I'm No Stranger To Sleeping Problems

It's true.
Did you know that we spend a third of our lives sleeping? Wow, huh? Now, think about this – if life is a dream, that means you spend 99% of your life sleeping (keep in mind that if life is a dream you still need to wake up and use the bathroom at least once).
So, sleep is a very important part of our lives. Maybe it's not important in that meaningful sense, but important like WOW that's a huge chunk in a pie chart.
Therefore, if you have sleeping difficulty a third of your life is pretty much annoying.
What can I do to help you? Well, below you'll find some sleeping problems I have had and how I remedied them. I hope you'll take some of these to heart and maybe pass them on to your friends. It takes one third of a person's life at a time to build a fence to let sheep jump over or something.
Read on!

Last Night

So, last night is what made me decide to write this article. I awoke to the sound of chickens. Yes, chickens. I looked at my clock and it was no way near chicken time (morning). So, I listened closer and realized it wasn't chickens – it was dolphins! Then I thought about Star Trek 4 and how aliens communicated with whales. Well, I put two and two together (dolphins being whale babies) and decided I had alien infestation – OF THE THIRD KIND! So, I sat and mustered my courage to go confront the intruders, but then fell back asleep. Then I awoke later and started thinking about that noise again. It was gone, but WTF? Then I realized it was supposed to be windy this morning. And that I had a tree growing near a window. The source of the sound was not aliens, dolphins, or chickens – it was the branches of the tree rubbing against the window!

Disorder: Aliens
Remedy: Realizing it was only the wind

Exploding Head Disorder

Look it up. I'm not about to link to it, I have to get this done quickly so I can sleep another four hours as I work my way to two thirds of my life! But anyway, in all honesty I wouldn't trust me on this either. I'm pretty goofy. But it's a true sleeping disorder. You go to sleep and just as you are about to fall asleep – BAM! It's like a sound and electric shock right to your head. It doesn't hurt, but boy howdy – it'll wake you up. Luckily, when it occurs it only happens once, then you're on your way to napville. Now, there is no cure for exploding head syndrome, but the knowledge that you are not alone and others are having their heads explode right before they go to sleep is all you need to save worry.

Disorder: Exploding Head Syndrome
Remedy: Knowledge

I'm Glad I'm Not Thinking About That

So, you wake up in the middle of the night. Normally, you just take a trip to the bathroom, take a sip of water and go back to bed. But, unfortunately for you this thought comes to your head "I'm so lucky I'm not thinking about BLANK, or I'd probably have trouble sleeping." Doesn't make a lot of sense right? Well, you're human and humans are fucked. So, next will follow one of the following (tee):

Song stuck in head
Worry over…
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
That bump on your ding dong (or dongette)

Doesn't matter what, although I will say Wham's Wham Rap stuck in your head is probably the worst. It even beats out Texas Chainsaw Massacre + my girlfriend is cheating on me + my girlfriend gave me herpes. There is no solution to this, unless you are good at clearing your mind. But you're not.

Disorder: I'm Glad I'm Not Thinking About
Remedy: Inconclusive (suicide)

Booze

As Americans, or whatever country you're from, we have a national crisis. It's not booze though. With that said, booze can really do murder for your sleep. But, like the girlfriend in the situation above, booze is a charmer that will screw you in the end. You'll think "Hey, booze will make me go to sleep!" That may be true, but booze will wake you up later when you're hungover and you'll stew in your own booze juices as you try to wander back to the Sleep Country. I won't tell you not to booze, but I will tell you to eat something small before you go to bed and drink plenty of water.

Disorder: Alcoholism
Remedy: Pizza and water

Neighbors

Many of you have neighbors. I guess when you think about it everyone has a neighbor. Some just might be farther away than others. Well, I have a neighbor who slams his door every morning at 7 AM. I know what you're thinking – yes, 7 AM! Anyway, sometimes it wakes me up. So my neighbor is a sleeping disorder. Well, folks, you can register sleeping disorders just like predators: http://www.assholeissleepingdisorder.com/. I had my neighbor registered and now this big dude slams my door at 6 AM every morning. It screws up my sleep, but you can see how I wouldn't let a neighbor get away with screwing up my sleep…Probably need to put more thought in this.

Disorder: Asshole Neighbor
Remedy: More thought

Alarm Clock

It's 7 PM. You have to get to work at 9 PM (or around there), so you set your alarm clock. Bad move. Alarm clocks are the most vicious sleeping disorder of all. You set them to make sure you wake up on time, but what you don't realize is they wake you up in the middle of sleep! Therefore, don't set them. I know it sounds revolutionary, but if everyone stopped setting their alarm clocks, then no one would have to wake up. Think about it.

Disorder: Alarm Clock
Remedy: Don't set them

Reality

So, you're sleeping and this badass dinosaur is attacking your enemies while your best girl is telling you how awesome you are and MTV starts playing videos again. Then – WHAMMO – reality. You wake up. You look around and it's the same room you left when you went on your awesome adventure to Lesbianland. Same comforter with Elmo on it. Same pillows with GI Joe on them. And the same woman you married ten years ago washing the sheets you pee'd last night before bed because you got way too drunk – is this too personal? Fact is reality blows. Like that movie Reality Bites and how it blew. The truth of the matter is dreams are rad. You go to this world with rad things and anything can happen and if it's bad it doesn't matter because it doesn't count. Kinda like playing Contra with all those extra lives. Well, we all have to wake up. Or do we? I'm not saying kill yourself, but if you can hit yourself in a way that will cause a coma, you might want to give it a shot.

Disorder: Reality
Remedy: Coma (not that shitty G n' R song)

So, I hope you learned a lot about your sleeping problems and maybe you'll help pass this on to others. In a perfect world we'd all be passed out, riding dinosaurs in Tibet. And maybe, just maybe, you can help make this happen.

- Gene