Hypnos, Thanatos, and Morpheus

Last night I awoke with a song lyric - from the country station that I listened to in the car a few days ago - dominating my mind’s ear, on repeat, like a mantra in in my head:

There’s too many memories.

Now there’s a for sale sign in the window -

Yeah, ‘cause if I’m gonna let her go -

I gotta let it go, yeah its gotta go…

Through my twenties, sleepless nights were a tragedy, a symptom, as sign of all the ways I had been and was unsafe in the world, and I would immerse myself in terrifying visions of unpaid bills, abusive employers, high school humiliations and the void of an unconsolidated future.

Through my thirties, the early years of marriage and carreer builidng I struck a precarious contract with sleep. I practiced all the strict rituals of good sleep hygiene rigidly. More often then not, sleep would descend upon me if I had set the altar perfectly. But if my invocations failed my husband would offer an assist:

He would put his arm over me and improvise an imaginary episode of the soothing Sunday afternoon PBS shows, This Old House, or New Yankee Workshop, playing all the parts, including the power tools, in a thick New Englad accent, until I was out:

'“Whaddaya think Bob? Is it worth the additional cost to put in radiant heat flooring?”

“Great idea Tommy”

“Hey Norm, what are you workin’ on?”

bzzzzzzz bzzzzzzzzzz bzzzzzz

“Hiya Dickie, I’m stripping and sanding those old painted doors we found in the basement! They are gonne be great!”

vrrrrrrrrrrrrrr vrrrrrrrrrrrrr

My forties were the years of parenthood. A full, un-disrupted night’s sleep disappeared entirely for the first five, or six or seven years. When we had outlived the nightfeeds, and the wet crib sheets and the sleep walking and up-all-night childhood illnesses sheer exhaustion was enough to knock me out at the end of the day.

But then “The Troubles” came. The sandwich years, caring for children, clients, elsers and sick family members. I would lay awake with my head screaming with the overwhelm of not being able to do enough for anyone. And when the sick had died, and all of the elders were buried - night became a place for grief and wishes for dreams of the dead.

But before I knew it, and just as I approached and then passed the half-century mark - hot flashes and night sweats, and what turned out not to be mere menopause but my own cancer diagnoses and treatment. I would drift off to sleep, but in an hour or so existential horror would rise from my belly through my chest and then sit me up and open my eyes wide, scared out of my mind, like an engine reving into high gear unable to downshift.

It took time to adjust to my treatment protocols, to figure out my new limitiations, to spend my “spoons” properly before I could even begin to tackle the problem of night sleep. Many hours of journaling and contemplation helped me to deduce that I now associated Hypos, the god of sleep with his brother, Thanatos. My body woke me with an alarm when it became fearful that my soul had wandered too far off in the dark, and that I might leave behind an empty corpse for my husband and children to find in the morning.

This time, I cut a deal with myself. I told my psyche, and Mr. Morhpeus that they were only to bring me dreams that could take place in my home or on our property. Any distand land or imaginal realm had to be transported to the greater New York suburbs. An elephant or a sea dragon or a Martian were welcome on my porch or garden or in my living room - but I would not be flying off to Sri Lanka, to the bottom of the sea, or out into deep space while I slept. I took a post-it note and drew the parameters of our plot, the foot print of our home - and stuck it to my nightstand. I would trace the shape with my finger before closing my eyes. Tonight I will stay right here, with my body. This self-hypnotic suggestion worked remarkably well to defuse the night-terrors - and for the last two years of fatiguing chemotherapy I was allowed to reach deep sleep reliably enough.

Nowadays I don’t worry so much about whether I am asleep or awake in the night. When my eyes are open I stare out the window at the moon or the star filled sky, and consider myself lucky to have been roused to see such a sight. When my eyes grow heavy but sleep stays back I use the time for silent chant or mantra, singing my own lullabies to myself quietly in my head, synchronizing my soul to the rhythms of my breath and heartbeat.

If I haven’t dozed off by the time that process becomes strained and brittle, I might switch my awareness to an imaginal space I have come to think of as The Meeting Place, after a series of dreams that brought me there repeatedly. I seem to have memorized the route because now I can travel there - an empty, silent, blooming European garden-in-the-round, with a squared fountain in the very center. I sit quietly on the ground with my back against the fountain wall, and wait. I listen to the splashing water, watch the blooms and blossoms shifting in the breeze. Sometimes if I sit still and peacefully long enough someone comes to meet me there, and we sit and chat a while. A long dead friend, my mother or my grandmother, or some ancestor. Occasionally a saint or guide or bodhisattva arrives if I am lucky, and offers me some reassurance. “You are doing just fine. You are doing what is asked of you. You are giving all you can. It is going to be okay, no matter what. You are allowed to rest.”

If I am still not asleep after these rendezvous, I’ll put on my sleeping headphones and put on a podcast and listen to some elder or some teacher talk about God or the Bardo realm, eternity and impermanence, their love for their guru or the Christ or for the nature gods who walk upon the earth. I look for people far enough ahead of me on the path, secure that I will not need to challenge or compete or disagree - just listen and receive. I am almost certainly asleep soon after this and I customarily dream that the teacher and I are engaged in a deep conversation, dining or walking or sitting together - and that they are so immersed in teaching me, or the small group of students I imagine I am among, that I cannot break in to answer a question or get a word in edgewise.

And although last night alternated through out the night between sleep and waking I felt no distress or frustrations. Wakeful moments are as restful and meaningful as the time spent unconscious, and I no longer experience a night of less sleep than more to be a problem or a failure, or even unpleasant in anyway.

And strangely, last night, a country song about selling a F-150 pick up truck after a breakup granted me my circular mantra for the night:

…I’m gonna let it go, gotta let her go - There’s too many memories so there’s a for sale sign, in the window, yeah its gotta go, gotta let it go…

And I let go of any image I ever held about how my life was supposed to have unfolded, and accepted all that is - every surprise, every twist and turn - releasing any notion that I am required or capable in anyway of controlling whatever happens next.