Mike Burr - log

Surely Audio Books Harm Sleep

So, I have a (bad?...we'll get to that) habit of listening to audio books all night, every night for years, and years, and years. I like it. As far as it goes, it's entertaining. I retain very little, I'm pretty sure. But many "good ones" I've listened to multiple times. I've probably listened to River of Darkness 5 times-ish.

I don't expect to get much more out of this than just "bedtime stories". It's entertaining and I manage to retain anything interesting.

But the more I think and learn about what sleep/dreams is, the more I think that this could have an impact on the quality of sleep, in whatever way sleep is a good, necessary thing. A good effect? A bad effect? I don't know.

It occured to me earlier that...maybe, the quality, restful dreams I've had in the past coincided with the end of an audio book and hence silence. I'm not sure. I'll make a point to remember depending on how I go forward with audio-book-listening-while-sleeping.

Another wacky theory I have is that, since this audio input all-night-long might interfere with dreaming, I wonder if the extent to which I find myself having stupid hypothetical conversations in my head with others has anything to do with the possibility that this activity (annoying, unhelpful tick) tries to make up for sleep somehow. Like, if you're prevented from ever dreaming, do you start to find yourself doing mental simulations of things (because that's a lot of what's happening in dreams...pretty sure.)

I think I'm gonna try without for a while.