Our internal 'ego' world is filled with the divisions of the mind. We all have our 'inner child', our 'critic', etc. It has been said that a multiple personality is someone whose internal alternatives just don't know the others are there.
But it also means some interesting relationships with my internal parts. For me, the one I never saw coming is my relationship with sleep. For most of my life, I have been blessed with an ability to sleep. One wife had a phrase - "if Dave is horizontal, he is asleep." I would frustrate partners because around my third breath I would be deep in my sleep cycle.
But then came age, medication, body challenges, and other things and by body soon reframed the relationship with sleep. By the way, to give you an idea about the relationship, it is now 3:05 AM and I am up and wide awake.
My current sleep cycle occurs in 60 to 90 minute blocks and can occur any time day or night. This means I have a lot of sleep periods during the day (no control on when they will happen); but it also means a lot of awake periods in the middle of the night.
For a number of years, I worked night shifts and I learned there is a sub-culture of America. It is the group of people who work nights. They have a community and know each other. They gather together at 24 hour restaurants and have long conversations at convenience stores. This sub-culture not only know the law enforcement people, they know their names and where to find them.
They have a unique and different relationship with community and in many ways it is treasured. When I was in the midst of doing night work, it felt like 'we night ones' were special. It meant imagination and romantic thoughts about being savers of the universe. But it also provided one of my truly scary night events..
It was a night when I was scheduled to train a night crew at a Sacramento mall (the old Country Club Center). I was due around 2:30 AM and was scheduled to come to the back second story door at the top of the stairs.
I arrived a bit early and put together my working tools I would use in the training. My first goal was to contact the on-site people to help me unload. As I started toward the back door across the empty parking lot with the full moon overhead, I heard something. I could only describe the noise as snuffling/growling/disturbing grunts coming from across the parking lot. I looked and could see something coming toward me. I say something because it was not upright and it was not on all fours. It was bent over loping toward me in an uneven gait.
As you can imagine, since one of my favorite books was about Werewolves, I was sure I was about to be attacked by a supernatural creature. I started to move quickly to the back stairs and started up the stairs.
Meanwhile I could hear the creature coming closer and closer. I got to the top of the stairs where the glass door was located. I suddenly realized I was cornered and I could hear the creature coming to the bottom of the stairs. I pulled out my key and started hittting the glass praying they would let me inside in time.
Soon I was hyperventilating as I heard the creature at the bottom of the stairs. Just then, two of the employees opened the door and I slid in quickly. I was shaking like a leaf. They looked at me strangely and asked me what was going on.
I told them the story and they looked at each other and grinned. "Oh, that's the guy from the apartments who thinks he's a Werewolf. On full moon nights, he runs the parking lots. He's harmless!"
It took me a period of time to believe that. Even in writing this right now, my heart rate is up and I am sweating. It is part of the possibility of my relationship with the night and with sleep.
So in today's world, I am in the midst of re-establishing the safe haven that is sleep. Each of us are always working on the safety for it is a time when we are unprotected. This is the journey when I give thanks for my partner who comforts me, for my bed which is spectacular in providing a place to sleep, and to the different steps I take to keep the safe haven. May each of us find the safety in our sleep places because in the end it is our deep place filled with spirit!
Comments