Mr. Deprado,

I don’t think you ever told us that we might have to spend much of our adult lives waking up this early. Sometimes before dawn—in the name of whatever—we get up and move ourselves to the refrigerator—where—if we are lucky we have enough milk for cereal, or enough bread—maybe just the heels—for alleged toast.

But there have been times when the hour I went to sleep and the hour I went to bed did not configure to the appropriate—NASA, FDA, NBA, CIA, NCSA, APA, MLA, or even FBI recommended amount of sleep—not even the four hours required by Bruce Lee—sometimes (especially in College) there wasn’t time to sleep—only time to do other things like prove:

That 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes is totally easy;

That it IS possible to do everything in one single day;

That all you need to eat for dinner is nachos or rolled tacos or top ramen or hot dogs, and that when you actually start to really cook your own meals, macaroni and cheese is gourmet, and fish sticks do make great fish tacos

Road trips happen at anytime anywhere for any reason;

Slurpies, especially coke slurpies, are the ultimate treat and they contain enough sugar to keep you awake for most of the semester;

That women are impressed when you drive them to the edge of the water, and stare quietly out.

(I remember Kim most of all, I wasn’t even trying to convince her of anything—I knew she was just a quiet, lovely girl—from a quiet lovely town, and we had become friends sitting in my Geology class, joking about the TA who wasn’t any older than we were, and how cute she thought he was. She would ramble about how she was from Texas, and that she had never really seen the Ocean, and if it was okay with me, could we drive there sometime and just see it? There is nothing that could have stopped this 19 year-old from passing up such an open invitation—and so we drove down to the water, and we didn’t even reach the Ocean—just hit Mission Bay, and already she screamed in ecstasy at the openness of it all—"Wait, pull over!" She looked out at the water, her eyes were swimming in her own dreams, she was constructing her very reality at that moment, and within ten minutes, this quiet Texas girl was begging me to drive her to Mexico where we would build a thatched roof shack, live naked, and fish for our food. She wanted a simple life away from whatever troubles she had grown up with and whatever difficulties lay ahead; she said she never felt so free. I sat there motionless, staring at the quiet movement of the water back and forth along the rocky beach—thinking and then finally saying—"Sounds good, but I got a Nintendo tournament at my dorm tomorrow—can’t miss that." I never really saw Kim after thată)

But eventually you discover something about not sleeping—it’s a secret so powerful, so wonderful, it’s like a bouquet of flowers from a secret admirer, or finding a granola bar in your backpack when you are really hungry but out of cash—or finding out that the heavy present under the tree is actually yours. It’s the kind of an epiphany you have—and suddenly some of the mysteries of the universe unfold before your eyes and you wonder why you never knew this before—or—maybe you did know, but you just wouldn’t allow yourself to believe in it.

I’m talking about NAPS—there is nothing like a good nap—someone dear to me says that you need at least an hour and a half to drop into REM and rev-up the snoring engine—probably less for some of us—but some of the greatest 15 minute blocks of my life have been naps, curled up on a papasan chair, or while listening to an afternoon talk show. Some of my best naps came after an 8 a.m. class—and then my next class wasn’t until 2 p.m. so I had all that alleged time to study—Instead I just renamed my bedroomăLibrary.

When we become adults (supposing adults means anything after college, or at least when we break forth from any institution that structures our time for us-) there just isn’t any time to sleep because we have so much to do—pay bills, play in our softball leagues, go to happy hours, date, call our friends, our family, work—work—work—work, write, eat, play video games, work out, surf, mountain climb, backpack, surf the internet, watch movies, watch 229 channels—because it’s important to watch Iron Chef, and Trading Spaces, and do some home-shopping. In addition, there is all that self-discovery we have to do because we have to become part of the "New Age", learn yoga and meditation or art or do things that we have never done to release our regrets—we have to meet The Buddha, walk into temples, and churches, we have to ask questions and write in our journal about the meaning of the universe, or the meaninglessness of it all, and drink a lot of overpriced coffee in chic cafes while on our search—we are going to be busy unleashing our inner children or our inner somethings—but all of this, I think, would be reconciled if we just let our inner child sleep once in a while.

