A dearth of dreams

I stopped remembering my dreams years ago. I can’t be sure of exactly when, but I suspect it correlates with when I was working full-time in HR at a hospital, taking a full courseload in grad school, teaching two English Comp. courses at said school, and learning to be the father of a newborn baby boy named Logan. Sleep was at a premium and I just didn’t notice that in addition to the 2-3 hours of sleep I was missing every night, I also started losing my close connection to my sleeping mind.

I’ve only recently felt the loss in a way that troubles me. When I was younger I had vivid, powerful dreams. My journal is full of them. They were the inspiration for many of my stories, philosophical ideas, inventions, and general curiosity. Working on the book for the past six months has made me acutely aware of a void in my imaginative capacity. I suppose I have noticed the issue a few times in the years between, but I’ve really only paid it passing heed. Now, however, I would really like that part of my mind back.

Tonight a thought struck me: I have been sleep-deprived for more than eight years.

I downloaded an app a while back to track my sleep cycle. I’ve compiled six months of data and here’s what it looks like:

Since Logan’s birth I have consistently gotten 6-7 hours of sleep a night. I learned in high school that my body doesn’t function well on less than eight. When I have a full night’s sleep the effects are immediate and pronounced: I’m more aware of my surroundings and myself, my thoughts move more quickly, I process speech significantly better, and I have an overall better sense of well-being.

And I dream. Last weekend I had two nights of proper sleep. On the second night I had such a vivid dream that I could fully recount it for my journal when I got around to recording it several days later. The dream itself was…weird. It involved a man, an oversized urinal, a school, and various other elements that only added to the weirdness. The day of the dream I wrote three pages of my book in about an hour.

Many powerful thinkers (Descartes, Schopenhauer, Taleb) have written about their need to sleep and wake on a natural rhythm to have any chance at functioning creatively. No alarm clocks to pull them out of a REM cycle. In fact, many of Descartes’ epiphanies supposedly sprang from his dreams.

I know that my sleep deficit is affecting my creativity. No doubt about it. Here’s the problem: I don’t function on corporate time. If I followed my natural rhythms I’d be up until midnight and I wouldn’t wake until about 8 a.m. That’s not going to work with my current gig at all. However, now that I’ve explicitly diagnosed the problem, I have the ability to find a solution. And I’ll need to do that if I want to have a serious chance at pursuing my dreams, both the literal and the figurative.

Aristotle would be proud.

This post is for all the former “non-liberal arts” majors in my college English courses who remained stubbornly unconvinced of the relevance of a well-constructed sentence or a coherent paragraph. Tell your children Samson was right. And encourage them to write.

In this exchange between Warren Buffet and Christiane Amanpour, Warren highlights the importance of effective communication. According to Warren, rhetorical savvy can help one make a bit more money on the job…

50% more

A new week, a new blog…?

Thinking I might experiment with posting more often on here. Allow some of the posts to be topical. Short, even. I think doing so may give me permission to write more freely in other contexts. I know I’ve really been enjoying my re-engagement with Twitter. I feel like I’m living life out loud. And anyone who knows me knows I’m definitely loud. Can’t help it. I’m not shy. Not in my nature.

So I’m going to try engaging my nature head-on. This could be…interesting.

Beating defenseless dead horses

I asked one question: “Have we been able to get Sylvia’s access to the ATS fixed?”

42 emails later (with the list of recipients growing each time) the answer is “no.” Why? Because they can’t afford it. Because the ATS is still a POS. Because that’s how they’ve always done it. Becausebecausebecause. I love that word. If we break it down into its constituent parts we have be.cause. So maybe instead of saying because something is a certain way the process is broken, people can be the cause of change and fix the process. I love it: a saying that’s effective AND catchy in that inane self-help kind of way.

So, how DO you create a standardized, scalable process when the resources and the technology won’t support it?

No idea.

But that’s not because I think the issue is irreparable, it’s just because I have no clue where to start. I’m banking on some of my fellow pilot teammates to step up and be the cause.