A Sleepless Sleep | Teen Ink

A Sleepless Sleep

December 2, 2007
By Anonymous

With the stress, time commitment, and obligation that plagues the human race, a short and seemingly hard to come by experience, is sleep. The ultimate repose is savored. This proves accurate unless, of course, you are cursed with a brother, sister, husband, wife or friend; in which case, you have a very different story to tell. Regardless of who you’re sleeping next to, there is always something that goes slightly awry in the wonderful confinement called a bed. Somehow, you’re always stuck with someone who just can not seem to sleep the way you want them to. Like it or not, even you are one of these aggravating bed mates. The harsh reality of this may be hard to come to terms with. Therefore, hopefully these five categories of sleepers you don’t want to sleep with will help you first identify and subsequently fix your grievous sleeping habits.

If you have ever been told that you punched, kicked, bit, slapped, scratched or pinched someone in your sleep, then you are a victim of one of the most common and most unfortunate illnesses known to man. You are a warrior sleeper and you are by far the most dangerous sleeper out there. You are under the highly mistaken impression that by closing your eyes you are entering WWIII. Bruises, bite marks and missing clumps of hair are painful reminders to your fellow bed mate of your late night thrashing. As difficult as this may be to control, you might
want to consider a straight jacket for bed time usage. It would be in the best interest of the forsaken person sleeping next to you.

If you have ever woken up next to a shivering body, stuck in a mess of blankets or been deemed a “cover hog” then you are a cocoon sleeper. You suffer from the belief that by going to sleep you are undergoing some sort of metamorphosis and require the entire bed’s worth of blankets to aide you in this. As cool as this sounds, it is extremely unpleasant for the person sleeping next to you. Screaming, pushing, and pouring water does nothing to loosen the vice-like grip you have on the blankets. It in unknown why stealing the only source of warmth angers so many people, but it does. In order to save your bed mate from frostbitten limbs you may want to consider wearing multiple layers of clothing to bed, conveniently simulating the conditions within the blanket cocoon.

If you can not remember certain things people swear you said, can not remember entire conversations you participated in, or are told that you frequently yell in the middle of the night then you are a delusional sleeper. You experience hallucinations that nonexistent people are present, and participate in full fledged conversations with them. The person sleeping next to you can try perilously to wake you up, but you just take this as an invitation to begin more unconscious rambles. While this is occasionally amusing, listening in on the conversations between you and your phantom friend is quite frightening. Attempting to sleep when you are talking to ghosts is a whole different story, so you may want to consult a trained professional about your hyper active mouth or you can merely stuff a sock in it.

If you can not sleep because you can feel the beating of the persons heart sleeping next to you, because you can hear a cricket outside, or because you are bothered by the red light from
your clock then you are a hypersensitive sleeper. Your condition is most unbecoming because not only can you not participate in a peaceful slumber, but neither can the person next to you. The slightest movement of their toes sends you into agitated oblivion. You can tell your bed mate to stop moving and making so much noise, but it just results in a heated argument about how they can’t help the fact that the air conditioning just clicked on. Unfortunately, getting yourself a good pair of earmuffs and sleeping on the floor may be the only cure for your dreadful problem.


If you feel as if you can’t breathe or are often yelled at for snoring and erratic breathing, then you are potentially the most annoying sleeper out there. You are the out of shape sleeper. Sleeping to you is equivalent to running a marathon to anybody else. It’s a wonder that you can do such simple tasks as walking and eating if sleeping poses such a challenge. Your heaving and perpetual gasps are driving the person sleeping next to you insane, but how can they tell you to stop breathing? It’s a predicament that plagues many people around the world. Often your bed mate will ask you to calm your convulsions to a quiet wheeze and you will comply, but five minutes later the volume of your panting will have escalated to inadmissable scales. For reasons concerning safety, an oxygen tank seems the best remedy for people like you.

Once a relaxing escape from the realities of living, sleep is now a harsh and cruel fight for life. Waking up without nail marks, bruises or muscle aches is a celebrated achievement. Difficult though it may be to recognize your problem, I assure you it’s there. If by some stroke of god given perfection you are exempt from one of these morbid disorders, you surely suffer at the arms, legs, teeth and claws of anyone you sleep in the same bed with. While we’re busy wasting our times looking into carpel tunnel caused from excessive cell phone usage, researching botox, and perfecting liposuction, there are people in the world (such as yourself) suffering much more severe illnesses.


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