50 Steps to Falling Asleep In the Middle of the Night | Teen Ink

50 Steps to Falling Asleep In the Middle of the Night

November 30, 2012
By EPluribusUnum DIAMOND, Woodbine, Maryland
EPluribusUnum DIAMOND, Woodbine, Maryland
59 articles 24 photos 280 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)."
-Sylvia Plath


1. Turn off the lights and snuggle under the covers.
2. Roll around in the blankets until you are sufficiently hot.
3. Even though you've sweated through your t-shirt, try to tough it out because you know if you get up you'll never get back to sleep again.
4. Get up and turn the fan on.
5. Lay back down.
6. Stay on top of the covers this time until you start to shiver uncontrollably.
7. You're to tired to move, so wait another twenty or so minutes to get back under the covers.
8. Finally crawl back into the tunnel of sweat and filth that is your comforter. You should really wash that sometime.
9. Realize you can't fall asleep. Well, you knew you shouldn't have gotten up.
10. Try to lay still for a while.
11. After a few grueling minutes of chronic boredom, put your music on.
12. Start with soothing nature sounds.
13. Then move one to something a bit more chaotic, like waltzes, and congratulate yourself on being such a boss.
14. When you continue to fester in your waking state, stare at the clock and try to summon the force. Maybe you can make time move faster with your yet to be unleashed Jedi powers.
15. Finally come to your senses and realize that trying to move time is a huge waste of your epic Jedi skills. Jedi can't time travel!
16. Plot the construction of a time machine.
17. Turn up some folk music. Let's get this party started!
18. After you've properly wasted your energy stores jamming along to freak folk in the middle of the night, it's time for lights out. Again. Too bad you're too pumped up from the music to sleep
19. Hey, maybe some twangy country music can fix this!
20. After the first song or two realize that you hate country music.
21. Put on some blue grass instead.
22. Roll over and groan loudly into your pillow to relieve stress.
23. Wake up your dog and tell her all your problems until she falls asleep in the middle of your bed.
24. Try to get comfortable, despite the fact that THERE'S A DOG SMACK IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR BED!!!
25. Get growled at for attempting to push the dog out of the way. She doesn't budge.
26. Get growled again at for rolling over on the dogs tail. She still won't move.
27. Get bitten. By the dog. In your bed.
28. Give up and try to sleep on the floor, the dumb dog was hogging all the covers anyway.
29. Get bitten. By a spider. On the floor. Because a dog stole your bed.
30. Finally, because there is no other alternative, sic your cat on the dog. Now she moves.
31. Learn the hard way the cats are not much better for sharing beds than dogs, but at least they don't take up as much space.
32. Get bitten. By the cat. In your restolen bed. Because dogs suck. And also, spiders scare you.
33. Fret about the fact that you're going to need at least three kinds of shots and a therapist to get over the horrendous night you're having.
34. Put your music back on. Just listen to songs at random, you don't even care what you're listening to anymore.
35. Wait. Nope. You care.
36. Try rap. Maybe the most unsoothing thing you can thing of will have the opposite effect of all your soothing music, and actually put you to sleep.
37. Wind up turning it off when you start to have an anxiety attack. Rap's not exactly your thing.
38. Go back to nature sounds instead.
39. Bang your head against a wall.
40. Get yelled at by the neighbors for banging your head against said wall.
41. Pull out your notebook and jot down some midnight poetry.
42. After a while, look over what you've written and throw it at a wall.
43. Stare blankly at the crumpled paper on the floor
44. Walk over and pick up the sorry proof that you will never make it as an artist.
45. Go ahead and take the time to decipher your handwriting so you can type up the pathetic scrap of rhyme you have created.
46. Admit that it sucks worse on screen than on paper, but email it to your boyfriend anyway because you know he will support you.
47. Wake the cat with your commotion, and end up reclaiming your bed.
48. Blast your eardrums with alternative rock, because you've pretty much run out of music.
49. Eventually find yourself smiling, and think about how this must be a dream.
50. Look outside and notice a family of unicorns eating your lawn. The music seems to have faded into the night.


The author's comments:
This is based almost completely off a rotten night I had this past summer. It was hot as heck, and I couldn't sleep. Very, very little of this is actually made up. I don't own a cat.

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This article has 9 comments.


on Apr. 10 2013 at 1:03 pm
SaphiraBrightscales DIAMOND, Islamabad, Other
75 articles 16 photos 1136 comments

Favorite Quote:
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou
When i was little/I used to point a chubby finger toward the dark sky/And ask my father/why some stars moved and others didn’t/He would laugh and explain that some were airplanes/I still wish on them today ~ Laugh-It-Out
The feathers of a crow are black/The ink of my pen is blacker/The pain of my heart is blackest~ Mckay
If love produced a blossom/I’d take it in my palm/What a blessing, the bright color!/How soothing, such a balm!/I’d keep a petal for my own/The rest, drop from my hands/For such a flower would multiply/And populate the lands~ thesilentraven
And I began to rival legends/Long entombed before my birth./But for all my much envied fame/The lust for more would not abate./The plaques and prizes with my name/Will, like all things, disintegrate. ~ TheEpic95 now known as Helena_Noel

