somebody to talk to at three in the morning. Maybe you could play Parcheesi or something.

But, speaking from personal experience, I think we insomniacs drift toward deep sleepers for a very practical reason. It gives us something to believe in. We look at these coma-like lumps and know that eyes can close for long periods of time, that daily rest is just a psyche away.

For us, deep sleepers dream the impossible dream. And it is as inspiring as it is maddening.

There is no real recourse, of course.

Drugs work, but there’s always the very real chance that you’ll end up taking the Big Sleep With No Return. Alcohol also works for an hour or so but then you’re just an insomniac with a hangover.

I suppose the insomniacs of the world could band together and form organizations like the NAAI (National Association for the Advancement of Insomniacs) or support groups (Transgendered Insomniacs for Christ), but I’m not sure that would do any good.

We the sleepless may just have to accept that we are part of the natural balance. Great people throughout history have been insomniacs, obviously. Napoleon, Joan of Arc, Gerry of Gerry and the Pacemakers. We may be sleepy but we still have a contribution to make. We matter.

Our brains may be hyperactive, but our souls are as good as any deep sleeper’s. Our eyes may be bloodshot, but our character is strong.

Insomnia. Don’t lose any sleep over it.

MEMO: Tom Long writes for the Santa Cruz County (Calif.) Sentinel.

Tom Long writes for the Santa Cruz County (Calif.) Sentinel.