With age comes experience and with experience things get easier – except sleep. As I toss and turn, adjust my bedcovers and refluff my pillow, I remember what my grandmother said about insomnia – it's not worth losing sleep over.

Usually time flys. It's Monday, then it's Thursday. Because of the faster pace of life, teenagers are now experiencing this phenomenon. Yes, how fast time passes is a common complaint – unless you have insomnia. Then every minute seems like an hour. It's changed my perspective. My waking hours can't be hectic because time flys when you're having fun.

When I'm not having fun, I try to quiet my mind and be one with my bed. Nevertheless, thoughts keep racing through my mind. I think about things I need to do and things I should do. Thinking about the shouldn't-have-dones, however, is the worst. It makes me think the word bedlam was coined in bed.

Some people think nightmares are caused by a guilty conscience or unresolved problems. Some people think they're caused by eating spicy food. I haven't had a nightmare in years. Now I have worry dreams – dreams of being unprepared for a test or not packing everything I need for a trip. If dream patterns are genetic, I could be having my mother's "I-think-I-did" dreams soon. She'd awaken from those dreams not knowing if she'd actually made the phone call, sent the letter or solved the problem – or just dreamed she had. Considering I can't remember what I did last week, maybe I-think-I-did isn't a type of dream. Maybe it's insomnia.

I don't know if humans are the only creatures that have nightmares, but I know birds and reptiles sleep. They become unconscious to their surroundings for a period of time. Whales and dolphins are "conscious breathers". In order to keep breathing while they sleep, only half their brain sleeps at a time – which means half their brain is awake – which might explain the Miami Dolphins football season this year.

The outsourcing of computer help centers to India partially explains the boom in its economy. It has provided thousands of white-collar jobs. That's the good news. The bad news is India is half way around the world. When it's daytime here, it's nighttime there. When we call help centers about a mistake in a credit card statement or a glitch in a software program, Indians lose sleep over our problems.

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