/late/ - Late Nights

>What do you guys do before going to bed?
Turn off PC.
>Do you guys sleep well?
No I sleep terribly. Every night drives me on the edge of suicidal thought. I somewhat recover by the time I wake up, then it repeats itself. I am scared and very anxious. I don't know what to do. I wish it stopped. I can't even kill myself, why all this?
>just thinking my own thoughts and I can't fall asleep.
I was like that back in the day. It's not bad at all. I wish I could be like that again.

>What I do before going to bed
Thinking I want to go to bed, turn off the stereo and the computer, wash my feet, preparing a bowl of cereals and watch some Simpsons on my laptop near my bed. As I'm night working it's sometimes difficult to fall asleep but generally speaking I donb't have sleep troubles (I had a lot younger).

Brushing my teeth?

Currently in a phase of insomnia, so trashing around for an hour or two until getting up again and going back to the computer. These come and go, every few years. I swear to god it's some condition that hasn't been diagnosed yet. I like when people give me helpful advice like "just close your eyes and sleep", thanks man. Haven't thought of that.

>What do you guys do before going to bed?
I stick my laptop underneath my bed. Maybe go to the bathroom if I need to. I sleep in my clothes and use my laptop in my bed, so not much to do.
>Do you guys sleep well?
I alternate between waking up constantly during the night, and sleeping for excessive amounts of time. I never feel well-rested when I wake up, that's for sure.
Recently I've been having trouble getting to sleep, but it's hit or miss honestly. I'll have periods where I'll lay awake for hours, and periods where it's about twenty minutes, which is apparently the average time for people.

>What do you guys do before going to bed?
Take melatonin, play a YouTube video for background noise, sleep for 4 hours before work
>Do you guys sleep well?
No. I can only really sleep for like 4-6 hours maximum at a time and it's awful.

>brush
>hot shower
>read a bit or have a comfy chat with relatives
>pray
>stretch (inconsistent)

>>2679 (OP) 
I am one of those rare chosen people blessed with the ability to sleep almost instantly, although my sleep is light and easily disturbed.
My brother is the opposite: it takes him time to sleep but then he could sleep through a storm.

>>2683
Is it because of bad things in your life or do you think it's a medical condition ? Bad life hyene like a fried reward system and isolation make things a lot worse

be143e27a05754cd9fcc8bcbae5d00fe4fa8d09c04be67f0eabce925505ca29d.png
[Hide] (1.7MB, 720x1280)

I do absolutely nothing:
I just live my day like normal then at some point I get exhausted and lay down and sleep. 

Quality of sleep varies depending on stress and if I've had alcohol. 

I find if I set up a bedtime routine, it gives me a sense of panic and claustrophobia.

I'm having anxiety about time. Head got worse lately, I already had two meltdowns in about two months. The frequency is all right, but usually there are at least some weeks in between when I feel out and about. Not this time. So I end up living in this weird state I couldn't even call dissociation. I can't begin to imagine words to communicate how weird it feels, but the scary part is that I lost time. It feels like I can't grasp time and it just rushes past me. Days have been going to fast and with so little "body" to them I am afraid of not being able to catch up. There are a lot of things going on around me, but they feel like water flowing through my hands. It is so weird I can't begin to describe. It is as if I am too whatever to actually let the events reach me or whatever. Err. There's no way I can explain. Tl;dr time please wait at least let me feel like I am alive

gandalf-smoking-weed.png
[Hide] (447.1KB, 1024x1024)

>Personally I just shut down my pc and just go to sleep.
I have a script that I run on my PC.  I named it "good" so that I could parameterize it with the words morning, evening, and night, and each runs a bunch of commands suited for these respective times of day.

In theory, I plug in the ethernet cable after dinner, run the "good evening" script and go through the rituals of checking my news and youtube feeds, and of cleaning up parts of the filesystem that accumulate interesting things, but also a lot of junk.  Images get filed into the wallpaper or meme directories.  Interesting code repos are checked for merit, and filed into the great heap of code.  I attend to the questions that arise during the day but which aren't important enough to interrupt my work.  Saying "good night" to the computer makes it mirror a bunch of files to an external drive and shut down.

In practice though, I've been online too much all through this year, and I feel the brainrot setting in again.

>Do you guys sleep well?
The past few months I find I have to intentionally stay in bed when I wake.  I went to sleep at 2 AM and if I get up at 8 my eyes are going to be dry and my brain as well, probably.  The sleep is as uneasy as my waking hours, which I spend too much in distractions about shit I can't do anything about anyway.

I wouldn't do this "revenge sleep procrastination" shit if I weren't online and autopiloting from one attractive nuisance to the next, and I wouldn't be fucking around online if I could still believe in the future as a place worth living in.  Grim, but that's just how it is now.

>For me it takes time to actually start sleeping (usually an hour).
I always tuck my tablet under the pillow and listen to an audiobook.  Lately it's Alan Watts, who I think is too much of a rascal, but still good as an introduction to eastern philosophy.

