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Permanent Jetlag

Dragon

Entry posted by Dragon

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Hey bleeps,

 

You may have noticed two days passing since my last post. But I have only slept once. Why? Let me tell you.

 

For most of my life, I have lived with a medical sleep disorder. As simply as I can put it, my sleep cycle is longer than 24 hours, like it's set to some other planet.

 

According to Wikipedia, it's called "Non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder", which is the worst name I could possibly imagine for a medical disorder. Basically, it goes like this:

 

Usually, a person will wake up in the morning and go to sleep at night, and the whole journey takes around 24 hours. But with me, for some reason, this journey takes around 40 hours, maybe longer.

 

This pushes my body clock out of sync with the natural pattern of night and day. As a result, I spend just as much of my time in the early hours of the morning as I do during daylight.

 

I would best describe it as "Permanent Jetlag". Most people only get this when they visit a new time zone, and once they take a few days to adjust, they get back on their feet and the journeys continue right as rain.

 

I have yet to find out what that would do to me, as I've never been on a plane or left the UK. But I'll tell you this. I love waking up and finding out the sun is just about to rise. It's a rare treat, like a Bank Holiday or an extended TV special. The morning is the best time to wake up, for sure.

 

I usually don't feel tired until I've been awake for 18-20 hours. After that, I'll stay up until the 24-28 hour mark, or longer if I feel restless or unusually stimulated. Once I've fallen sleep, I'll be interrupted a few times, but I'll usually get up and stay up after about 14-18 hours or rest.

 

The whole cycle could last anywhere between 36 and 60 hours. As you can see, it is very hard to think of "my day", or "what happened yesterday" when referring to our human calendar.

 

If there is an upcoming event that demands my attention, I simply have no way of knowing whether I will be awake for it. Usually I'll try to plan my sleeping time days in advance - but still, this is very unpredictable. Like I said, I could stay awake much longer than planned if I feel stimulated.

 

The social impact, here, is very unique. It's hard enough to stay friends with people when they live in a different timezone, any long-distance partner will tell you that. But when you're completely phasing out of sync, when you could sleep through an entire day of sunlight without seeing anyone, it gets harder. Human society lives during the day. Good thing it only covers half the world at once...

 

How this disorder affects education, employment, and creative work is another matter entirely, but I won't go into that.

 

So, the next time you wonder how my web activity gets so evenly spread across the clock, or ask me why I'm up so early for someone in the UK, now you know. I'll leave you with this exquisite piano piece by Steve Reich, a pioneer of American Minimalist music.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGsmv_irhE8

 

"Piano Phase" is a 20 minute composition with huge masses of detail, but one very simple idea. It's amazing. It's two identical melodies, one faster that the other. The way they move in and out of sync causes all sorts of.................damn.

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gmanyo

The whole world would be distant and surreal. It would seem like a giant clock, people waking up and going to work and driving and walking and going places and going to bed, then everything would be silent for hours. It would be chaotically ordered, empty. At least, those're the ideas that come to mind when I think of this disorder. Sorry to hear that man, sucks. Morning is a nice time to wake up for (although admittedly morning is cooler when you've been up all night). Does it bring on cool creative stuff?

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Salvatorin

Yeah, in alaska last summer I didn't have a job (or a real home) so i just bummed about from one friend's house to another, and since it is light all day and night I'd often end up saying awake as long as I felt like and had no sense of time. Most of the time that kind of life is fun, but when you are depressed it is really pointless feeling.

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gmanyo

I fucking love the sun coming up when you're outside and awake and have stayed up the next night. Also, do you get those jetlag moments where you're so tired you almost can't stay awake, but not just in an "I'm really tired" way but in an "I'm confused and feel like I'm drugged" way? Or those times when you act funny and you feel awake but you're super off? I make a 12 hour time change 2 times a year minimum, so I experience these frequently.

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