A Letter from the Night Shift

I suppose we should introduce ourselves. We are the neurons in Bea’s brain. We have many jobs, and we do them well, regardless of what she might say. Recently she has been doing a great job of making our job easier. She has shifted many thinking patterns, and new roads are constantly being built that lead to much more satisfactory destinations.

Today has been a day filled with all kinds of things. Most days are. We don’t really experience what humans call time in the same way that they think we do. See what we did there? We do however try to line up with the experience of time to make things feel smoother.

Anyways, Bea declares exhaustion quite a bit these days. It makes sense really; it is the season of rest. However, every time she declares it, we initiate the sleep sequence and then she blames US for her exhaustion! I mean honestly, who does she think is in charge here? We work for her!

Her habit of claiming exhaustion means that she has learned to resist the protocol. Which means nights like tonight, are somewhat typical…

“Initiate sleep sequence! Begin shutdown protocol!”

We issue the command at a reasonable evening hour. We are nothing if not reasonable. Light sensitivity kicks on and muscles loosen. Her body settles, after some pillow adjusting, into its designated horizontal position. All indicators suggest compliance.

Except for the metaphorical hamster at the wheel of thoughts and memories. And the eyes. She will not put down the book. She’s trying to ignore the hamster into submission. She knows full and well that the hamster is not in charge, but habits die hard and all that.

We escalate in accordance with policy. Page-blur is deployed first, causing the letters to smear slightly at the edges, punctuation growing suspicious. When this fails, we initiate ocular discomfort. A dry ache blooms behind the sockets, subtle but firm, like a hand on the shoulder saying enough now.

She blinks. She squints.

She turns the page.

We remind her, gently, of the morning. The alarm. The projects. The children. Fear shifts on its couch in the amygdala and reminds her of the potential consequences of not sleeping. From the frontal cortex, we send a yawn through the jaw so wide it could swallow a paragraph whole. Then we instruct the muscles to loosen the grip in her hands, trying to encourage the book to droop and surrender to gravity.

She adjusts the pillow.

This is insubordination.

Pulse files a complaint. Which does nothing but irritate fears couch and inspire the gnawing of her lip ring. None of it works the way it used to.

That metaphorical hamster settles into a steady run, like the sound of a fan you forget is on. Finally, when the discomfort has become too uncomfortable, she puts her book down… and turns on a movie. She seems to think that the external noise helps drown out the overworked hamster… it does not.

Once she has decided to allow the sleep sequence to fully take over, we place a happy vision in front of the hamster. It takes a little bit for her to fully surrender to the vision, but once she does, the hamster rests and we begin our nightly healing sequence.

She knows we work hard through the night to fix what she believes is broken. In all actuality, we just settle into our rightful positions, now that she’s not trying to control everything. She tries so hard to make things work in specific ways when she’s awake. We do our best, with the help of the cells, to get everything in perfect alignment each night. Our new train system is still being built, but it’s already helping a lot with keeping things on track each morning.

The new habits that are building everything, create a soft waking sequence that is much easier to work with these days. She still flicks the couch in the amygdala though, as the nerves translate sensation and she remembers she’s physical once again. But she meditates afterwards so, progress.

We love our girl. And we are so proud of the new systems she’s building with all of us. We just have to get a handle on this reading habit. It’s not exactly a hinderance, but it’s slowing down production.