My scary room

I have a sleep disorder. What sleep disorder? Good question. Suffice it to say that whatever it is, it's a bitch and I wish I could hug it with bullets. It's probably some variety of insomnia exacerbated by my anxiety disorder. The short story is I can be tired, physically and mentally, put my head on my pillow, relax, try to sleep, and just kind of sit there waiting for hours. I assure you, the combination of being tired, irritable from being awake still, and the frustration of not getting to sleep all pile up till I'm a grouch monster. When I do eventually get to sleep, I then normally wake up long before my alarm and get unfit, doze for five mintues then wake back up "sleep" for an hour or more, and finally give up, wake up, and am a miserable wreck for the day.

As such, I have done many crazy things to "clean" my sleeping environment. I only use my bed for sleep. I avoid my bedroom for anything other than sleep, getting dressed, and the like. I make sure my bed is comfy as well as the temperature in my house. I try to make sure my room smells nice via candles. I have a white noise machine that soothes my brain in theory. My bedroom is a soundproofed and quiet as I can make it.

However, none of this is scary. One of the issues with where I live is that some of my neighbors think that their outside lighting should be as close to one million candle power as possible, so my house is very bright even at night. Light, as you might guess, is the opposite of helpful for someone with a sleep disorder. My shades, while reasonably light canceling, were insufficient, so I went on a mission to get room darkening shades.

Trials and tribulations followed but ultimately I set up my stupid shades and made my room very dark. Mission accomplished.

By very dark I mean VERY dark. So dark that if you've had lights on in the house, that's including just a TV or computer screen, when you walk into the room you are totally blind. It's also so dark that when, in the middle of the night I've been watching, say, a zombie movie or playing, say, Resident Evil 4, I walk up the stairs and past my room, glancing into my room is like staring into a black hole of evil. I'm really not afraid of the dark, but staring into the gaping maw that is the doorway to my room in which I cannot see a single thing is just enough creepy to make me shudder from time to time.

If, someday, I disappear, blame a Grue.