My Brain at Night

I always envied people who can say at any moment: “Alright, I’ll go sleep,” lie down and fall asleep immediately. They just lie down — and sleep. I never managed to do that.

I need complete silence, darkness and some mumbling voice from the phone. Usually something about the creation of the universe, human evolution, or quantum mechanics. I don’t understnad half of it anyway, but it’s still interesting to listen to.

And even with these conditions my brain still lives its ownlife for about thirty minutes.. It starts showing the most unsuccessful moments of my life or drawing unpleasant versions of the near future. Then suddenly it remembers some song and starts playing it in my head. Sometimes several times in a row.

Over the last week I’ve accumulated a lack of sleep. I couldn’t sleep during the day , and at night I constantly had to jump up and run to the bomb shelter. Today it seemed like there was finally a chance tosleep normally. But no. I woke up about every two hours to check if there were sirens or explosions. And the brain immediately turned on. It already feels like some kind of post-traumatic syndrome.

And my brain says: since you are not sleeping anyway... remember how it was about five years ago?.. And everything goes in circles again. Songs, quantum mechanics, human evolution. Then suddenly some brilliant business ideas come to visit, and my brain starts going through them and trying to prove to itself that it’s all bullshit. Then I suddenly remembr that the electric kettle in the kitchen is still on the base with no water in it,and that my cat likes to press the power button on that kettle. What if not today?

Thanks, brain. Very supportive in difficult moments. Good job.

• Image generated with AI, chatGPT.