Notes From the Twilight Zone

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow -- Charlotte Bronte


Have you ever wondered why middle-of-the-night television programming is so dominated by infomercials? Is it because when you're sleep-deprived, like I am, you'll buy just about anything? Soap that will wash the spots off a leopard? An upright vacuum that generates its own black holes? An automatic dog food dispenser? Perfect! Wait a minute, I don't have a dog. It's 3 am, and I think I just bought a time-share in Beirut.

Insomnia: from the Latin for "no sleep." When you suffer from insomnia, you have time for things like looking up word origins and watching infomercials. As entertaining as that might seem, I can tell you from experience it's a poor substitute for "the balm of woe," as Elizabethan poet Sir Philip Sidney called sleep.

I don't know when the sleeplessness started, probably when I was in college and playing as a drummer in a 90s grunge band. In those heady days of my youth, I was quite used to being up late, or sometimes all night (weren’t we all?). Back then, sleep was to be avoided when possible, in favor of playing music, discussing the meaning of life, or - most importantly - feebly trying to impress girls.

Today, it's different. Sleep isn't an enemy, but a long-lost friend. Here I am in my early 40s, leading what some would call a "normal life," and my mind still wants to party like it’s 1999. When it gets to be bedtime I’m about as sleepy as a ferret on a black coffee drip. My nightst usually go something like this: Sometime around 11 or 12, I dutifully brush my teeth, get in bed and just...lie there. I read, watch TV (usually cartoons or old classic movies), or listen to calming music, but nothing seems to produce the desired somnolence, and I remain frustratingly, persistently conscious. Time seems to play games with my mind, sometimes moving too fast, sometimes too slow. Either way, minute by minute, I roll this way, then that way, wrestle with my pillows, stick a leg out from the covers and pull it back in, watching the clock stubbornly progress from 1:30 to 2:00 to 3:15, and all too soon the sky begins to lighten and I hear a chorus of birds playfully chirping outside my window. Birds that ought to be shot.

Insomnia stinks. But even as I toss and turn in the wee hours, I know I’m not alone in my red-eyed sleeplessness. More than 64 million Americans suffer from some form of insomnia. And all that wakefulness doesn't come cheap; every year, those sleepy Americans spend 14 billion dollars on sleep aids, devices, prescription drugs, and other treatments, all in hopes of getting some shut-eye. Some researchers think that nearly half the world's population routinely experiences sleep deprivation severe enough to cause memory lapses, health problems, and the desire to take violent action against innocent birds. Yes, we are insomniacs, we're irritable, and we are - yawn - legion.

Historically speaking, too, I’m in some pretty good company. Marlene Dietrich suffered from insomnia. Her remedy? A sardine and onion sandwich on rye. Greta Garbo said "I vant to be alone", but it was Marlene’s late night eating habits - and breath - that probably provided her with plenty of personal space. Theodore Roosevelt had his share of sleepless nights, but cured it with a shot of cognac in milk. Groucho Marx was a notorious insomniac. Notorious because Groucho coped by phoning people in the middle of the night to insult them. Too bad for Groucho's friends that this was all before caller ID. Vincent Van Gogh, had considerable trouble getting to sleep. His remedy of applying camphor to his pillow helped him sleep, but had an undesirable side-effect: it poisoned him.

But the world of the insomniac isn't all prank calls and cognac. There are, in fact, a host of sleep disorders, conditions, and oddities that plague us night owls.

One curse insomniacs often endure in their nightly pursuit of slumber is a propensity toward excessive and obsessive thoughts. Homer said, “There is a time for many words, and there is a time for sleep.” In the case of many of us insomniacs, there’s no real distinction. During those dark, sleepless hours, one's mind is racing. But not just "racing," - inventing, scheming, devising, innovating, philosophizing, and problem solving. Insomnia can be torture, but it also can be a fount of great ideas. In my case, my head is filled, not with visions of sugarplums, but with story lines, book ideas, ways of ending world hunger, and reducing gas prices. It’s one of the ironies of the condition for many of us: the time when you should be dead tired coincides with the mind galloping along like a thoroughbred at the Kentucky Derby. For me the insatiable mental restlessness combines with stunning creativity, and I begin to develop a kind of self-deluded confidence in my ability to problem-solve. Economic recession? No prob! Energy crisis? Bring it on, baby! Unified field theory? Child’s play. Want to know what’s really at the center of a black hole? Well it’s…nah, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. I jest, and yet I’m pretty sure that in the middle of the night -- in that "strange dimension of both shadow and substance," my mind seems to have somehow tapped into something almost superhuman, inspirational, and extraordinary. And that, gentle reader, irks me.

