<![CDATA[The Realm Unwaking]]>How do people fall asleep? I’ve often wondered. Me, I have endless trouble dropping off. Roll over, twist, toss, turn – my brain won’t shut down. There, the scalp is itchy. Here, I start thinking about things to write, like a blog entry on my inability to enter Nod in under forty minutes. My pillow gets smooshed up under the bedstead, a Squornshellous thrill-seeker. Then I hear cats on the roof, or my music stops. My water’s run out. On and on ad infinitum, until – at no signal I can readily discern – my senses give up their gambit and lapse into stasis.

Sometimes, I abort the transition by noticing it. My mind goes wonky; idle thoughts spin warily into dream. Suddenly, ‘Wow!’ my brain shouts, ‘That was awesome!’ – and the moment winks out. It’s like having an over-frenzied naturalist in a hide: so many hours of silent patience nearly rewarded by a tippet of fox-fur, a badger-stripe, when he yells his delight and sends the wildlife scurrying. But, as with the spoil-sport, it’s not something I do on purpose. More a subliminal awkwardness, some goofy mind-function with gangly legs, acne and a name like Cyril Brassweight.

But I manage.

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