nst nst nst nst

At work we were talk­ing about sleep, or lack thereof, and being tired. I tried telling my co-workers that I win at being tired. I’m a pro­fes­sional at walk­ing around sleep deprived. They didn’t believe me so I told them what it means to be really tired.

When the babies where new­borns it was hard. I’ve blocked out for­got­ten a lot about those early days but I do recall that I was always extremely tired. I’m sur­prised that I didn’t spon­ta­neously fall asleep. I remem­ber being in my room try­ing to nap while my par­ents or hus­band were watch­ing the kids. I remem­ber feel­ing frus­trated hear­ing the ryth­mic thump of house music pump away while I tried to drift off to sleep. This went on for days, maybe weeks, I’m not really sure. I remem­ber think­ing that it was odd that I’d notice the music when I was try­ing to sleep but I couldn’t hear it when I was down­stairs with the kids. I’d for­get about it and carry on with the chaos that was my life.

I finally asked my hus­band about it one day after it had tak­ing me a long time to fall asleep. He looked con­fused. He wasn’t play­ing any music and he said that the neigh­bours weren’t play­ing any music. Both of us were quite puz­zled and he was a tiny bit wor­ried. I received an email from the mul­ti­ples group that I belong to and there was a thread about sleep depri­va­tion and one woman wrote about being so tired that she started hear­ing “things”. I was aghast that any­one would let them­selves get so tired that they’d start hear­ing voices. I told the hus­band about this poor woman and you should have seen the look on his face. Such a mix­ture of pity and con­cern. He pointed out that I was hear­ing non-existent house music and that I was in fact hav­ing audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions too.

I was dumb­struck! No, it wasn’t some­thing I could be in denial about. I was hear­ing this music and it was not real. My hus­band and par­ents tried to ensure that I’d be able to get naps in more often and the hal­lu­ci­na­tions went away. I’m still sleep deprived on a daily basis, but it’s get­ting bet­ter. On a good day I get almost four hours of sleep in a row but when the kids are sick I get two to three hours in a row. As long as the music doesn’t start up again I think I’m doing pretty good. I rarely drive, so I’m not wor­ried about falling asleep behind the wheel.

So my announce­ment to my co-workers that I’ve been so tired that I’ve heard non-existent music was met with smirks and weird looks. It wasn’t until I told them that it was house music that they burst out laugh­ing. Come on, it is funny. I can’t think any­one would fall asleep lis­ten­ing to house music. Now I’m on the look­out for the prankster that is going to start play­ing house music qui­etly in their cube in an effort to see me freak out. I’ll just bob my head along to the nst nst nst beat, feel­ing thank­ful that those days are behind me and I have the abil­ity to laugh at what was a very tir­ing phase of my life.

What is the most tired you’ve ever been? Have you ever expe­ri­enced audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions? Come on, share your story.

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3. Tor­ture by sleep deprivation