So now, at 31—it’s changed again and I am starting to re-realize the importance of sleeping and the joy of just Rest. Just to come home—kick up my dogs and rest. I never thought that the idea of just sitting would be so overwhelmingly appealing. It’s so different from the times when my parents would sit on the porch, or by the pool, or in the living room, and I would run around madly, banging my head against the wall, playing every game my mind could muster just so I wouldn’t have to sit still. Sometimes I wish that life worked like the old-school Atari game systems with that little reset button that you can press down and everything just starts over.

I know now that simple sleep is like an absolute gift from the highest place—uninterrupted sleep—a quiet room—sleeping on the beach in the sun, coming home after playing hoops at the "rec" on Saturday, sitting down on the couch for just a second, and then waking up an hour later—it’s like a whole new day. So I guess I would like to know the truth about how much actual sleep we need, and does this have any impact on my level of maturity—in other words—is napping for babies?

There are, of course, problems with sleeping, like when you can’t control it and you fall asleep in "inappropriate" places, like in class—or when you are driving. Has this ever happened to you? I have developed some keen rituals for when my sleep pervades my driving. I do everything I can to stay awake, including biting my lip, punching my knee, singing at the top of my lungs, telling myself storiesăsometimes I just pull over and give in. In fact, according to the American Medical Association, opening the car window or turning the radio up may arouse a drowsy driver briefly, but this won't keep that person alert behind the wheel. Even mild drowsiness is enough to reduce concentration and reaction time. The sleep-deprived driver may nod off for a couple of seconds, and that is all it takes. Lack of sleep is a serious problem Mr. D. Did you know that—

23% of adults have actually fallen asleep at the wheel in the past year.

Approximately 40 million Americans suffer from sleep disorders, including sleep apnea, insomnia, narcolepsy, and restless legs syndrome. An untreated sleep disorder can reduce your daytime productivity, increase your risk of accidents, and put you at risk for illness and even early death.

But 67% of adults report a sleep symptom; while 7% report that a physician told them they had a sleep disorder.

32% of Americans sleep 6 hours a night or less across the workweek.

So what we do in our everyday lives, moving as quickly as we do, blundering like rhinos out of control, consuming everything—like army ants picking the world clean— walking side to side and back and forth over every obstacle natural and manmade—our migration of business moves us in an endless wave of exhaustion and we don’t even have enough time to lie down and think about the day—because every single moment is a precious gem we hold cupped in our hands so that we don’t lose it.

So now, when a student or a friend tells me that they were late because they overslept, I recognize this in a similar way that I might recognize a gold strike, or a lottery win, or a first kiss—it is a gift.

But, I still want to know how many hours are the right number of hours for us to dedicate to our sleep, and Mr. Deprado, you wouldn’t have dared to discuss sleep with us in eighth grade, because all we cared about were how many zippers were on our parachute pants, and, did you know all the lyrics to "Hungry Like the Wolf?", and where we hung out at lunchtime—in fact, some of us were still under the blissful, wonderful, parental stroke of genius, the then ominous—bedtime—so we didn’t have a choice anyway.

So for the record, here is what the AMA saysă

There is no 'normal' amount of sleep. The average amount of sleep for adults is 7 - 8 hours.

But the range of nighttime sleep duration must be expanded to between 6 - 9 hours in order to include the large majority of people.

The amount of sleep that 'you' need is that optimum amount which allows you to function throughout the day without feeling drowsy when you sit quietly.

So I think my goal will be to start experimenting, revel in naps, make sleep dates for myself, protect my quiet time—because we are all cranky, and I am too, and it’s probably because we never listened to those "adults" who knew so well how we needed to rest.

Not to mention that when you sleep—you dream.

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