Two (well, two plus) months into this, and my sleep is going pretty wonderful, which you will see when I reveal my monthly sleep scores. There have been no perfect scores yet, but I feel like it’ll happen soon enough.
If you have no idea what is happening in this blog post, here is a link to Month One, which will give you a primer on this silly sleep project.
Except I don’t think it is silly at all. (that is just my brain diminishing a thing I love, which it does often.) I take sleep very seriously. I have spent about 5 years perfecting my sleep, and I think I’ve almost nailed it.
What Goes Into a Night of Sleeping with Me
When I first started my mental health journey and paying attention to the way my body (and brain!) reacted to the things I did to it, I noticed that my brain was nicer when I slept more. So, in classic Jacki fashion, I spent some time optimizing my sleep. And now with the addition of my sleep score, I get to gamify my sleep, too! Optimization and gamification are two ways to get me hype!
A night’s sleep with me now involves (I don’t get money if you click the links, I just want you to know what I’m working with):
- My cooling weighted blanket
- Yes, even in the winter
- Mine is seafoam green, tho
- Not one but two galaxy lamps
- Cooling mattress cover
- Deep pocket, cooling sheets
- I have tried a LOT of sheets. These are my personal fave
- Plus, they have double elastic on the corners, so they slip off less easily (more on this later)
- I have two colors:
- Light blue for summer months
- Dark blue for winter months
- I strip, wash, and replace the same day
- I do not like stale sheets
- I think light sheets are cool for the heat, and the vice is also versa for the darks
- I have tried a LOT of sheets. These are my personal fave
- My dumb blanket that I have a love/hate relationship with
- We bought a really good mattress, too, but I am too lazy to go up and look at the label
- We bought the same one for our guest bed, so if you stay over, lmk how it is
- It also has the same sheets and the same mattress pad
- We bought the same one for our guest bed, so if you stay over, lmk how it is
- Really nice pillows.
- I did a lot of research and trial and error, and these work best for me
- I sleep all balled up like a baby on one side or another every night, os if you’re also a side-sleeper, these might be nice for you too. Don’t hold me to it, though. My body ain’t your body!
- Slippy pillowcases that feel cool on my face and keep my hair from tanglin’
- Dark red for winter
- Light pink for summer
- Lock Bed Sheet Holders
- The ones I have are no longer available
- These are the most similar
- These are the best sheet-garter-type system I’ve ever used, and I’ve tried a lot
- Ya bitch likes a tight bed. What can I say?
- There is also Bedtyme Snoopy, who has been with me for almost a decade now? woah
- He is very grey.
- Oh, and there are four fans (we have no central AC in the Professor Haus)
- One for my body
- One to suck the heat out of the room
- Traditional dusty ceiling fan
- Face fan in case of emergencies
I think that’s it. As you can see, some of these items aren’t even available anymore. Oh, and then there is the recent addition (and the point of this blog post): Max Richter’s “Sleep”.
Beyond the OOO OOO OOOs
First off, there have been a couple of nights where I have fallen asleep before the OOO OOO OOOs, and when I wake up, I’m disappointed, because I have truly come to enjoy getting tangled up in them. Like, if my mind is racing from whatever happened that day, I focus on them. Like, really focus, I can normally clear my head enough to fall asleep.
However, if I make it past the OOO OOO OOOs, there are a few other parts that I have found enough slow rhythm to lull myself to sleep.
One is very similar to the opening strains, but where the opening seems to hit the beats exactly, this section hits the beat just a smidge too late. That does something magical to my brain. The space between beats is where I fall asleep; it lulls me into a rhythm and then slows down, and then I slow down, and then I’m dreaming.
If I’m still not asleep, the next section that knocks me out is what I call “The Fifths”. In actuality, it might be “The Octaves,” but I never remember to check it on the piano when I wake up.
This is another problem I’m having. As I fall asleep, I think of all kinds of magical things to write in this blog. Yeah, yeah, I could pop up and take some notes. I could talk quietly into the voice note of my watch app. But anything that I do would interrupt the real goal.
Catching them ZZZZZs.
The Dreams
My dreams have been wild, but I have trouble remembering them. When I can remember, I try to tell someone about them, but then I remember no one likes hearing about other people’s dreams, so I stop telling people (and that is a brain loop, my friends. thanks, ocd!)
One dream this month was very vivid, though:
- I was in the shower
- Don’t get excited
- It’s not one of those dreams
- (although there have been more of *thosedreams* than normal)
- It’s not one of those dreams
- Yes, the shower at the house I live in now.
- That just so happens to live in the basement
- Don’t get excited
- I was doing normal shower things when I noticed water starting to rise around my ankles.
- This happened occasionally at the Florida house.
- There were roots everywhere in the yard
- This happened occasionally at the Florida house.
- I did not panic
- I merely observed
- The water rose to my mid-calf
- I was still fine
- As quickly as it rose, it drained
- Maybe even quicker
Then I moved on to the next dream. As I was typing that out, I could feel the dream water rising up my legs. I can’t picture stuff in my head, but I sure can recreate feelings.
And then I had more than one “packing up a hotel room” dream. I hate those the most. And a couple cruise dreams, where I am on a cruise with minor characters in my life, and we have a veryfuntime. Even though there are, like, six of us packed into a tiny cabin.
Oh, yes, there were flying dreams, but I love those so much I will save a whole section for them next month.
A Word About Maladaptive Daydreaming
I was also gonna save this for another month, but a friend randomly brought the subject up the other day, and I can’t stop thinking about it.
This is something I have done all my life. Like (what I thought was) a superpower or a superland where I could escape (which is, I guess, what I was doing). The times I used this power the most were before falling asleep, when first waking up, and in a car.
And when I say Maladaptive Daydreaming and what those daydreams were, it makes me sad. Sad, because they were just simple acts of niceness, or people being soft to me. I’ve since learned (in all my brain deep dives) that this is another secret part of my OCD and not a superpower after all.
So, expect to hear more about this journey during this year (or more if it goes well) spent with Max Richter’s “Sleep”.
Sleep Scores
- Highest sleep score: 99
- SO CLOSE
- This was V-Day night, too. Idk if that means anything.
- Lowest sleep score: 42
- I stayed up late watching Boston Public by accident.
- Average sleep score: 88
In March, I’m gonna see if the day of the week has any bearing on my sleep proceedings.
An Upcoming Bonus
At the end of February, Max Richter announced a tour. I am used to these being announced and me being immediately disappointed, because they are on one or the other coast or (most often) overseas.
This time, Max Richter is coming to Detroit.
In June.
To the Jack White Masonic Temple Theater.
I bought a single (VERY GOOD) ticket so I could go to this magical experience on my own, with no one else’s expectations to keep me from my enjoyment.
And I’m so excited I cry a little bit every time I think about it. Not tears that spill, but my eyes do fill up in a very cinematic way that Max Richter could probably score very well. Then the tears will spill.
They will also probably spill constantly at this concert, and that is another reason I’m glad I’m going alone. He is not performing “Sleep”, but two of his other albums:
Important to note: I will get to hear “On the Nature of Daylight” live, so I do not know why I would bother to wear any sort of makeup.
That’s all for this month, y’all. Go catch you some ZZZZZs.
