Trying to fall asleep with Insomnia feels like missing an exit on a highway and not having a way off for 100 miles.

很想睡觉却失眠的感觉就像开高速错过出口匝道一样，而且百英里内看不到下一个出口。

——And knowing that I'll be out of gas the next day because of it.

——而且还明知道明天就会因为失眠而“没油”。

嗨，还没睡吧。

来，学几个单词。

insomnia

sleeplessness

sleep disorder

sleep deprivation

都是“睡不着”的意思。

如果你睡不着，背单词也许可以缓解焦虑。

睡眠缺乏几乎是最近的常态，11点躺上床，翻来覆去要到两三点，中途几次困意袭来都被莫名的清醒打断，仿佛身体里住了两个人，一个哈欠连天，另一个像喝了红牛。

网上说的入睡法都试遍了，传统的像数羊什么的，现在有了进化版，可以数手机屏幕像素颗粒；深呼吸也做了不知道多少个，但我还是那个睡眠绝缘体。

囤着一堆洗发水生发仪，心里纳闷，睡不着的难道只有我一个？

不，还有玛丽莲·梦露、梵·高、和比尔·克林顿……

文森特·梵·高

Van Gogh treated his insomnia by dousing his mattress and pillow with camphor, a relative of turpentine. Scholars believe the camphor slowly poisoned him and was one of the factors that pushed him to suicide.

为了应对失眠，梵高把自己的床垫和枕头都浸过樟脑（一种松节油）。学者们后来认为樟脑慢慢地使他中毒，而这也是促使他自杀的因素之一。

比尔·克林顿

Clinton long claimed to get by on five hours of sleep a night, but he's been trying to extend that number after a heart attack he partly attributes to fatigue. He also notes, "Every important mistake I've made in my life, I've made because I was too tired."

克林顿自称每天晚上只有5小时的睡眠，有次他心脏病发，觉得可能是劳累过度，自那之后就一直想多睡点。他还说过：“我生命中犯过的重大错误都是在极度劳累的时候。”

玛丽莲·梦露

Monroe's insomnia, which she treated with sleeping pills, was reportedly tied to turbulent emotional spells. The day before she overdosed, she became enraged on hearing that a friend had nabbed 15 hours of sleep.

梦露也失眠，为此还要吃安眠药，她猛烈的情绪波动据称与失眠有关。在过量服用药物致死的前一天，她听说一个朋友睡了15个小时，特别生气。

创意类工作者睡不着可能是常态，很多英美作家都是夜猫子。

Few writers have lived entirely free of insomnia, and it has struck not only those tormented, “neurotic” artists for whom the inability to sleep might seem only one symptom of a more general emotional malaise.

很少有不失眠的作家，而且也不只是那些痛苦的“神经质的”的艺术家们才会失眠，他们的失眠估计只是更严重的情绪毛病里面一个症状而已。

Writers have used all available means to escape this malady.

作家们想尽办法对付失眠。

The insomnia of Dickens and Whitman drove them out of doors for lengthy nocturnal walks.

像是狄更斯和惠特曼就会干脆半夜出门散上很久的步。

The friend and biographer of the Bronte sisters, Elizabeth Gaskell, reports that Charlotte and Emily walked in circles around the dining room table until they were tired enough to sleep. (Mrs. Gaskell also relates the poignant detail that after Emily’s death, Charlotte’s usual sleeplessness was exacerbated by grief; unable to give up the ritual, she now walked alone around the table hour after hour, night after night.)

勃朗台姐妹的朋友兼传记作家伊丽莎白·加斯科称，夏洛特·勃朗台和艾米丽·勃朗台两姐妹睡不着的时候就会在餐厅里围着餐桌绕圈儿，累得不行了才会去睡觉。（加斯科女士还说，自从艾米丽死后，夏洛特十分伤心，失眠愈发严重了；但是她还是会去绕桌子，现在就一个人了，一小时一小时的绕着走，每晚如此。）

Thomas de Quincey famously confessed his addiction to opium, which he began using to combat insomnia and other ills, while F. Scott Fitzgerald turned to alcohol and barbiturates, which created a short-term solution but also a long-term problem.

