Thanks always to my first inspiration—my lovely wife and tireless, perspicacious editor, Debrah; to Deborah Dill for her encouragement; to Jeff Dorchen for his astute thoughts; to Fran Lebowitz for her steadfast advocacy, and to Tricia Reeks of Meerkat Press, of course, for seeing something worthy in these pages, and for knowing when to pry the manuscript from my sweaty, white-knuckled grasp. Thanks to L.Mai Designs for the beautiful, disturbing cover design.
If this book reads as a cautionary tale, I’m content with that. Empathy requires effort, and it’s among the first faculties to fail in weariness. Sleep deprivation is an invitation to the supremacy of our own stories and points of view, to the tunnel-vision of solipsism, gateway to delusion. The ability to read the room deserts us. We feel misunderstood—the beginning of righteous anger, the prelude and pretext to every form of violence.
Sleep enables us to dream, and dreams enable us to relive unresolved moments in disguised form, and so diffuse their power; little by little, dreams free us from our pasts and allow us to live more fully in the present. Without sleep, denied the outlet of dreams for too many nights, the unconscious finds other ways to surface. The past stalks our waking lives, old wounds bleed anew, urges can become obsessions, worries become terrors, and our worst selves win. Emotional stability is lost, confusion and chaos rule.
Sleep matters.
Good night.