Military sleeping madness
I was stumbling around the Internet when I came across an article on how the military teaches soldiers to go to sleep quickly. I was intrigued because I often have trouble going to sleep. First, they gave some relaxation techniques which I kind of skipped over since I hold several national titles for both instant and extended relaxation, but then it got scary. They gave three choices, the first being imagining yourself in a black velvet hammock in a dark room. Nope, no way---you don't know what may be in that dark room with you and if it is belligerent, hungry or just mean, you are at its mercy because, have you ever tried to get out of a hammock in a hurry? It would be a disaster. And I'm supposed to relax and go to sleep under those conditions?
Next choice was to imagine that you are lying in a canoe under a clear, blue sky. These people must live in a hole in the ground. The first thing to pop into my mind about that scenario is, that if it's a clear blue sky, then there's a 99% chance that I'm going to get sunburned, even on my eyelids. Have you ever had your eyelids sunburned? I have, and you don't know how often you have to blink until it hurts every time you do. (It was the fault of an imaginative and athletic girlfriend and a bottle of Jose Cuervo, if you just have to know.) That was just the beginning of dread circumstances to consider as you're trying to go to sleep. I've never been in a canoe with a dry bottom---maybe a slow leak or drips from the paddle, but if you lie down, you're going to get wet and start to itch from something in the aged fish slime. On top of that, it will only be a couple of minutes before some nosy parker is going to motor up to see if the canoe is abandoned so they can swipe it, and they will be sure to ask stupid questions. Then, there will be jet skis any second now. Are we sleepy yet? Now, if you've ever been in a boat, or canoe, on a lake, without any sort of corrective propulsion, it is a God-given fact that you are going to drift, and unless circumstance are strange enough that you drift in a small circle, you are going to eventually drift to shore (providing there isn't a dam to drift over). The shore of a lake or pond is always well watered and generally fertile, which promotes plant growth of which bushes are to be feared the most. Your canoe is going to drift into bush, scaring a snake, which will fall into your boat and it will likely be a cottonmouth---I don't think I need to continue with how bad this could be. Or---you could drift into a bush that contains a dinner plate sized nest of red wasps which are just as fearsome as many snakes and very painful, not to mention persistent. How long can you hold your breath? Then there are the loathsome, hairy-legged water spiders that have been known to abduct step-on sized dogs and catch small birds in their sticky nets. I'm not the least bit sleepy yet, and I'm wondering if my pistol is still loaded.
The last suggestion, in case the first two didn't work (you think?) was to keep telling yourself, "Don't think. Don't think." This might work for some folks who are so much smarter than I am that they have to give themselves such instructions, but it goes against many decades of contrary teaching for me. Ever since I was a little child I remember Mama saying things like, "Georgie, you've got to THINK before you pick up something that looks that ugly" or, "Use your little brain, Georgie, and THINK before you bite into something that smells that bad." Seventy years later, I still get told things like, "You better THINK REAL HARD before you sign that."
Anyhow, that's what the military is teaching our soldiers.
I'm still wide awake.
