Struggling with Insomnia: Understanding Unmet Needs & Desires

If up until now I have not been able to fall asleep early, perhaps it is because during sleeplessness, my needs or desires were not satisfied. I do not know what this waiting for is like in my mind. From the results, I have never slept peacefully and contentedly at night, even when I had a great time playing; I would drag myself to bed until I was too tired to resist and finally fall asleep.

I can think of two reasons: one is that maybe I have some tendencies toward collecting information or thinking in an unproductive way. Whether its work, reading, or entertainment, I fill my days with activities that never satisfy mea bit like a runaway person. The second reason is that every day I sacrifice everything to work, and only at night do I get some time for myselfI want to do something for myself, but too tired to do anything; instead, I accept information passively or seek information actively in order to convince myself. Thus, here lies the most fundamental mistake: because I want more in a short period of time so I feel anxious and delay going to bed, but because I go to bed late, it ruins my judgment, so I didnt really get what I wanted.

But looking back, the more basic issue is, what is your own time? For me, writing, reading, or watching movies isnt really your own time since they are things that need to be done. So in a way, doing them isnt resting because even though you do them, you still arent satisfied. Its like being at the wheel of an uncontrolled car; as long as you keep driving non-stop, it wont stop for you. If I do something beneficial late at nightfor example, studying or workingI might feel that this will help me sleep better and more comfortably in the morning. But perhaps because Im too tired to do anything else, I can settle for just accepting information or seeking information as a means of convincing myself.

In any case, the fact is that if youre talking about rest and your own time, lying on the ground under the sun, enjoying the sunlight, is truly your own timeno one elses. I dont have my own time because writing, reading, or watching movies arent things for which I can feel satisfied; they are obligations. If you think of rest as temporary death, its something I cannot controlnot being in charge of myself and not having control over my actions. Perhaps the reason why I resist real rest so much is that Im too concerned with my existence and its needs or demandsmaybe because I believe only when I am actively engaged can I be satisfied? Rest seems like an avoidance of life, a temporary escape from lifes uncertainties.

In this case, if you say that the reason you dont want to rest is because your needs or desires arent being fulfilled, then I wouldnt agree. Instead, maybe it should be phrased as because your needs or desires are too many and you think theyre importantits not whether they have been satisfied but how theyve been satisfied that matters. Even if they were only briefly satisfied, new ideas and desires would pop up at any moment.

The crux of the problem is that more is better, a mindset that leads to an unproductive way of thinking. It stems from my habitsfor life to be filled with action, for rest to be something you can do without anyone interrupting or preventing youboth are hard to maintain. The real issue is how to balance this kind of conflicting thoughts and actions. I cant reconcile them at the moment; whenever I want to sleep, no matter what, I end up being too tired to resistand thats why I have to force myself to lie on my back and shut out the world.

Looking back, I think people who are able to rest peacefully in their own time must be experiencing something different. For example, when I was younger and lived in the countryside, I could fall asleep at around nine oclock. At that time, Id lie on my back under the rain, and sometimes I could also hear irregular (the sound of a stream). The sounds would interrupt my thoughts, and Id sleep deeply without worrying about thingsno vivid dreams either. Maybe if I were to listen for fifteen minutes to those sounds before bed, it might help me relax; only when Im relaxed can my anxiety be properly controlled, so my actions wont be driven by fear of failure or other negative emotions.

This is my personal understanding and translation of the text.