It irks me because those high-voltage moments of creative inspiration that keep me awake at night have gone the way of the Dodo by daybreak. I heard of of people who do drugs and have these kinds of experiences. I know people who meditate and have these kinds of experiences. Me? I go to bed every night and spend several hours mentally puzzling my way through a myriad of life's riddles, wonders, and mysteries big and small, composing poetry, music, and making plans to become a sculptor (I do have some Playdoh around here somewhere), and when I'm back on my feet the next morning, my brain has reverted to that of a Neanderthal. I might be Einstein or da Vinci or Tolstoy at 2am, but by daybreak, I'm like Rocky Balboa after a fight: thick-tongued, baritone-voiced, and staggering around.

What is it about those sleepless hours spent in the dim blue light of the television that seems to fire up the synapses to an agonizing level of wakefulness? There is something surreal and fantastic that happens during those sleep-scarce nights, and I'm not alone in wondering what it is. Even Edgar Allen Poe wondered at the intensity of mental experiences he had, "only when I am on the brink of sleep."

As it turns out, sleep researchers tell us there really is a kind of Twilight Zone where sleep is concerned; a state where the rational aspects of the conscious mind overlap with the fantasies and free-spiritedness of our unconscious. It’s a state of heightened creativity,but also of tortured restlessness. It's called the “hypnagogic state."

Hypnagogia is a kind of bridge between wakefulness and sleep. As the tiny neuro-electrical impulses of our brains gradually slow down from a frequency of around 15 cycles per second during wakefulness, to 10, and then 6, and 3, we pass through this hypnagogic state and drift into a deep, peaceful sleep. That is, unless you are an insomniac, in which case your brain can actually stall-out in the middle of the hypnagogic state and stay there all night long. Being in this half-awake, half-asleep state is like being stranded in some sort of strange, Rod-Serlingesque purgatory where the mind is overly active, senses are on edge, and unusual experiences abound. And it ain’t always fun. It’s a little like parts of New Jersey; the fortunate drive straight through, the unlucky get stuck there.

Consider this, from Wikipedia: "The hypnagogic state is sometimes proposed as an explanation of experiences such as, alien abduction, apparitions, or visions, also known as a trip or psychedelic experience. Transition to and from sleep can be attended by a wide variety of sensory experiences. These can occur in any modality, individually or combined, and range from the vague and barely perceptible to vivid hallucinations.”

Poe, as mentioned, had such experiences and described them as, "a class of fancies, of exquisite delicacy, which are thoughts: they seem to me rather psychical than intellectual. They arise in the soul...only at is epochs of the most intense tranquility...and at those mere points in time where the confines of the waking world blend with those of the world of dreams."

Poe wasn't the only one enamored with the strangeness of hypnagogia. Salvadore Dali understood the inspirational power of the hypnagogic state and created a strategy for intentionally inducing it. He took naps while sitting upright, holding a spoon over a metal pan. Just before he would drop into deep sleep, the spoon would fall to the floor and clatter against the pan, waking him up. This allowed him to immediately begin painting while the myriad of surrealistic images were still fresh in his head.

Others too, like 18th century philosopher, mystic, and all-around interesting guy Emmanuel Swedenborg intentionally cultivated the hypnagogic state and used it as a means of inducing fanstastic visions of traveling to Heaven, Hell, and other spiritual realms. Maybe even Vegas. Mystics have long thought of this unusual state of mind as a kind of portal to deeper, esoteric wisdom. Again, Vegas naturally comes to mind.

Sleep experts confirm that hypnagogic states have been associated with experiences of unexplained presences, night terrors, holy or evil visitations, loss of body control or awareness, sleep paralysis, and auditory hallucinations. Unexplained presences? Evil visitations? Mother-in-law jokes aside, try sleeping through that!

So what's really going on here? According to researchers like Andreas Mavromatis, hypnagogia is a state of mind in which the conscious and unconscious literally overlap. In his 1987 book, Hypnagogia, The Unique State of Consciousness Between Wakefulness and Sleep, Mavormatis describes hypnagogia as a kind of halfway house between the familiar sticks-and-stones world of wakefulness, and the decidedly bizarre landscape of the inner mind; it’s a place where horror and ecstacy commingle, and where ideas flow unencumbered by things like logic and common sense (need I bring up Vegas again?).

