Defective.

Okay, I should have written this last week, but I got the results back from my sleep study, although I can’t say that I got any news that I didn’t expect. My normal sleep wasn’t really remarkable – strangely, I slept better there than I do at home most of the time. I figure that the lack of distractions – a sort of forced sensory deprivation without tv, dogs, my wife tossing and turning, the cat, etc. – helped with that. The fun started with the daytime ‘nap’ series.

Basically, every couple of hours, they would turn out the lights and tell me to try to sleep. And sleep I did. In the 5 naps, I fell asleep in all 5. What’s more interesting is that I was asleep in less than 2 minutes and in REM sleep in less than 4 minutes in 4 of the 5 naps. Verdict = narcolepsy.

Luckily, I have a mild form that won’t require any treatment beyond what I already do for ADD, and I won’t be risking my driver’s license or the rights to operate heavy machinery. And it’s nice to know that there is a definition for why I have trouble holding my head up while listening to some people. Oh wait, that’s unrelated – I meant, hard to stay awake during boring meetings and periods of low activity. Hell, I rocked myself to sleep in our rocking chair one time.

Oh well, just one more mental aberation to deal with … now, if I could just get the dog to stop barking at every little sound so that I could sleep through the night…