This morning I was awoken early at 6am by a distant alarm call, too early for me on my rest day, my relaxation, I needed sleep.
As I held back my desire to complain at such an early awakening, the need for sleep washed over me like a wave, my head swirled with tiredness.
I do not like to lie in bed, usually I like to be up and about, I am not a person who says “five minutes more“, despite the description of my getting up in the morning strategy in my NLP courses. Some people who when it is time to get up like the “five minutes more” time in bed, and should there be any interruption to this extra 5 mins time, they will very forcefully demand quiet.
I lay there for a while though, trying my best to slip back into the deep slumber, even putting my head under the duvet, but I had to get up, as nature called, and the person or persons who needed to be up and about so early, readied themselves noisily. No consideration for others.
Eventually it all went quiet, and my head and body demanded more sleep, so I slipped back into my comfortable bed, beneath a warm cuddly duvet.
It seems as I travel the world delivering my courses in such places as China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Turkey, Italy etc, I never sleep in the same bed for more than ten days.
Each time I move to a new hotel or room, I have to get used to the bed and room.
My bed
Some beds are small singles, others are twins, yet others are gigantic beds, enough to hold a party. Some of the beds are so hard that it is like sleeping on a concrete floor, whereas some are so soft it is like floating in a warm tropical sea, others are of odd shapes, one was even like a banana giving me a very bad nights sleep.
I have to get accustomed to the layout of the rooms. Where are the light switches, so I can see in the dark. Which door is to the bathroom/toilet, I would not like to get it mixed up with a wardrobe in the middle of the night.
As I slipped under the duvet, pulling it up under my chin, that wave of sleep took over, my eyes closed, and as I drifted off, I started to dream, of some exotic harem (pronouned hareem), well I am in Turkey.
Turkish Harem
In this half dream half awake state, I suddenly started to panic.
Where was I?
Was I in a harem?
Which country am I in?
In the semi darkened room, I could not recognise anything, nothing made sense, was I in the UK, where was I?
My brain searched for answers, but found none, and I panicked more. I was lost.
Where was the belly dancer?
In my slowly emerging waking state, I searched for where the door as I lay there, where was the wardrobe?
What room was I in? I recognised nothing.
Slowly, slowly, I started to become aware of my surroundings, and I found myself once again.
By now I was fully awake, and there was no way I would get back to sleep.
It is strange how the brain can only take in a small proportion of information it is presented with (7 + /-2), and with that amount of information, (surface structure), comes up with stories of it’s own, it hallucinates to make sense of it, (deletes, distorts and generalises). click to read articles
This was not a good experience, but I look forward to slipping under the duvet tonight, I might find my belly dancer again.
Belly Dancer in my dreams
Who knows?