Sleep Optional
Written June 23, 2004

It was the end of my first year at Wilfrid Laurier, way back in the golden days of ’02. As an unconscious body lay sprawled haphazardly across a tiny standard-issue residence bed, my mind was busily frolicking across sunny green fields. Stress had vanished and even though I was suddenly surrounded by garishly tinted sheep and giant cotton candy flowers, I wasn’t too worried. Much like life, dreams are weird and sometimes you just have to go with it. I grabbed a sticky handful of cotton candy and started eating. Hey, it was free food.

My carefree demeanor was suddenly shattered, mid-mouthful, when a lime green sheep looked at me dolefully and said “Holy fuck dude, you’re gonna be late for your exam!” “Shut up, you stupid sheep!” I shouted angrily through the mass of pink sugar. “Why are you always reminding me about school? And what’s with the unnecessary profanity?” Suddenly the world shifted and blurred. I was chewing ravenously on my sugar-free pillowcase and the offending sheep had somehow morphed into my friend from down the hall. Feeling groggy and annoyed by the surprise discovery that my supposed buddy was, in fact, a demonic green were-sheep, I glanced at the clock. Sweet Jesus! I had somehow fallen asleep in the middle of the afternoon and was minutes away from missing my CS 100 final. Snatching a fistful of pencils and (accidentally) breadsticks, I ran for the Athletic Complex.

While this experience may seem like it should be Coming Soon to a Theatre Near You in the form of another nostalgically lame comedy about campus life, my story contains a surprising amount of truth. Before coming to university I thought that sleep was just a mandatory period of unconsciousness designed to divide days. Within days of arrival at WLU, I realized that sleep is a commodity, just like money or Sex Points.

You see, university is deviously designed to turn routine on its head. Just as you achieve freedom from the monotony of living at home, you’re assaulted by potential responsibilities like so many ninja stars: lectures, tutorials, volunteer positions, activist groups, weekly drinking benders…the list goes on and on. If you think that you can party, boost your resume and maintain that shiny A average all at once, you’re in for a horrible surprise unless you happen to be a super-genius. And I somehow doubt that you are, if you’re coming to Laurier.

So you learn to make concessions. Maybe you’ll choose to skip morning lectures. Maybe you’ll hibernate in your room for weeks with course readings as your only friend. But, in my experience, the first thing to go is generally sleep. Say goodbye to that healthy eight hours per night, and get ready to live a sickly life of sleep deprivation.

You’ll be woken up by idiots screaming outside your window at three am . You’ll be woken up by your roommate hitting the snooze button on their alarm clock twenty times. Midterm crunch time will roll around and, inexplicably, the world around you will actively try to lull you into forbidden slumber despite the fact that you have 15 chapters left to read before morning. Sleep will be your greatest prize and the ultimate curse.

Napping between classes quickly becomes second nature and the experience of finishing an essay while birds chirp and the morning sun pours over the horizon has an almost ethereal quality to it. Creative solutions are possible but occasionally deadly: during exams, a friend of mine hopped himself up on Ritalin in an attempt to fight sleep and ended up pacing the hallways as a zombie for 36 straight hours.

In all honesty, if you come at the university experience from a conservative, “safe” angle, then you probably won’t ever have to worry. But for those who tempt the Gods and throw themselves into life with reckless abandon, consider this your advance warning. Learn to not sleep.

Writing for the Frosh issue (the paper that goes out with acceptance packages to incoming first years) is always a challenge. It's tough to avoid condescending and catering to them, trying to give them advice about the upcoming experience. I don't know if I avoided that condescension entirely but at least I took a new slant on the advice I gave.

The subject matter is entirely valid and true though. There's something about post-secondary education that makes watching the sun rise before you go to bed an entirely acceptable and appealing practice. Maybe I'm just a night owl, but time management is one of the most valuable things you learn at university and fitting sleep into that schedule of learning, drinking and socializing can be a daunting task. Figuring it out was half the fun though - hopefully I didn't ruin the experience for the readers.