Mavormatis conducted his own experiments with hynpagogia by relaxing subjects as close to sleep as possible, without actually drifting off, and then asking them to report their experiences. Here's just one typical sample: "I saw a large green eye opening and closing...The impression of color - bright greens and yellows - water falling into a cup or chalice. Hills, mountains, or pyramids, a drinking glass on a shelf, a snail, the back of a person...also fish - I don't actually see the fish but I can smell it. Swirls of light." It reads a little like a David Lynch screenplay, doesn't it? One weird and seemingly disjointed sensation after another.

Of course there's more to hypnagogia than pyramids and fish. One interesting phenomenon insomniacs can experience is the so-called "Tetris Effect." Named after the hugely popular video game developed by Alexey Pajitnov in 1985, the Tetris Effect refers to the obsessive tendency of the brain to mentally visualize various puzzle-piecing activities, such as rotating differently-shaped colored blocks to make them fit together like you do while playing Tetris. People who spend a lot of time in hypnagogic states are prone to this sort of thing. Whether it's Tetris, chess, or Solitaire, games easily find their way into our obsessive tendencies and have been responsible for many sleepless hours (but some pretty solid high scores) for plenty of people.

Hypnagogic jerks might sound like a cool name for a punk band, but in fact it's yet another of the rather upsetting experiences of the insomniac. Maybe you've had this happen to you: You're dozing off into a nice, peaceful sleep. Your muscles begin to relax. Your breathing is slowing to a smooth, slow rhythm. You are floating down into the gentle arms of Morpheus. But the thing is, your brain isn't getting the full picture and it interprets this physical relaxation as a sign that your body must be falling through space. Before you know it, you've startled awake, heart racing, adrenaline surging, and gasping for breath. It's certainly better than actually falling off that cliff you were just dreaming about, but not very conducive to sleep, and about as fun as being poked with an electric cattle prod.

But there's another phenomenon associated with hypnagogia fewer people are likely to be familiar with. It goes by the staggeringly alarming name: "Exploding Head Syndrome." That's right, the good old EXPLODING HEAD SYNDROME. As if I needed one more thing to keep me awake at night. According to Wikipedia, Exploding Head Syndrome, "causes the sufferer to occasionally experience a tremendously loud noise as if from within his or her own head, usually described as an explosion, roar, or a ringing noise. This usually occurs within an hour or two of falling asleep, but is not the result of a dream and can happen during the day as well. Although perceived as tremendously loud, the noise is usually not accompanied by pain." Call me old-fashioned, but I like my nights, sleepless or not, free of explosions.

(Reassuringly, Wikipedia also mentions, "Note that exploding head syndrome does not involve the head actually exploding." Well, there's a relief.)

All things considered, I guess my hypnagogic hyper-thinking isn't as bad as it could be. No evil presences, no alien abductions, no paralysis, and, so far, my head hasn't exploded. And truth-be-told, I rather enjoy those moments of heightened inspiration that only seem to come in the dark of night. After all, life can be a little mundane at times, and trust me - there never really is much on TV after midnight. If I'm going to be awake anyway, why not enjoy the feeling of strange inspiration, fantastic ideas, weird imagery, and maybe a game of Tetris I never seem to lose?

What if all the secrets to life really are kept in that twilight zone between wakefulness and sleep? All the answers to life, the universe, and everything could be just a sleepless night or two away. Maybe hypnagogia is a kind of built-in drug trip we all have access to, where windows to hidden mysteries are opened for us, and the next great novel is already composed, waiting for someone to just write the damn thing down.

Then again, who am I kidding? I've got bags under my eyes big enough to require wheels and a luggage claim tag. I'm drowsy and crabby most of the day. And I just misplaced the remote control again. If sleeplessness is a drug, it's one I'd be better off without. Maybe having written all this blather on my hypnagogic dilemma, I'll actually get a couple hours of sleep tonight before heading off to work. Meanwhile, though, I'd sure like to find a better way to tap into that strange, dormant brilliance I wish I really possessed, and coax out into the daylight that too-shy muse that resides in us all, somewhere, in the Twilight Zone.