托马斯·德·昆西爱吸鸦片，人尽皆知，吸鸦片就是为了对付失眠和其他的疾病。弗朗西斯·斯科特·菲茨杰拉德就爱喝酒，还吃镇静药物巴比妥酸盐，治标不治本，还留下隐患。

Percy Bysshe Shelley, another opium user, wrote of spending “hours on the sofa between sleep & waking, a prey to the most painful irritability of thought.”

珀西·比希·雪莱也吸鸦片，他写道：“躺在沙发上醒也不是睡也不是，脑子里老想事儿，特别难受。”

For Ernest Miller Hemingway, not surprisingly, sleeplessness is analogous to a wild animal or a beautiful woman—something either to be conquered or endured with manly stoicism, so that the insomniac’s noble acceptance of suffering becomes a form of “heroic” behavior.

欧内斯特·米勒·海明威失眠丝毫不奇怪，他把失眠比作野生动物或者漂亮女人——需要征服或者用男人的坚忍来忍受的东西，这么说的话，失眠患者大度地隐忍就会显得特别英雄主义。

According to his recent biographer, Kenneth S. Lynn, Hemingway sometimes bragged that his chronic insomnia was the result of horrific battlefield memories; but evidence shows that he suffered the malady even in childhood.

海明威的传记作者肯尼斯·林说，海明威有时候会吹嘘说自己长期失眠是因为受之前战场上那些可怕回忆的影响；但是有证据显示，他其实从小就有睡不着的毛病了。

A 1927 short story, “Now I Lay Me,” convincingly relates his alter-ego Nick Adams’ lifelong insomnia to a fearful distrust of himself and the world. The story takes place in soldiers’ quarters near the battle lines, where Nick lies sleepless late at night.

海明威1927年写的的短篇小说“Now I Lay Me”里面就写到了堪称作者第二自我的尼克·亚当，尼克一生都饱受失眠折磨，原因是对自己和世界的极度不信任。小说里的故事发生在战争前线的兵营里，尼克半夜睡不着，就干躺着。

Tormented by the incessant chewing of silk-worms in the brush outside (the worms suggesting both death and a mindless, ongoing nature), Nick confesses that “I myself did not want to sleep because I had been living for a long time with the knowledge that if I ever shut my eyes in the dark and let myself go, my soul would go out of my body.”

外头灌木丛里的蚕啃叶子的声音根本停不下来（蚕象征着死亡和迷茫却持续存在的自然），在这种折磨下，尼克坦言：“我根本不想睡觉，因为我已经很久没睡过了，而且我知道，一旦我在黑夜里合上双眼任由自己睡，我的灵魂就会脱离肉体。”

彻底治愈失眠这种事情到底存不存在我不知道。

但是睡不着可以起来干活儿啊！看书啊！

那些平时课堂上一看就睡的定理，图书馆里一翻就困的专著，这个时候正好派上用场啊。

睡不着正好学习，学不进正好去睡。

亲爱的你，晚安。

Notes

douse [daʊs]: v 把…浸在液体里

mattress ['mætrəs]: n 床垫

camphor ['kæmfɚ]: n 樟脑

turpentine ['tɝpən'taɪn]: n 松节油

fatigue [fə'tig]: n 疲劳

turbulent ['tɝbjələnt]: adj 混乱的；猛烈的

overdose: n 过量服药

nab: v 获得；拿取

torment: v 使备受折磨；烦扰

neurotic [nʊ'rɑtɪk]: adj 神经质的

malaise [mə'lez]: n （影响某个情况或某群人的）难以捉摸的问题

malady: n 严重问题；痼疾

poignant ['pɔɪnjənt]: adj 令人沉痛的；悲惨的；酸楚的

exacerbate [ɪɡ'zæsɚbet]: v 使恶化；使加剧；使加重

barbiturate [bɑr'bɪtʃʊrət]: n 巴比妥酸盐（用于镇静、催眠等）

prey: n 受害者

irritability: n 应激性

analogous [ə'næləɡəs]: adj 相似的；类似的

stoicism ['stoɪsɪzəm]: n 坚忍；对痛苦的默默承受或泰然处之

biographer [baɪˈɑːɡrəfər]: n 传记作家

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