Day 4: Où est la boeuf?? Where's the beef?

Bonjours mes amis!! You are probably wondering when I am going to get around to actually reading the book! Well, let me tell you, I have been reading!!!  And painfully slowly. I have gained ground on page 3 today, and although I cannot say that I am understanding the point, I am understanding the words, for the most part. 

Literary French, I am finding, is quite different from spoken French. I have already been tutored on the difference between the Imperatif and Passé Simple (literary past), and the Passé Composé (spoken past).  These are quite evident even within reading the first few lines. I have not come across any of his famous 50-line sentences yet, but most of them are least 5-6 lines, subordinate clause, after subordinate clause. 

So far, a man falls asleep, only to be woken by the thought that it is time to go to sleep, then is taken by a myriad of strange half-dreams and recollections into that floating world of near concsiousness.... I have experienced this myself in the morning upon first waking, then repeatedly falling back into a semi-dream state where the oddest of things will come to mind. 

Proust was an insomniac, as is the narrator of this story. And, like most insomniacs, appears to be obsessed with sleep. I had an intensely unpleasant and extraordinarily frightening experience with insomnia and sleep deprivation when I worked the night shift on a job for about 8 months. 

I was working a combination of days and nights -THE worst thing ever- and going to school full time: two night shifts, followed by a full day of school, then a 4p-12p shift, a full school day, a 7a-3p shift, and then a 5p-1a shift.... This crazy up and down, back and forth sleep schedule very quickly started to have an ill effect on me - it would take longer and longer for me to get to sleep after coming home from the night shifts, and, after about 5 months of this, it would take me 3-4 hours to get to sleep at all. Then, like clockwork, almost exactly thirty minutes after falling asleep I would spring bolt-upright awake, completely disoriented and having no idea whatsoever where I was, what day it was, whether it was day or night, and sometimes even who I was. I started to put up big written signs in my bedroom telling me what day is was, where I was and to call my parents' home phone. My mother was understandably worried about me!!

After 8 months I had progressed to the point where I started to have waking dreams and hallucinations, but some kind of external stimulation would usually bring me back around and I would be aware that I had been dreaming or seeing things. But this did not last.

One day, at work, I asked my friend, Paul, if he had brought the book we had been talking about the previous day. He looked and me and said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "What do you mean, what am I talking about?? We spent most of the shift talking about that book yesterday, Paul!!"  Then came the breaking point for me: he said, "But Michael, you weren't AT work yesterday!" ...........

At that point my world fell apart and I had a serious breakdown, as the realization dawned on me that I could no longer tell whether I was awake or dreaming!! It gives me shivers and goosebumps over my whole body to even think about it now!!!  Apparently I got this panicked look in my eye and started to gibber.... my boss was there and she realized that something was seriously wrong. Plus I had voiced my concerns over the effects of my sleep problems and told her that I needed to get off of nights ASAP. I was sent to the hospital, where my concerns were taken quite seriously and was watched overnight.  I was taken off work entirely for two weeks in order to try to reestablish a regular sleep pattern. But the thought that I could not distinguish sleeping from waking continued to haunt me for over a year. For weeks, every time I fell alseep, I would wake up shortly thereafter in that state of complete disorientation. Sometimes it would take me fifteen minutes to regain my bearings! 

At that time, i was working in a hotel as a PBX operator. Some years later, with the greatest trepidation, I was faced with working the night shift again, this time as a new grad RN. I had a serious talk with my manager about my previous  disastrous experience and she agreed to try to get me off night shift as quickly as possible, but that it would probably be several months before that happened. 

And sure enough, despite it being a regular schedule, after only three months the waking dreams started to come back, this time with the direst of consequences: I began to dream while awake that I had done certain things to and for my patients, which I had, in fact, NOT done, but only dreamed that I had. Things like administering IV medications, hanging new IV solutions, and taking vital signs. Fortunately, this did not cause any mishap, but did get me onto the day shift mighty fast!!!

The processes of sleeping, dreaming and memory are incredibly fascinating to me, and perhaps, considering the extent of Proust's own experience with this, this is why I am drawn to ISOLT. 

Food for thought. And, speaking of which, I'd love to hear anyone else's experiences with sleep deprivation or insomnia.

À demain, et sommeil bien!!
Michael