Mind At War With Itself
So basically, I've been staying up too late a lot recently. Sometimes it's been LOTRO, sometimes it's been projects, and once it was even just watching television. The net result is that in the mornings, I've been having an even harder time than usual clawing my way up out of sleep long enough to put my feet on the floor and start moving.
My superego* wakes up first; as my brain's resident Annoying Nanny, as soon as the alarm goes off it begins telling my conscious mind, "Wake up time, let's go! Move it! Need to get up! C'mon!" My conscious mind, while unenthusiastic, generally agrees and starts telling the limbs to get moving.
At this point, my subconscious -- which is a sneaky little brat when it wants something -- kicks into Vivid Dream Mode. Because it wants to stay asleep, it sends my conscious mind dreams that I'm already awake, up, and getting ready (and so doesn't need to get up again). My conscious mind, never too bright at its best but even more of a sucker when running on low sleep, buys it, and stays asleep -- at least until lythandra or Buddha makes some kind of noise that really does wake me up for a second.
At this point, my superego says, "Heeeeeyyy, wait a minute!" and my unconscious says, "Jiggers, fellas, the cops!" My conscious mind then says, "Er ... wait ... wasn't I already awake?" and promptly falls back asleep in confusion.
My subconscious regards my conscious mind falling back asleep as having blown the all clear and immediately starts Vivid Dream Mode: You've Already Got Up again, but at this point my superego has become suspicious and starts looking for incongruous details.
My unconscious mind, you see, has a short attention span. So about twenty seconds into the dream it forgets that it needs to try to stick to the facts and starts putting in things like a swimming pool in the living room, kitchen cabinets infested with an army of spiders, or its personal favorite, "Everything in the universe happens at the house where I grew up."
This last one is particularly glaring, as Ogdenland (the house where I grew up) has not only been demolished, but everything on the property down to the top six inches of earth was razed by bulldozers, as part of the effort to alleviate the world's Crippling McMansion Shortage. My subconscious still thinks of that place as the entire universe, but my superego knows for a fact that not only do I not live there, it doesn't exist any more.
So now I've got my subconscious trying desperately, but without much success, to tell my conscious mind that I've already woken up so that I'll stay asleep, and my superego stamping its foot like a five-year-old having a tempter tantrum and shrieking, "No he's NOT up! No, he's NOT UP!!! WAAAAAKE UUUPP!!!" in my ear.
We go through this cycle at least three or four times. Eventually my conscious mind says, "Screw you guys, I can't sleep any more with you two bickering anyway," and really does wake up. Once genuinely awake, I find myself wondering how my conscious mind could have bought the shadowy and incomplete dreamscape as being really awake -- but I also know that it'll be just as fooled again tomorrow.
Bottom line? Mornings are bad.
-The Gneech
*Yeah, I know Freud is passé, but everybody gets the terminology, anyway. I don't know the current models.
My superego* wakes up first; as my brain's resident Annoying Nanny, as soon as the alarm goes off it begins telling my conscious mind, "Wake up time, let's go! Move it! Need to get up! C'mon!" My conscious mind, while unenthusiastic, generally agrees and starts telling the limbs to get moving.
At this point, my subconscious -- which is a sneaky little brat when it wants something -- kicks into Vivid Dream Mode. Because it wants to stay asleep, it sends my conscious mind dreams that I'm already awake, up, and getting ready (and so doesn't need to get up again). My conscious mind, never too bright at its best but even more of a sucker when running on low sleep, buys it, and stays asleep -- at least until lythandra or Buddha makes some kind of noise that really does wake me up for a second.
At this point, my superego says, "Heeeeeyyy, wait a minute!" and my unconscious says, "Jiggers, fellas, the cops!" My conscious mind then says, "Er ... wait ... wasn't I already awake?" and promptly falls back asleep in confusion.
My subconscious regards my conscious mind falling back asleep as having blown the all clear and immediately starts Vivid Dream Mode: You've Already Got Up again, but at this point my superego has become suspicious and starts looking for incongruous details.
My unconscious mind, you see, has a short attention span. So about twenty seconds into the dream it forgets that it needs to try to stick to the facts and starts putting in things like a swimming pool in the living room, kitchen cabinets infested with an army of spiders, or its personal favorite, "Everything in the universe happens at the house where I grew up."
This last one is particularly glaring, as Ogdenland (the house where I grew up) has not only been demolished, but everything on the property down to the top six inches of earth was razed by bulldozers, as part of the effort to alleviate the world's Crippling McMansion Shortage. My subconscious still thinks of that place as the entire universe, but my superego knows for a fact that not only do I not live there, it doesn't exist any more.
So now I've got my subconscious trying desperately, but without much success, to tell my conscious mind that I've already woken up so that I'll stay asleep, and my superego stamping its foot like a five-year-old having a tempter tantrum and shrieking, "No he's NOT up! No, he's NOT UP!!! WAAAAAKE UUUPP!!!" in my ear.
We go through this cycle at least three or four times. Eventually my conscious mind says, "Screw you guys, I can't sleep any more with you two bickering anyway," and really does wake up. Once genuinely awake, I find myself wondering how my conscious mind could have bought the shadowy and incomplete dreamscape as being really awake -- but I also know that it'll be just as fooled again tomorrow.
Bottom line? Mornings are bad.
-The Gneech
*Yeah, I know Freud is passé, but everybody gets the terminology, anyway. I don't know the current models.