If you like it that much just ask him to teach you more... :D 

on Apr. 8 2013 at 10:17 pm
EPluribusUnum DIAMOND, Woodbine, Maryland
59 articles 24 photos 280 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)."
-Sylvia Plath

It's strange, for sure. I love latin <3 My dad used to teach it to me when I was younger. It's a beautiful mother language to much of what is spoken today, though I remember very little of it.

on Apr. 8 2013 at 1:33 pm
SaphiraBrightscales DIAMOND, Islamabad, Other
75 articles 16 photos 1136 comments

Favorite Quote:
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou
When i was little/I used to point a chubby finger toward the dark sky/And ask my father/why some stars moved and others didn’t/He would laugh and explain that some were airplanes/I still wish on them today ~ Laugh-It-Out
The feathers of a crow are black/The ink of my pen is blacker/The pain of my heart is blackest~ Mckay
If love produced a blossom/I’d take it in my palm/What a blessing, the bright color!/How soothing, such a balm!/I’d keep a petal for my own/The rest, drop from my hands/For such a flower would multiply/And populate the lands~ thesilentraven
And I began to rival legends/Long entombed before my birth./But for all my much envied fame/The lust for more would not abate./The plaques and prizes with my name/Will, like all things, disintegrate. ~ TheEpic95 now known as Helena_Noel

Lovely Meaning.. That'll definitely stick haha my friends might see me writing the words (weird to them) on random places in my notebooks.. as that's what happens with me..I learned this new thing and it's just never getting out hahaha...Oh but surely the pronunciation IS difficult.... And You're welcome! 

on Apr. 7 2013 at 11:41 am
EPluribusUnum DIAMOND, Woodbine, Maryland
59 articles 24 photos 280 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)."
-Sylvia Plath

It's latin for "One out of many" :D E like the letter e, Pluribus is plur ee boose Unum like oon oom And oh my goodnes! Thank you :D I'm so glad you like my work! :)

on Apr. 6 2013 at 12:17 pm
SaphiraBrightscales DIAMOND, Islamabad, Other
75 articles 16 photos 1136 comments

Favorite Quote:
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou
When i was little/I used to point a chubby finger toward the dark sky/And ask my father/why some stars moved and others didn’t/He would laugh and explain that some were airplanes/I still wish on them today ~ Laugh-It-Out
The feathers of a crow are black/The ink of my pen is blacker/The pain of my heart is blackest~ Mckay
If love produced a blossom/I’d take it in my palm/What a blessing, the bright color!/How soothing, such a balm!/I’d keep a petal for my own/The rest, drop from my hands/For such a flower would multiply/And populate the lands~ thesilentraven
And I began to rival legends/Long entombed before my birth./But for all my much envied fame/The lust for more would not abate./The plaques and prizes with my name/Will, like all things, disintegrate. ~ TheEpic95 now known as Helena_Noel

Yes, obviously this one tells! I'd like to read more stuff by you so there goes the button "Email me when EPluribusUnum contributes work".... Hey by the way I still CANNOT pronounce your inexplicable username :P

on Apr. 5 2013 at 9:02 pm
EPluribusUnum DIAMOND, Woodbine, Maryland
59 articles 24 photos 280 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)."
-Sylvia Plath

I usually just drift off but when I'm up I'M UP. Ah well, it makes for fun inspiration and interesting writings. XD

on Apr. 5 2013 at 1:35 pm
SaphiraBrightscales DIAMOND, Islamabad, Other
75 articles 16 photos 1136 comments

Favorite Quote:
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
- Maya Angelou
When i was little/I used to point a chubby finger toward the dark sky/And ask my father/why some stars moved and others didn’t/He would laugh and explain that some were airplanes/I still wish on them today ~ Laugh-It-Out
The feathers of a crow are black/The ink of my pen is blacker/The pain of my heart is blackest~ Mckay
If love produced a blossom/I’d take it in my palm/What a blessing, the bright color!/How soothing, such a balm!/I’d keep a petal for my own/The rest, drop from my hands/For such a flower would multiply/And populate the lands~ thesilentraven
And I began to rival legends/Long entombed before my birth./But for all my much envied fame/The lust for more would not abate./The plaques and prizes with my name/Will, like all things, disintegrate. ~ TheEpic95 now known as Helena_Noel

Ahahahahahaha!! WOW such effort put into sleeping. I too can be a total insomniac sometimes but all I do is squirm around under the quilt all night,, hoping the new position may put me to sleepp....Hahaha this was really fun! 

on Jan. 9 2013 at 7:30 pm
EPluribusUnum DIAMOND, Woodbine, Maryland
59 articles 24 photos 280 comments

Favorite Quote:
"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head)."
-Sylvia Plath

XD Thanks.

on Jan. 9 2013 at 5:00 am
thatunknownthing DIAMOND, Dubai, Other
67 articles 0 photos 208 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift; that's why they call it the present"

looks like that some who wrote this was having trouble sleeping. You've written like you graduated in this study! :P good job.