The Waking Dead.

I've finally had three nights of decent sleep: only mildly disturbing dreams, only a few instances of waking up with a bout of chest-crushing panic.

Last week, I nearly went mad from sleeplessness. Up until 6:30 am, listening to the birds chirping rhythmically outside, watching news reports of oil spills...anything to try to fall asleep. By the third night, I quite nearly bashed my skull into the wall nearest my bed, as I rocked back and forth with tears streaming down my face. There's a distinct paranoia that manifests itself with severe insomnia: it's not merely the fear that the world is not real, but the horrifying sensation that perhaps you yourself are dissolving from the inside out. You know that only a few hours' sleep will be restorative, that it will re-adhere all the molecules in your body once again, but the possibility of resting seems so painfully out of reach.

I couldn't sleep in my bed anymore. I slept on the couch, huddled under a fleece blanket clutching a worn old teddy bear. The only way to know whether or not I had slept was to decide if what I remembered was possible; had I just gone camping in Arizona? No, then, I had indeed managed to secure an hour's sleep.

After three nights, the veil of fear-laden sleep deprivation is beginning to lift, ever so slowly.