Do you fall asleep reading?

A lot of people take a book to bed, confident a few pages of text will help them nod off. That’s not me. As a reviewer, I take my reading far too seriously. Yet, settling down after dinner for two to three hours immersed in a book, I often wonder how long it will take for the words to blur, or for that jolt into wakefulness that signals the end of a micro-sleep. Why oh why?

My internet search threw up a post hypothesising falling asleep reading is a conditioned response to bedtime stories but it’s a long time since anyone read to me in bed. Shouldn’t I have grown out of it by now? Another suggests our eyes get tired with all the back and forth, but that doesn’t happen to me in the daytime when I’m standing at the screen. It could be that, in my reclining chair, I’m simply too comfortable, but when one reads partly for relaxation, comfort is no bad thing.
 
My eyelids don’t droop every evening, but is that a function of the state of me or of the book? I don’t have to be bored for my mind to disengage, but it could be that the exceptional ones do have the power to keep me awake. I haven’t yet monitored this, but should that be the standard for determining my favourite reads?

On that note, none hit the extra-sweet spot this month, although a few came close. You can check them out by clicking on the image above. I’d love to know about your own experience of sleep and reading. Do share in the comments box below.

You can find my other posts on reading here. If I’ve left you nostalgic for bedtime stories, a scene in my debut novel, Sugar and Snails, about a woman who has kept her past identity secret for thirty years, might be the cure. You can read about it in one of my guest posts Tell me a story about when you were a little girl.

You can find this week’s flash fiction challenge by clicking on the image to the right. If the picture, and my musings on sleepiness aren’t enough of a clue, exhaustion is the 99-word story prompt.

I’ve almost too much to say about exhaustion, and my attempt to narrow down the options has taken me to some of my longer pieces. An exhausted young mother opens my short story collection, Becoming Someone, and a shorter story, “Cracks”, is narrated by someone lying in bed. You can watch and listen to me read the latter – don’t worry I’m up and dressed – below.

As mentioned earlier this month, I’ve been micro-editing my possibly third novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, focusing particularly on repeated words. So I was surprised to find there wasn’t a single exhaustion – although there is now – but six words with exhaust at the root. There are also three versions of fatigue, four of tired and one knackered. My flash is a radical condensation of a scene involving Matty. I’m not sure if it works but it was fun to try.

Sleepless in a dormitory

What an eventful day! Matty could sleep standing up.

Yet she lies on her back. Then on her side. Her thoughts racing, jumping, spinning: packing one away, another springs up.

When the guests retire, she must contend not only with her own mental disarray but the groans that are the external manifestation of theirs. Could she smother them one by one with a pillow? Simpler to step outside.

Shivering in the cobbled courtyard, she cinches her dressing gown. Finally soothed by the diamond-studded sky, she makes to go indoors. But, when she tries the handle, the door won’t budge.