TAWOMG - Sleepless in Seattle and Elsewhere

Dear Friends,

Once in a post back in 2008 I wrote that quite often I'm not able to sleep. I cannot say that I have ever been sleepless in Seattle, for the good reason that I never went there. But my sleep troubles date from my young years and I seldom can sleep seven hours non-stop. This maybe happens three or four times in a year. Eight or more hours sounds like unthinkable. The problem is most acute when I'm travelling.

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In December Mônica and I had dinner in Lisbon with Márcia, Laerte and a friend of theirs. Márcia is an old school friend. We hadn't met for a very long time. During dinner I asked her about her mother. She told us that Dona Zezé had been through some difficult times. Some doctors suspected that she had symptoms of senility. One doctor, however, considered the possibility that she might be suffering from some sort of sleep disturbance that might be causing the other problems. After a number of tests they found out that she had severe breathing problems during her sleep, awoke many times during the night, and that was the root problem of her ailments. Once treated, she was doing a lot better.

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Why am I telling all this? Hopefully none of you will think that my sleeping troubles may be the cause of (apparent) senility. I just wanted to say that almost every night I wake up once or twice. Sometimes I stand up, others I just check what time it is. Almost always I can fall back to sleep until wakeup time. Sometimes I can't. It might be that I also have breathing problems, but have never checked. I just got used to it.

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Last Wednesday I woke up at 02:00 in the morning in my hotel room in Oporto. For my big surprise, there was a woman beside me on the bed. She was not there when I went to bed! My first thought was: "I must be dreaming, this can't be true!" But it was. I was awakened and there she was, the unknown woman on my bed.

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This is something that might be quite tricky to explain to your wife, girlfriend or relevant others (it is amazing what PC is doing to the English language... never mind, this topic we'll leave for another day). "It's not what you think it is!" has become cliché in such situations. I prefer "This is not me!" It sounds more honest, somehow. Whatever. In this case the fact is that the woman on my bed was not what you may be thinking it was...

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Actually the woman disappeared the same way she came in. A few seconds later she was no longer there. And I could go back to Morpheus' arms as if nothing had happened.

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Though that was quite amazing!

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Wish you a nice week!

Maurício

PS - In case you want the hotel address, don't hesitate to ask.