A Meme About My Favorite Activity: Sleeping!

1) How do you sleep at night?
Is your sleep affected by the national angst? Do you drop off easily, as you always did? Or does it take a while to get to sleep?

I've always been a great sleeper. Unless I'm incredibly stressed out (school is usually the biggest culprit), or I've had one of my weekends of marathon sleeping (i.e., this last weekend when I slept 13 hours Friday night and then took a nap Saturday afternoon), I sleep very well every night. 

2) What strategies, if needed, do you use to get to sleep? Pills? Sheep? Late night television shows? And/or...?

I have my nightly routine that I do every night before bed: put on my PJs, take out my contact, brush my teeth, wash my face, take my allergy medicines, set my alarms, crawl into bed, and then I read something not school related for 15 minutes to an hour depending on when my eyelids close themselves. Lately, I've been re-reading the Twilight Saga over and over. Say what you want about those books, but they're a fun read and there are some pretty steamy parts too. Even though I do have this routine, I could probably just curl up on my bed every night and drift off with no problem at all. I don't get enough sleep during the week and I just plain love sleeping so once 11:00 comes around, I'm counting down the minutes until I'm done with my homework so I can go to my beloved bed.

3) Do you wake up in the middle of the night, plagued by obsessive thoughts?

I rarely wake up until my first alarm goes off in the morning. If I do, it's usually because I have to use the bathroom. Unless I'm sick, I almost never wake up for any reason other than to pee.

4) What strategies do you have to get back to sleep?

Well, since waking up because I'm distressed is a rarity, I don't really have any techniques. I usually just pull my covers closer around me and close my eyes again. Insomniacs probably hate me.

5) Are your dreams affected? Are they more anxious than before? Do they wake you up in a sweat? Or are they peaceful, innocent, undisturbed by the general malaise?

Confession time: I rarely have/remember dreams. I'm sure I do dream in the night, but I almost never remember them. On the rare occasions when I do have dreams that I remember vividly, they are usually scary ones. But the last real scary dream that I can remember was almost a year and a half ago. That dream woke me up and I started crying, but like I said, that's a really rare occurrence. Usually when I have dreams that I remember, they occur during that time when I'm about to wake up but haven't completely become fully conscious yet -- when I'm in a sort of asleep/awake limbo. 

I think the biggest reason I don't ever remember my dreams is because I'm a very heavy sleeper. Just ask my former roommates and fellow RAs. I've almost slept through fire alarms, tornado sirens, not to mention all the phone calls I've missed while I was sleeping even though my ringer was on the highest volume my phone has. In order to wake up in the morning, I set 4 alarms. I set my actual alarm clock, which I purchased because it was the loudest one the store had, for the latest possible time I can get up in the morning so I'll have plenty of time to get ready and be on time for class and/or work. That alarm is placed on my dresser, across my bedroom from my bed so I actually have to get up to turn the horribly loud alarm off. Then I set 3 alarms on my cell phone in 1o minute increments up to the time that the big alarm will go off. I usually wind up cuddling my phone in bed with me while these alarms go off one-by-one. Some mornings, much to my dismay, I don't even remember my phone alarms going off, but know they did because I wake up to my big alarm with my cell phone in my hand or on the pillow next to me.

My good buddy Lindsey tagged me in this so I thought I'd be a good blogging-friend and do it. I'm also supposed to mention the original blog from which she got this idea: here it is.