awake

I'll quickly check in here. Again I got up in the night to do some reading. This is becoming a pattern. Part of the pattern is that when I return to bed (this morning at about 3:50) I lie awake, then eventually doze and have a dream that startles me awake again right away. The dreams are often about being intruded upon by strangers, or being spied on through windows by them--creepy.

However, there is no downside to reading as far as I can tell (if there is, I'm in big trouble). And time in the dead of night is truly free time.

A few days ago I updated my computer-security program (Kaspersky), and now, with better protection, I can't find a way to access the stats for who visits my blog--one of my main rewards for writing it. I'll try to puzzle that out.

Now: back to more research...

late-night reading

The rain plops heavily outside again. A series of sirens has screamed by in the dark of morning.

I prepared for sleeplessness again last night, setting out my sweatpants and fleece top for easy access in the dark. It turned out I needed them: awake at 1:45, I rose again at about 2:30 to head downstairs to read. Might as well make the night productive. This time I opened The Lupercalia, a bound dissertation by a certain Alberta Mildred Franklin, written for her PhD at Columbia University in 1921. There was exactly one copy of this available via Abebooks. That was in Stockholm, Sweden. I bought it for just under 30 euros (including shipping).

I'm glad I did. I sat hunched over the coffee-table, highlighter in hand, flipping through the surprisingly well-made paper-bound document, and sipping a glass of cranberry juice. All quiet in the house; all quiet in the dark outside.

I read for just over an hour: wolf-cults in ancient Greece; wolf-cults in ancient Italy...

I felt fatigued but not especially sleepy. "So this is insomnia," I thought. I've never really had it before.

I crept back upstairs and back into bed. I mainly lay there, but did eventually drift in and out of a very light sleep. I know this because I had dreams. I noticed also the changes in the level of my consciousness as I lay in those hours. Thoughts and images would arise unbidden, spontaneously, and I knew that I was closer to sleep--and by then I had veered back to full wakefulness.

Now, I feel reasonably rested. I'll head on with the day, and see what it brings. One thing I can say: I'm excited by the ideas I'm researching and connecting. They may even be partly what is keeping me up nights.

restless mind

I woke at 2:15 and never did go back to sleep. Too much to think about.

I've commented before about the difference in mentality, in emotionality, between day and night. I notice very strongly how differently I think and feel about things, even when fully conscious (that is, not just in the twilight of near-dreaming). At night my thoughts are much more emotionally flavored; my feelings are much stronger and more raw.

In astrology this is accounted for by the fact that the night is ruled by the Moon, which also rules our feelings.

One of my thoughts was that this is probably our mental state as we approach--and perhaps go through--death. It is likely a "nighttime" rather than a "daytime" experience, and we should prepare ourselves accordingly.

By that I mean that we should attend to those things in life that cause us to lose sleep, for they will very likely be the things troubling us on our deathbed.

Not all of my thoughts were painful, of course. A lot of what was keeping me awake was thoughts of fun and amusement--following interesting lines of inquiry and memory. I thought about astrology, for instance, and tussled with some exciting aspects of my current research.

There's lots to do for a restless mind.