An Overthinker’s Guide on How (Not) to Go to Sleep

So you mean to say that you go to bed and just... sleep? 

You don't plot a 13-book epic fantasy series revolving around your life or softly broil in existential dread or replay every single embarrassing mistake you've made until you've cringed a gazillion times before finally closing your eyes not because you want to sleep but because you want to stop reminding yourself of all the awkward moments you've created?

What kind of a human are you?

PART - 1


I didn't have a good sleep yesterday. In fact, I'm not having a good sleep since the past three days. 

There is this really cool Hollywood war film that I watched three days back, and in one of its scenes, the hero goes against the enemy army with only a knife in his hand. And as the enemy soldiers run to him with their swords and shields, the hero ducks and dodges their swords like the absolute badass he is, and in the end of the scene, all his enemies lay dead on the ground. What really made me go crazy was the extremely satisfying SWOOSHHHH and SWISHHHHHH of the hero's knife as it tore through the enemy's skin. 


Since then, every night after I go to bed, I fight an army of a thousand soldiers with a knife in my hand, cutting through their armors as if they were butter.

....all inside my head.


And for added effect and attention to detail, I make sure to whisper "swooshhhhhh" and "swishhhhhh" with my mouth.


Whenever I watch an action sequence that I absolutely love, I build my life around that action sequence when I go to sleep. And this becomes a ticket to my fantasy world for that night. 

The villain, the big bad, the one I usually kill last in every war fantasy is that guy from my class I absolutely hate. I do not like the sight of him, and every time I look at him, I want to punch him in the face.

He is the best friend of a girl I really really like, and unfortunately, they get along very well.

He has never done anything bad to me. We don't even talk that often. But he has this disgusting habit of clicking candid pics with the girl and tagging her in Instagram statuses. Every time I see a picture of them together with hashtags such as ‘#boosforlife’ and ‘#bestiesforever’, I turn red, and thin wavy lines of hot steam begin to rise up from the top of my head.

I deserve the right to be jealous. I deserve the right to do something that can channel my jealousy without hurting anyone’s feelings. I’ve earned it.


Which is why I kill him in my sleep every night.


Does that make me a dick?


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PART - 2


I’ve realised that all the demons inside my head are nocturnal creatures. They remain in hiding for the better part of the day, but for some inexplicable reason, they creep out of my skull at night, stand in a queue in front of me and perform a medley of every awkward moment in my life. 


Hey, remember the time you called your class teacher “Mummy” and then everyone made fun of you the entire day?


Or when you drunk-texted a senior girl in college and her boyfriend read out your texts in public the next day?


Or when you were a singer in your school band and you once went so off-note that they had to cut off the wires to your mic so that you don’t ruin A.R. Rahman for everyone who had the misfortune of attending your performance?


Or when you were so sleep-deprived that the next day you dozed off on your exam paper and started snoring so loudly that the examiner had to come wake you up and you saw that your entire answer sheet was wet with puddles of drool?


Or when you forgot to switch off your mic after the speech competition and everyone in the auditorium including the Principal heard you when you screamed “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! I did it!” backstage ?


Or when it was Rakhi Day in school and you got so excited after getting a rakhi tied by your school crush which meant your crush became your sister and you became her brother which meant you had a crush on your sister and you were okay with it because you had no fucking idea of how messed up all this sounds because you were a stupid stupid kid who did not know HOW WRONG IT IS TO LOOK IN THE EYES OF THE GIRL YOU LOVE AND SAY TO HER - “YOU ARE MY SISTER.” ?


From the corner of my eye, I watch as my sleep slowly goes out of the window of my bedroom.


********


PART - 3


Music is an important part of my life. I am dependent on music for my sanity. I don’t sort my music based on its genre. I sort it based on 
A) how much it makes me want to hum the song, and
B) how much the lyrics make me question my life choices

Music has taken over my life to such an extent that songs have now become a manifestation of the fantasy world that I have in my subconscious. 

In this fantasy world, I’m the lead singer performing in a concert with an electric guitar (I don’t know shit about playing a guitar in real life). And my performance in that concert depends on what sort of a day I’m having. 

Example 1

The other day, I received a message from a stranger on social media, appreciating me for one of my poems that he had randomly stumbled upon. It just said - “Beautifully written!” followed by three heart emojis.

Receiving random messages of appreciation isn’t something that I am used to. Which is why, even a small message like this makes me disproportionately happy to the point of being euphoric.

That night in my sleep, I suddenly became the greatest guitarist the world had ever seen, and I sang so beautifully that Grammys began to rain from the skies and everyone in the audience had a collective ear orgasm. 

Example 2

The very next day, I sent this extremely dark Holocaust joke to a friend of mine thinking she was a fan of dark humour. Turns out, she was so disturbed by it that she didn’t speak to me for three days straight. 

And just like that, the strings of my guitar came off. I cracked my voice in the middle of the song and the entire concert that night was ruined. People threw their trash at me as I walked out of the stage in tears of embarrassment, having just finished my perpetual Walk of Shame.


********


PART - 4


Things are so far gone in the Self Respect Department of my conscience that I am finding new coping mechanisms at night to keep reminding myself that I’m significant, and that I matter. One such coping mechanism is building up entirely fake and seemingly impossible scenarios in my head in which something really horrible is about to happen to someone, and I jump in to save the day.


A child lets go of the grip of his mother and starts running across the street. He is about to get hit by a car and fly into oblivion when I dive and push him out of harm’s way. 
I matter.


Terrorists have held my classroom hostage and are threatening to kill all of us. I somehow overpower one of them to get hold of his gun and then shoot all the bad guys. I save all our lives.
I matter.


Weird? Messed up?

The things we do in our heads just for that little bit of self-worth.


********


EPILOGUE 


It is 3 am and my eyes are heavy, having borne the weight of all the thinking that I’ve done in the past few hours. I seriously need some sleep if I don’t want to miss the 8 am class tomorrow. 

Something creeps out of my skull and takes the shape of a thought bubble above my head -

Remember the day of the viva, when you pressed the ketchup packet so hard that all the ketchup spilled on your newly ironed white shirt, and later during the viva you had to explain to the professor how you got those red stains as if you had murdered someone a while ago?


There goes my sleep for today.