My Evolution of Falling Asleep

Up until a couple of years ago, I wasn’t a person who could fall asleep easily or quickly. There has been many a night where I lay awake in bed, thinking over my day, about things I should (or shouldn’t) have said in various situations, or stressing about things that are usually out of my control. I cannot just turn my mind off, so in order to fall asleep I have this method that I have been using since I was a young girl. To get my mind of stresses, I daydream about desirable events until I finally nod off.

In early grade school, my daydreams would involve me being able to turn myself into a unicorn. Sometimes I had wings, sometimes I did not, but I was always able to fly. And be invisible. I can still remember the visions I would have of flying the three miles from my neighborhood into town, looking down at the fields and houses below me as I soared through the air. For some reason that has stuck with me. This was a reccuring dream for me for many years.

As I got older, I grew out of the unicorn thing, as it was too unrealistic. So my dreams were no longer that I was a unicorn, but I could still turn myself invisible. This is a skill that I, to this day, wish I had. As unrealistic as it may be.

Once I hit highschool, the daydreams that I would conjure up involved the perfect dates with whatever boy I had a crush on that particular week. Thankfully none of these dreams came true, as some of those crushes were real doozies.

Then college came around. My dreams started to mature from dating to getting married to the man of my dreams. This “perfect man” wasn’t different from week to week like highschool, but it did change a few times. And finally, one of my dreams did come true once I married Greg.

So what to dream about after I got married? Hmmm…All the mysteries of marriage and sex were no longer unknown to me where I would dream and wonder about what they would be like. Ah yes! Now I could dream about having kids.

The kids dream didn’t really happen until about 4 years into our marriage. This dream was perhaps the most fuzzy of all my dreams, as I didn’t know what our kids would look like or what to expect after having a child. But I dreamed about it nonetheless. Maybe I jinxed us because then we became pregnant with our first child.

Now I have that sweet child. As a result, I no longer need to daydream to fall asleep. After a full day of running after a 15 month old, I am usually so exhausted by the time I roll into bed that sleep overcomes me as soon as my head hits the pillow.