An insomniac's nightmare

I envy those to whom sleep comes easy. I envy a trusting consciousness, so willing to surrender to the realm beneath. A good sleeper--someone who can conk out at any moment's notice, on any cold cement corner of the world--they have inner balance. They have peace.

I don't think that I'm a chronic textbook insomniac, but even when I was 10 I remember interminable nights of waiting for sleep. Back then, though, it was Chucky the bloodthirsty doll that would rob my rest. Now I'm afraid I don't have a good excuse.

Stephen King wrote about insomnia, but that book had all these odd hallucinations and manifestations of obscure mythological figures. Ed Norton's character in Fight Club had it, and he turned into a violent schizophrenic sociopath. Nothing quite so psychedelic or glamorous for me. John Lennon and Pavement have both sung about it, but with my luck a looping refrain of Orinoco Flow or, say, "Blue" is the soundtrack to my night.

Around 4:00 a.m. the mind starts to play tricks and daydream, but it's a frustrating imitation of the real thing. Time doesn't so much stretch as play a torturous game of Red Light, Green Light. Sheep come as little solace. They taunt with their cursed bleating and prompt all sorts of existential questions as to what force compels them to jump, and whether they do so out of free will or because they are figures of the imagination. And sleeping in the same bed as someone else is not any better: There's just less space to toss and turn--us insomniacs' only means of entertainment during the long dark stretches.

Freshman year I don't remember sleeping much at all. Many people don't sleep freshman year. It seemed to be second in braggable achievements only to the previous night's level of intoxication. I, however, not being a mindless workaholic freak, would at least try. These nights were sustained streaks of tossing and cursing at those damned sheep, as they mocked me with their every jump and bleat and invited me to make one-sided T-test analyses of black and white variables against height of their leaps.

My roommate, on the other hand, could hold his own against the most seasoned narcoleptics. There would be days when I would bring him his food and he would not set foot on ground. I think he considered investing in a bed pan. If the bed was my prison, it was his flowered, breezy field and I hated him for that. He was also an impressively vocal somnambulist. Occasionally, my longer sessions were rewarded by him addressing the dark room with a sporadic and nonsensically bizarre tongue. He once entertained me with an extended, tuneless, and quite enthusiastic rendition of what I believe was an Irish soccer anthem.

Sophomore year was, thankfully, for the most part quite like the last shot of a NyQuil commercial. My bed and I became fast friends, with few squabbles. It was lofted with maybe 6 inches between me and the ceiling, but that was all for the better. Apparently I do well in coffin-like environments, the psychological implications of which I care not to investigate.

But now, summer travelling has brought back my insomnia with a vengeance. Perhaps it is the creaky hostel beds, or the bread-and-cheese diet, or general travel anxiety, but in any case I've had only one or two good nights of sleep out of 10. I have tried and failed to pass out in all manner of places: four train stations, three airports, a couple of bus terminals, a sidewalk in front of a hotel, the lawn of the Eiffel Tower, and--a low point in my tortured history--the baggage rack of a moving train. Not knowing where you will sleep the next night can be wonderfully liberating or it can be oppressive in its uncertainty, and I am just a novice at this travelling game.