I have… a problem.
Said problem is that if I have to sit still and do nothing while concentrating on someone else talking for any length of time, I get extremely sleepy, regardless of how tired I actually am. My eyelids start to get heavy, my body gets tired and all I want to do is just curl up and get comfortable for a bit of a nap.
This is a problem because the times when I am supposed to sit still, do nothing and concentrate on someone else talking for any length of time are generally occasions where it would be impolite to fall asleep. Weddings and funerals, for example, but also meetings.
I’ve suffered with this issue for as long as I can remember — certainly for as long as I’ve been an adult. I remember it happening on occasion at university during lectures, but more often than not this could be attributed to a heavy night out the previous evening and a hangover weighing on my mind. (My peers found it terribly amusing when I had to quietly slip out of our weekly piano workshop to go and be a bit sick. Well, I didn’t want to throw up all over the Turner Sims concert hall.) At other times, I could fend it off by occupying my brain somewhat: either taking notes if I was actually interested in the subject of the lecture, or doodling the lecturer getting sucked off by some sort of sinister vacuum cleaner-like contraption if I wasn’t. (This happened once; it wasn’t something I found myself drawing on a regular basis.)
It’s mildly embarrassing, but fortunately I’ve never managed to actually completely fall asleep before. I’ve come perilously close, I must admit, but I always manage to maintain my faculties and remain in the land of the living. I came perilously close on more than one teacher training day while I worked in schools, too, particularly since said training days tend to ignore everything we’re ever taught about engaging people and helping them learn and instead tend to consist of someone waffling on and on and on for hours about something which is, quite possibly, a load of old bollocks.
The peculiar thing is the moment I step out of the situation where I’m supposed to be concentrating on someone else droning on about whatever, I can be back to full alertness in a matter of seconds, with no trace of tiredness. It’s just that while I’m sitting there, expected to take in everything that is being said and actually retaining very little of it at all — usually because it’s not relevant to me and thus immediately filtered out by my brain — my body appears to go into its shutdown sequence. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Or am I? That would be awful, and even more difficult to explain than falling asleep in a meeting already would be. But I guess we’ll cross that bridge if — yes, if — we come to it!