Early morning dreams are the best

They say ‘Early to bed, early to rise.’ I don’t mind going to bed early, but to wake up early is a killjoy. Anyway, the proverb further goes, ‘makes a man healthy wealthy, and wise.’ Me, being a woman can conveniently say that it is only applicable to men.

At night I go to bed fretting, fuming, and visualising the tantalising effects of the morning alarm. Waking up early in the morning is an arduous activity. No matter how lovely a song plays as your alarm, it is annoying. The blaring, unsympathetic and heartless, alarm rings.

It enjoys waking me up with full enthusiasm, as though there is sudden chaos in the utmost order of the beginning of the day. To leave your snug bed, snug blanket, and most comfortable pillow is torture. The bed feels like heaven early in the morning. Our body also has curled up to a perfect sleeping position which we try to figure out at night by tossing and turning.

The torment of getting up in the morning is intense. Hitting the snooze button, I get back at it a few times, but alas it does not last long enough, it snickers at me and rings again. It doesn’t give up till it wins.

I will call it a fortunate stroke of serendipity if I forget to set the alarm, then the annoying alarm wouldn’t be yelling into my ears. To curse the creator of alarm daily has become my morning chore. If it weren’t for this godforsaken alarm I wouldn’t have to wake from my sweet slumber.

'Come on, get up'

I read somewhere that our body temperature goes down a bit when we sleep. No wonder I just cherish snuggling up in my cosy, comfy blanket so much in those wee hours of the morning. Waking up is tougher during winters. Though UAE doesn’t have severe winters, back in Delhi to get out of your warm snug quilt and face the icy cold winter is challenging.

I have hated the alarm clock ever since my childhood. My school bus used to come at 6:20am. I had to get up much earlier so that I wouldn’t miss the bus. I had an alarm clock that had a long trilling elongated music, which infuriates me even now when I think of it. I would happily shut it down and go back to sleep.

My father would say “Come on get up!” I would raise one of my hands, drowsily and go back to sleep once again. Then my father would call out again, now I would raise both my hands indicating that I am more aware and alert than before but would go back to sleep again finally he would yell “WAKE UP,” and that would make me run to the bathroom.

Early morning dreams are the best and the alarms are its worst enemies and more often we tend to forget what we dreamt of when we wake up. We had a dog a few years ago, and she would come and bark just once near my father’s ear to wake him up so that he would take her out for a walk. She would never bark loudly as she knew I hated it in the mornings.

In Tom and Jerry when Tom doesn’t get to sleep even a wink throughout the night and finally when he goes to sleep, his alarm goes off and he wakes up with bleary red eyes and just hammers the alarm clock down. This is how I feel when I don’t hit the bed on time.

Late night parties or movies or even night flights cause sleep disruption, and the grogginess is commensurate with irritability the next day, so no alarm, please!

Why ruin a perfect most endearing, relaxing morning sleep when one can start the day a bit late?

“If it be thus to dream, still let me sleep”- William Shakespeare

Anuradha Sharma is a freelancer based in Abu Dhabi