Sally Breslin: My Life: INSOMNIACS, REPEAT AFTER ME..."I'M ASLEEP...I'M ASLEEP."

I’ve had a lot on my mind lately, so for the first time in ages I've been having trouble falling asleep. Usually I'm in dreamland five minutes after my head hits the pillow, but the past week or so has been torture. An hour goes by and I’m still wide awake. Two hours later, the same.

Because I can’t fall asleep, things that never bothered me before are bothering me now. For one, there’s my clock on the nightstand. It ticks. So as I’m lying there, all I hear is, “tick…tick...tick.” And it seems to get louder with every tick. I like the clock and don’t want to get rid of it because it has a really loud alarm, like a school bell (which I need) and great big numbers on the face (which I also need).

So I tried earplugs. They successfully tuned out the ticking, but because they also blocked every other exterior sound, they seemed to amplify the interior ones – mainly the ones inside my body.

There was my heartbeat, which suddenly sounded like a bass drum: “tha-thump, tha-thump, thumpa-thumpa” (I probably should see a doctor about that last one) and drove me crazy. Then there was my stomach, “grrrrowwwl, grrrrowwwl,” in stereo. I finally couldn’t stand the torture any longer and took out the earplugs, figuring the clock’s ticking was the least annoying of the bunch.

Because the cell-phone reception in my area is so bad I practically have to shimmy up a tree and swing by my feet from a branch to get a signal, I still have an old-fashioned landline and an answering machine, also on my nightstand. Even though I always shut off the ringer and turn off the volume when I go to bed, the machine still makes a single “beep” sound whenever someone leaves a message.

Three mornings in a row last week at exactly the same time, the answering machine beeped. And every time, the message was nothing but a dial tone. The machine identified the daily caller as a satellite-TV company. Lack of sleep caused me to become irritated, mainly because that dumb beep was jolting me wide awake bright and early every morning, after I'd tossed and turned all night.

So on the fourth day, I was ready and waiting for the annoying satellite-TV call.

“Hello?” I practically growled into the receiver when the phone rang.

“Hi there! How are you this morning?” the cheerful male voice responded. “I have a gift for you! Free HBO for a month! How does that sound?”

Let’s just say my response pretty much guaranteed he won't ever be making my machine beep again while I’m trying to sleep.

It wasn't until nearly sunrise the other morning when I finally managed to nod off. Up until that point, I’d pounded my pillow into submission, added a blanket to the bed because I was cold, then removed it because I was too hot; and adjusted my pajamas a dozen times because they either were bunching up, sliding down, twisting or trying to cut off my circulation. I also got up twice to go to the bathroom. After that, I finally fell asleep, probably due to sheer exhaustion.

“Aroooh! Aroooh!” came from outside my bedroom door. It was one of my dogs.

“Go to sleep!” I muttered and pulled the blankets over my head.

“Aroooh! Aroooh!” she continued.

I ignored her. I wasn’t about to get out of bed and risk becoming so wide awake, I'd have to struggle for another two hours to fall back to sleep again.

When I finally crawled out of bed four hours later, I discovered a surprise my dog had left on the rug for me, as if to say, “That’ll teach you to ignore me when I cry to go outside, you old hag! Take that!”

Last night, as I once again was lying in bed and dealing with insomnia, I decided to try the age-old remedy of counting sheep jumping one by one over a fence. By the time I counted sheep number 53, I was picturing it surrounded by tomato chunks, onions and green peppers, all grilling on a shish-kebab skewer.

“Grrrrowwwl,” said my stomach.

As luck would have it, there was a doctor on TV this morning who was talking about insomnia. He said if you lie in bed, close your eyes and silently keep imagining the words "I'm asleep" over and over again, it will trick your brain into believing you actually are, so it then will command your pineal gland to release extra melatonin to make sure you stay asleep. He said it usually works like a sleeping pill within five minutes.

So tonight I'm going to try it.

And if I do succeed in tricking my brain into believing I'm asleep and it helps me to doze right off, then tomorrow night, I'm going to replace the "I'm asleep" phrase with "I'm slim and 25."

I'll let you know if it works.

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Sally Breslin is a native New Englander and an award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net

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