So, I didn't sleep at all last night. I've been having problems sleeping the past two weeks or so, on and off, getting a good full night's sleep every third night or so. But last night was the first time I absolutely could not fall asleep at all. I tossed and turned. I decided to get up and read for awhile, but then when I got back into bed all I could think about was ways to adapt the book into a film. "Well, I'd have to cut that sequence. I could probably combine those two characters, they're redundant. That would have to be CGI. Unless it was a composited miniature." And so forth. I watched the sun come up. Finally, I fell into a doze, where you maybe dream a bit, but are then aware you're in bed, and back and forth--my alarm went off and screwed that up.

So. I'm here at work, and I feel like I'm on drugs. I can't get my eyes to focus, I feel funny (like when you know you're getting sick), I'm all sore (it hurts to breathe in too deeply), and I can't concentrate.

This all causes me to reflect on the oddity of organisms adapting so that they can only function if they basically stop functioning a third of the time. I understand the need for dreaming--excising unnecessary bits from the brain and memory--but sleep itself is odd. I feel the need to research it. Why do scientists think sleep evolved? What happens that forces us to sleep; what chemical or neurological triggers shut us down once a day? It strikes me as odd that I know next to nothing about how all this works. Think of how much more we'd be able to accomplish if we didn't have to sleep. Which makes me think: instead of trying to lengthen people's lives--which are invariably more prone to illness and injury and senility and all that jazz, no matter how healthy one is, at a certain point--maybe we should try to get rid of sleep. Is that at all possible? People would still live their average of 70-odd years, but in reality, without sleep or with less sleep, they'd be living an extra 20 or 30 years. Which is another thing that strikes me as odd; we fight against aging, we fight against disease, we fight against any number of natural processes, but just accept sleep for what it is. Interesting.

Well. I'm going to go get a Mountain Dew, play some loud music, and try to wake up.