#365DaysOfWriting — Day Six
It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon. And everyone in my house is asleep — except me. I’ve never really understood the concept of afternoon naps. Give me my 7–8 hours of sleep every night, and I’m set for the day.
Sleeping is probably the most underrated human activity.
I’ve seen a lot of people toss it aside because ‘they have more important things to do’. There’s also this weird pattern of sleeping I discovered, where people don’t sleep at all during the weekdays, just working through the week to be ‘more productive’, and then sleep 12–14 hours over the weekend (both Saturday and Sunday). I’m not sure I find that too healthy either. I guess to each their own, though. My personal recommendation? Sleep 7–8 hours EVERY DAY.
Get up early on weekends too — there’s a lot you can get done even on a weekend.
Do you dream?
This is another interesting part of sleeping. How many of us dream? There is this absurdly delightful film called The Science of Sleep by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, anyone?) which is about a man’s inability to differentiate between the real world and his dream world. It becomes hard for the viewer itself to realise what parts of the movie are realistic, and what parts are surreal. I guess that’s what happens when you dream vividly. It’s happened with me only once or twice, but those dreams were so vivid, I can remember each and every detail. I’ve also had many blurred dreams, or ‘visions’, as I call them. I remember only a little bit of those dreams.
Most of these dreams I’ve had include me flying, falling, or as a mere onlooker to the events that unfold around me — a bit like Norman McCay from Kingdom Come. It’s as the onlooker that I’ve had my most vivid dreams. The problem with being an onlooker is that you’re powerless in the dream — you have no control over its outcome (remember Harry’s foray into Tom Riddle’s memory in the Chamber of Secrets?).
So all you can do is stand and watch the world burn.
One of these vivid dreams I had is of watching a fight between two people on the street. It was an unfair fight. One man was almost 7 feet high and I bet he weighed at least 250 pounds. The other guy was fit, but he was more lithe, built like a 100 m sprinter. The big guy landed a lot of blows on the little guy, but he always seemed to get back up and challenge the big guy again. I tried rushing into the fight, but my fists just went through them. It was as if I didn’t exist. Then, I felt a hand on my shoulder. As I turned around to see who it is, I woke up — it was my dad trying to wake me up.
Well, it looks like everyone just had a light nap. They’re up and about now. Got to sign off!
