sleepwalker

so today i went in for my follow up appointment to the infamous sleep study i did in december. i'd already heard the cliff notes version from a nurse on the phone, but this was my first opportunity to speak with the doc.

as we reviewed the findings from the sleep study, i learned something frightening about myself. you may recall that in the four naps i was required to take on command i wasn't even certain i fell asleep. in fact, i think i was only confident i drifted off in one of them. however, when the doctor showed me the results of the test, he said that my brain waves indicated i did indeed sleep in all four naps. and not only did i sleep, but i fell asleep very quickly. (this is where i could elaborate on sleep latency, but i'll spare you.)

so, scientific findings aside, this sent a shiver up my spine. if my brain appears to be sleeping while i am absolutely not, that's a problem. perhaps even more of a problem than inconvenient falling asleep episodes.

not to worry, i'm awake now. well, mostly awake, at least. i'm awake more than i'm not, let's say. but i am looking back on all the fuzzy holes in have in my memory and wondering if i was sleepwalking through those periods in my life. if so, perhaps that sheds light on why i barely remember so much of it.

i asked the doctor, 'why?' why am i not more awake during the day? i get plenty of sleep. and my sleep is highly efficient, in fact. he says i have 99% sleep efficiency at night. higher than normal, even. all my metabolic and hormone tests came back perfect. so what gives? his answer to my question was something about not having enough hypocretin being produced in my brain.

and then i asked, 'why not?' and he said they don't know yet. there's a genetic component, they believe, for some people. these people may be born with fewer hypocretin producing cell factories, so to speak. then, they suspect other people lose those factories at some point in their life, perhaps due to a virus. or an act of god. or an alien abduction. in other words, they don't know yet.

this brings to mind the ever popular chicken and egg debate. was i sleeping to forget or forgetting while i was sleeping? and by sleeping i mean sleepwalking, of course. and by sleepwalking, i mean appearing to be awake, but actually not fully present.

i'd like to blame an inherited gene or a rare virus, (after all, i did have guillain-barre as a child and that's pretty rare), instead of settling for the mystery of the unknown cause; but the truth is, i'll probably never know.

d: awake to remember these amazing days.
b: my sleep efficiency is off the chart.
g: no known cause. because the alternative could be worse.