By Queen Mab (a Nom de Plume for a budding writer)
Being unconscious is, without a doubt, my favorite part of the day. I don’t have any responsibilities, or obligations, or worries. My sleep-self is living the dream. That being said, I delay falling asleep for as long as is humanly possible.
There’s something comforting about being the only person awake at night. It’s like stepping into another dimension where time has no power. Even the colors are diminished, as if you’ve walked through a screen into a black-and-white movie. It’s thrilling.
I find that I’m more me when I’m in complete solitude. I spend so much of my life playing a role for others; I have an alter ego for each and every person I know. At night, when time washes over you and even the colors have left, neither your thoughts nor your actions are inhibited by the presence of others. The mask falls, and you can finally reflect on the person you are, not the people you want to be. That’s the time of day when you are the most free.
I wouldn’t call myself a night owl. I can fall asleep at 6pm or 6am, interchangeably. But I need a few hours each day to sort out my mind and my feelings. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to think. I don’t understand how a person can simply drift off to sleep without taking an hour or two to reflect on the day. I use nighttime to better myself, to recognize the mistakes of each day, and to remedy them. Our days are filled with too much action and too little thought. We’ve become careless.
I love being unconscious because it gives me a chance to start over. As Anne Shirley says, “tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.” That’s such a comfort. Sleep erases all the problems of today, and presents you with tomorrow, where you have every opportunity to do better. The future is yours. What will you make of it?
