Faustian Insomnia, A Sleep Technique, and Poetry Reading Jitters

Since my recent break-up after a six year relationship, insomnia has been a pretty bad problem. My mind is restless, for a variety of reasons (starting a new job, car troubles, being in my mid-forties, writing projects, missing my daughter, etc.), and I have a hard time quieting the rocket factory that is my brain no matter how tired I am. I am not pining over my ex—that’s not the issue—it’s just that I like to cuddle, and it soothes me to sleep, so I miss that.

Now that I have given you a paragraph break to clean up the vomit you projected from the last emo sentence in the above paragraph, I will continue. I was thinking last night, while I was having insomnia, about my insomnia in general (I know; I am so meta.). It occurred to me that I actually have had this issue ever since I was a kid. I remembered a trick, which I will get to in a moment, that I once used to fall asleep as a boy. Maybe it will help you as well. I tried it last night, and it still works for me.

I was listening to a podcast last night about Faustian characters throughout history. These characters would generally employ alchemical, magical, or ritual practices to communicate with an entity and to ask for favors or services from this entity. These entities could be nagas, crones, djinn, demons, elementals, etc. depending upon the culture you are studying. Generally, dealing with these beings, as a mortal, came with a heavy price—usually, one’s soul or the loss of something precious or beautiful. I remember jokingly thinking to myself that I would “sell my soul” for a variety of things, not just sleep, at that moment. I guess I would have to cut a deal with Morpheus for that one, and in exchange, he would have some sort of control over my waking life…

The podcaster then said the old adage that, “It is always darkest before the dawn”—he was basically saying that Faustian characters cut deals with demons when they are desperate, and if they could just ride the storm out, through personal faith or their own guardian angels, then they would not employ the deals with the devil. I will come back to this as well…

I am doing a poetry reading in my old alma mater college town tomorrow night, and I was thinking about that a bit too much and really getting myself all torqued up. What am I going to say? What am I going to wear? Who is going to show up? Is anyone going to show up? Which poems will I read? The cacophony continues, but I won’t bore you with further documentation of it here. Then, I remembered something I did, all the way up through high school, in order to fall asleep. I think I started doing it around six or seven years old.

I grew up on hand-me-downs and cheap-ass clothes in a pretty low income family. I was the oldest, and firstborn before my sister and brother, so when I say hand-me-downs, they came from all over. Male and female clothing from across the board of peripheral family members. Clothes of ALL sizes that I was supposed to “grow into”. New articles of clothing would be bought here and there each year, but, for the most part, I always remember being poorly swathed and embarrassed about how I looked all the way up until college. I remember this being a cause of anxiety for me—what I was going to wear to school in the morning? Then, I started to fantasize, as I lied in bed, my outfit from shoes to hair on my head. I would fantasize about the cool clothes I would wear if I could have access to them (now, bear in mind that a lot of these fantasies happened during the 80’s, so I was probably, in reality, better dressed than most of my cohorts at school). I would always fall asleep before I finished “getting dressed” in my mind. I even started to use this trick to fall asleep, like counting sheep, over the years. I am not sure why I forgot this until my forties, but it just came back to me last night while I was trying to figure out my poetry reading issues.

So, in my mind, I started to dress myself. The nicest pair of shoes I have (remember to polish them up). My Sasquatch socks from Port Angeles, which symbolically put someone under my feet, but that’s another issue. My favorite slacks…my….ummmmmmmmmmmmmm…………ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

Then it was morning, and I am writing this blog. I am going to try to use this technique again the next time I have insomnia (tonight, most likely). It is a type of induction, and I even remember thinking, while I was doing it, that it was not going to work, but it still did. I think it was a type of self-hypnosis that I accidentally learned when I was a boy and going through a lot of family and heavy psychological “stuff”. What is interesting to me about this whole thing is that the neural pathway to my subconscious is still tethered to this old juvenile technique about not having a Member’s Only jacket. Or parachute pants. Of course, if you were not born in the 70’s, you have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. Think Michael Jackson in “Thriller” to get yourself started.

Faust was in search of the ultimate knowledge. Or experience. Gretchen was lost in the process, but, in the end, he was admitted into heaven. I am not sure this is such a happy ending for him considering Part One of Goethe’s epic. Gretchen’s mother DIES from a sleeping potion given to her so that Faust and Gretchen can have sex. Gretchen drowns the child from this copulation. In this way, there are many passages towards terrible kinds of “sleep”. However, creating our own ways into our subconscious, without the deals of the devil or the pleasures of the flesh, well, I think that’s the best way to go.

Dear readers, take the time to dress yourself well, but as you prefer, with your own style, before entering the dream world. You might fall asleep before fastening the last button, but that’s ok—someone on the other side might be waiting to fasten it for you. Don’t sell your souls for any type of dream, but horde that soul and use it as your own rocket factory. A lot of us just have to learn to deal with our lack of somnus through a use of hypnos—the Latin and Greek terms here ARE closely related. When we all finally do die, they tend to dress us very well for our “dirt-sleep”, as it is crudely called. Then again, that adornment is for the living’s waking dream because the sleeper has long last left any idea of sleeplessness.
Faust Presentation