On the difficulties of falling asleep

All my life I have been plagued by an inability to fall asleep when I should be doing so, coupled with a great ability to fall asleep when I should not be doing so. This has caused me numerous vexations over the years. Why when I was once in a small and stuffy room attending a long and boring meeting I nearly fell asleep while standing, which would have caused me to fall on my manager and disrupt the whole proceedings. Luckily I only leaned forward 10 degrees or so before I corrected my fall, but it was a rather close shave indeed. No matter, if I had really fallen I would just pretend that I had fainted, then everyone would take pity on me and rush me to hospital.

But this deficiency can still be corrected by willpower; the truly frustrating one is the former. When I want to sleep at night, and do feel very tired, often I am just unable to enter a state of blissful sleep. Now after careful recollection, I remember that during college I could always sleep well, largely due to the fact that I never had anything important that I had to wake up for.

The funny thing is that when I don't HAVE to wake up at a fixed time, I can sleep easily due to a complete lack of stress. The trouble arises when I know I have to wake up for something such as work - then it becomes rather difficult to fall asleep as I keep thinking "oh I have to sleep" which produces a rather contradictory effect. This is very annoying.

When I was flying overseas for a business trip, on the way out I had to fly overnight, so I kept trying to sleep so that I would be rested for work in the morning. Needless to say this effort was unproductive and I had a very sleepy day. On the other hand when I fly back through Saturday afternoon I could fall asleep without trying hard, as I did not HAVE to sleep. Such is life.

I once read that dolphins can operate the two hemispheres of their brains independently, so that when one side is sleeping the other can control the body. Oh for such a skill I would be willing to pay dearly, as most of the time I can get along with half a brain anyway. Especially in meetings.