Every closed eye is not sleeping and every open eye is not seeing

Thinking is stimulating specially when you are thinking just before going to bed. Perhaps you have had too much caffeine close to bed time? Or perhaps you hadn't had enough sun light exposure during the daytime? Not enough blue light exposure from the sun may cause irregularities in your circadian rhythm, or sleep cycle. Alternatively, you could have been exposed to blue light from electronics at night. This blue light tells you it's your body it's daytime, therefore time to wake up. Many people use their phones, TVs, Computers, and other electronics before they go to sleep.

Don't start to think about too much nonsense or chaos in your life. Thank God and the kind efficient Buddha everyday. At least religions won’t hurt or kill you. Stop pondering about the nonsense and chaos in your life. Remember to thank God, buddha and your loved ones. You must take care of yourself and have fun in life. Religion and family is the most important things in your life. They protected you from harming yourself and other people. I want to be able to take care of myself totally and also my family too and try to be less chaotic in life. I just do my own work and take care of myself and my family and be less weird.

What I do is put myself in the same relaxing imagined place that I have for years. I just let myself exist there. Anything that happens is fine. I just let my brain drift. It's much easier to do if you first have a mental image of the place, and if you practice meditation. So I am not telling myself a story so much as I let the story happen. I rarely even remember how long I was there before falling into NREM sleep, which means it probably wasn't long. I know that if I'm awake for more than an hour, it's time to get up because my brain doesn't want to sleep.

An hour is longer than most people are told to stay in bed, but I just know it sometimes takes me that long to fall asleep. Other times, it's only about 30 minutes. Because your thinking. Your suppose to just close your eyes and that's it if your thinking your not. Ready to sleep. It's a talent not everyone can have, comes with dedication and practice. I will tell you a story about a person with similar talent.

I remember one of my classmates who used to sleep open-eyed in the class. Then we were in the second year of engineering. We used to call him, Sage because it rhymed with his original name. We didn’t know about this weird habit of his. Many of us were new to each other. We had just come to our respective branches. Because in the first year, every branch was mixed up.

There was something peculiar about him since starting but I don't figure it out then. But he was on watch. He was very disciplined, never missed a class, always came on time and sat on the first bench centre right of the class. Wore three forth with sandals. Almost all the time with caps riding a bicycle. All this time we never knew his peculiar condition. Until one day, there was a guest lecture. The class was jam-packed everyone was excited. It was on the future of Telecommunications in the World. On that day also he chose to sleep as I said he was very disciplined. Our guest lecturer was very enthusiastic and was in full momentum. He asked a question to check our maths ability and how it was connected with our other subjects. As usual, there was a long silence.

Even that smart boy of the class who always raised his hands and pissed everyone was not in his regular mood. Our guest became very proud and happy that he asked such a difficult question which has no answer in the class. But he was adamant and wanted an answer. He started glancing through the class to look for his prey. One couldn't miss Sage he was eye-catchy. So he pointed towards Sage and said you look very intelligent you try it I will help.

Sage was just simply looking in the blankness without blinking, just straight as if there is no one standing. Then again he asked, you, I am asking you, on the first bench. He was really in deep sleep that day. No reply. It became very awkward because Sage was looking straight at him and wasn't responding at all. Seeing this his bench mate nudged him but of no use. Even he didn't know of Sage situation. He was also equally in wonder why Sage is staring at the professor. Sensing the seriousness of the situation he shook Sage from his shoulder “what happened!” said Sage in bewilderment woken up by the sudden jolt in his deep sleep. At first, he couldn't understand what has happened but looking at others he knew that he was caught today. Our guest was stunned and we were laughing out loud. The class became a roaring hall. Sage was embarrassed went to wash his face.

Maths question got lost in the laugh. All the seriousness died. Our guest started sharing his own stories of college life and adventures. It became fun all around. That was one of the best classes. After this incident, we identified few things about his face and eyes to know when he is sleeping and when not. Even teachers came to know about it. They also kept checking on him. After few months of this incident, we came to know about his many other weird activities. He was very unique and had a very deep interest in robots. He was our version of Phunsuk Wangdu. Today also he works in a robot developing company. But I think he managed to sleep in the class till we finished college. So yes one can sleep with eyes opened in the class but it's a talent not everyone can master.

In some instances, people who lie quietly with their eyes closed actually fall asleep regardless of their ability to discern whether they have actually fallen asleep or not. I personally remember my Army days when after an extended time without sleep that if conditions allowed we were "ordered to ground" which meant you lied down as you were, used your rucksack or whatever you had handy for a pillow, and literally laid down on the ground and "slept". Even though only about 10-15 minutes actually elapsed, it was amazing how such a "cat-nap" helped to carry on with the tasks at hand.

There was no way that I actually entered any sort of REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, but it still felt good to have such a nap. What really disturbed me, was being awoken abruptly, sometimes by things which made me go from sleep to max output and peaking adrenaline levels. The effects of those events stayed with me for years after my discharge. My Mother had insomnia and her Physician would tell her to lie down and close her eyes, that doing so would help her. In many instances people actually become nervous about not being able to fall asleep and that stimulation of the nervous systems(sympathetic) can actually prevent sleep. However, you can for sure with training. Thousands of people practice meditation with their eyes closed and they do not fall into sleep.

Sleepiness is a state of mind among so many other states of mind. Our mind is conditioned from birth to enter the sleepy state when the eye lids are closed off when there is no other priority. So it’s a matter of short circuit the mind to pick a different state instead of falling into the default - sleepiness. The mental process, much like physical process, can be trained. Physically, when your eye lids are closed off, it’s observable that your eyes behind the lids are actually looking upward, then your mind begins to wander into very cloudy, muddy, foggy “red space” inside your mind, I believe this is the trigger into sleepy state. For me, I have to force my eyes looking downward to avoid the cloudiness and the sleepy state, whose opposite is the awareness state. Cheers!