Dear Sleep: Bring me Dreams, Take away my Shame

"When you take the throne of my internal kingdom, a staff of self-cleaning and self-healing agents step out with purpose." - A letter to my sleep in a world that never stops

Marijana

Dear Sleep,

I think of you as my childhood friend. The silky black dupatta I used to wear. The small and big doses of calm that kept me going.

I miss you. They say these are the dark times. Are they? I call these the ‘over-lit’ times. Everything flashes, pops, or groans for attention. Even when I use an eye mask and earplugs, my brain is too loud and blazing for you to step in.

It wasn’t always like this. I remember our reading-napping remix on the cool, summer floor. Then the days with tremendous body ache. Or being ghosted or harassed or grossly misunderstood. You were my only companion in those nerve-wracking times.

We have had a strenuous relationship. Families like mine look down upon those who fall in love with you. Late risers, especially girls are greeted with taunts. Anger, even. Aunts have banged utensils to wake me up. Grandmothers have worried about my future. This Brahmanical machinery of womanhood equates late-rising to questionable character. Whenever I woke up late, they saw my puffy face, frizzy hair, crusty eyes. Not the mind-blowing things I must have read or created the night before. 

It’s not only families who have a problem with you, dear sleep. Campuses and workplaces think you are optional. A luxury that one has to earn by proving themselves. Those who go to bed early get a different flavour of judgement in this caffeinated culture. So many celebrities endorse you. But you remain a symbol of laziness, not a secret to success.

Naturally, you refuse to show your intimate depths to us. The people who seek approval from family, friends, and colleagues.

I have disappointed you in other ways. Whenever you came to kiss me, I held up a device between us. You must be tired of my habit of putting you second to everything else. I’ve downloaded apps to track you and induce you. Binaural beats and that gorgeous voice of Michael Sealey. It worked a few times. But perhaps technology is best kept away from my pursuit of you.

Not science though. Science loves you, even when it doesn’t get you completely. Sleep scientists call you ‘mother nature’s best effort yet at immortality’. When you take the throne of my internal kingdom, a staff of self-cleaning and self-healing agents step out with purpose. You sort, archive, digest, repair. You are the most productive way of doing nothing, dear sleep.

I wish to cuddle you in a whole new way. In MY own way. I want to slurp your sacred everydayness. Enjoy you in a lover’s embrace or under a heavy blanket. I want to replace sleep morality with sleep hygiene. Make my bed a phone-free zone. Sync up with celestial bodies, not devices. Whatever time I wake up, I want to go say hello to the sun, the birds, and the trees.

Give me the courage to be the boring person who went to bed early or the brat who woke up late. Let no label hurt me. I will find my sweet spot with you. Come with your dabba of dreams. Take me into your nightly abyss.

Desperately,
Raju

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An earlier version of this letter was shared on Substack in February 2020. I am still struggling with sleep. What’s your situationship with it like?

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