Sleep is a Land We Visit

On Some Nights Wanda Felt Like She was the Queen of Raintown / Collage / 2017 / Russell C. Smith

Sleep is a place we go to, a land we visit. It sounds like one needs a ticket or a map to get to Sleep. Where are we going? We’re going to Sleep. While often a welcoming place, it’s not always a friendly place. Dark and menacing creatures reside in Sleep. Sleep is an unpredictable place. One can fall down into crevices and cracks or be uplifted on wings of wonder. Fearful dreams lead us into darkness, and adventurous dreams take us through glowing tunnels and toward the light. Little kids kick and struggle against going to sleep. Older people sometimes fall asleep and never wake up. Usually, this happens by inadvertently getting in the wrong line at the Death Train Station, and getting a one-way ticket to the Land of Death instead of the usual destination known as the Land of Dreams. Sleep’s a tangible place, and not just a tangent to being alive, awake, here in the waking world. Going to sleep can be like being at a carnival, and going on more than one ride. Since many dreams flow through the river of your mind each night. Some people always remember their dreams, and some never do. Always and never. Going and coming. Sleeping and waking. Outside sleepers’ windows there could be snowflakes falling, moonlight shining, wind shaking the treetops, or a blue-gray false dawn. We can be drunk on too much sleep, as if it’s a favorite intoxicant. We can feel starved for sleep, in the way we know we’re hungry when our stomach grumbles to be fed. Sleep takes place in beds, on couches in tunnels, on chairs, in movie theater seats, on train station waiting room benches, up on rooftops, in warehouses, in airplane seats. Sleep can be out of arm’s reach and there’s nothing one can do about it—whether its imagining fluffy animals jumping over fences, listening to BBC podcasts, having a shot of whiskey, reading mystery novels, or hypnotizing yourself—no matter what you try, sleep doesn’t arrive until long after 3:00 a.m. And, naturally, there are also times when sleep will sneak up and welcome you into a needed nap, offering a stroll in a park full of mossy rocks and recently budding flowers, and young deer gladly eating grass nearby the path and with a brilliant blue sky overhead.