A Story, and How to Fall Asleep With a Book

Many, many years ago when Michael and I hadn't been married very long I stopped sleeping. The attorneys who I worked for at the time had announced that they were going to take me shopping for a new desk, and I think it was on the same day we went shopping and picked out the item that all sleeping ceased.

That night I lay awake with visions of office furniture spiraling my brain, as though I were Alice falling through a cherry paneled rabbit hole. By morning my skull hurt. The next morning it was even worse.

About three days in my mom got me an appointment with a doctor. My doctor gave me a sample of a sleeping pill which I took that night. I slept for two hours until my husband came to bed, at which time he accidentally woke me up, and that was that for the night.

After six days I was in really bad shape. I lost all depth perception, couldn't drive, couldn't even dress myself, and that's when I got on a sleeping aid that actually worked. As it turned out, I was suffering from depression, and once I got on an effective anti-depressant, an effective sleeping pill, and started counseling, things became manageable again. At this point I averaged about four hours of sleep a night, but it was tolerable.

The funny thing was that the sleeping pill I was on only worked if I fell asleep while reading. If I closed my eyes without a book, sleep would never come. If I drifted off in the middle of a page the desired effect would be achieved. It was still a trying time, but things were better.

I have continued to have difficulty sleeping, and having tried every natural remedy I can think of, I find the only thing that works is getting up at 5:00 every morning.  If I get up at 5:00 I'm tired by the end of the day, and so long as I drink a cup of something hot (milk or tea will do) and read a bit, I manage to sleep for a reasonable amount of time.

But the morning and evening routine are only a late development. I cannot tell you how many times I've been told that reading a boring book might do the trick. I've wondered, both innocently and naively, how on earth could I ever find a book boring enough that it would make me fall asleep?

In fact Adler and Van Doren have a prescription for me to read myself to sleep:

The rules for reading yourself to sleep are easier to follow than are the rules for staying awake while reading. Get into bed in a comfortable position, make sure the light is inadequate enough to cause a slight eyestrain, choose a book that is either terribly difficult or terribly boring--in any event, one that you do not really care whether you read or not--and you will be asleep in a few minutes. Those who are experts in relaxing with a book do not have to wait for nightfall. A comfortable chair in the library will do any time (How to Read a Book, 45).

A book I don't care whether I read or not? Where could I find such a creature? In fact I know plenty of people who could provide me with books that I would find quite boring, though I'll tell you that I used to read a textbook on textiles just for fun, so that tells you something. Besides boring books, there are plenty of downright bad books on library shelves. Fortunately I have managed over the years not to encounter very many of those. On the other hand, the seventh chapter of the third part of Atlas Shrugged, '"This is John Galt Speaking,"' could probably do the trick. It's approximately sixty pages in small print of Ayn Rand sharing her philosophy, and even I, who read Les Miserables in full without neglecting the digressions, couldn't make myself read that one, so obviously the book that will put you to sleep can be found.

I offer an alternative strategy for reading yourself to sleep, one that I employed with some success this time last year before the early waking cure was found. Read a book you want to read but know you can't understand yet. Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard is the one I chose, for example. It was a book I knew I would have to read more than once before I could begin to get anywhere with it, and a page was all it took to prepare me to sleep. Yes, I could already follow it in snatches, but that was only enough to make it an interesting read to fall asleep to.