This part of the routine has served for many years.  It almost never takes more than 20 minutes to nod off, and the sleep timer pauses the book shortly after.

>I'll go to bed but after some time I'm just thinking my own thoughts and I can't fall asleep.
You'd think I would also have this problem, but I guess I'm resigned to the understanding that there's nothing for it but to keep going, and that nobody ever thought his problems to death.  At least, not with the "tires spinning in mud" type of "thinking" we tend to do.

>>2746
I hear a lot of this from a lot of different people.  Mostly younger ones who are online a lot and have phones and all that.  The older ones are TV-addicts rather than internet addicts, and I guess there's a lot more downtime in TV programming (the interminable advertisements, mainly) so they "live more slowly" even though they still spend multiple hours a day in this hypnotized, dissociated state.

Suggesting that anyone cut back on any of it usually elicits a curious reaction.  Kind of like when Gandalf tells Bilbo to leave his ring behind, or if you try to part a meth addict from his meth.

>>2747
I would cut back on it, but I don't know how. There aren't even places where I'm welcome anymore so I don't even feel anything positive while staying online, but I still do it because what else? Trying to move focus to something else feels like banging a wall because I once my energy drains I get back online to rinse and repeat  the cycle. As years go I try less and less because frankly I only get weaker with time. Bilbo had amazing people and a kind wizard to support him, and himself was a good hobbit. I neither have wizards around, nor am even good enough to warrant it.

stopit.mkv
[Hide] (1.5MB, 478x358, 01:05)

>>2749
On one level, it's simple: vidrel.  But this advice fails because one's will must be grounded by a sense of purpose to justify the effort or self-restraint.  But how does one go from being unmotivated and directionless, to having drive, and a mission in life that's more important than simply being comfortable?

Some lack vision of how the future should be, others the confidence to realize their dreams, and some lack the ability to make realistic plans and follow through.

We're all institutionalized as children, and raised in a sort of factory-farm process that turns humans into consumers, apt to lack all three of the above qualities.

At the outset of trying to reshape one's life, one requires blind faith in the possibility of success.  I reckon I came to this understanding after seeing someone else, fundamentally very much like me, except successful in life.  I probably deduced that the only difference between us was that he believed he could do certain things whereas I was saddled with negative beliefs from being raised by dysfunctional retards.  After all, if you're raised by successful people, then your assumptions about life are probably that you can make things happen, because you've already seen the example from an early age.

So I think the fundamental thing is to ask yourself what your life's goal is, and then not to settle for your own instinctive answer, but to imagine what your answer would be under better conditions, if you were a healthy person in a healthy society, and then act as though this were actually true.  Thus begins a rather magical process of self-transformation.  You have no wizard in your life, so you must become the wizard, because the alternative is that this is how your story ends, because no miracles are forthcoming except the one you create yourself.

Beyond that it's all practical, and the practical questions of better habits and efficacy are the easy part.

I do stretches, although lately I've taken to qigong standing mediation instead. I think I want to look more closely into daoism and qigong traditions. After that, I like to do a bit of reading. It always ends up being manga on my tablet and sometimes Blue Archive, but I need to knock that off and read one of my many physical books. No electronics before bed. I should do a bit of meditation, too.

>>2755
>more important than simply being comfortable
Sorry, I'll get to your post later, but I am not comfortable by any means I'm on the verge of simply jumping off the roof because it promises to be  quick.

stopit.webm
[Hide] (1.6MB, 478x358, 01:05)

>>2755
your video doesn't work in-browser because non-WebM Matroska videos are generally unsupported. it has H.264 video and Opus audio so i don't know why it doesn't play in-browser, but this VP9/Opus version does.

>>2758
i hope you're safe anon. let us know when you make it back.

>>2761
>let us know when you make it back.
Wondering about it myself. It became a bit better but I ended up having nothing to reply to the >>2755 because life is truly about 'just do it', the only problem is that I neither have any idea what I should do and how. So I just thrash around like thousands of other losers failing each day to basically remain sane. I will gladly
just do it, but please teach me how. Who's gonna do that? Right, nobody. Nobody in the entire world cares for people so completely wrecked as me. You need to pass a certain threshold for people to start caring enough to help you. I can't ask family because they're as clueless as me, but I don't blame them! Most relatives are clueless too, and those who could give me some insight, I'm plainly afraid of them because they're not quite honest people and there's evidence they might turn out to be clueless themselves. Maybe it's something you don't need to understand. Like a skill given from birth or unconsciously acquired when you grow up in right circumstances. I don't know. There are so many variables, but the fact is I don't have this internal intuitive understanding of life and though I don't like I'll probably just gonna have to suicide at some point. I'll go on as long as I can but I can't see any light ahead. Bless you

>>2766
On the other hand what I'm describing sounds like stages through which, as far as I have seen, many people go though. Maybe it's just a part of growing up and I need to shut up and simply suffer through it until I reach enlightenment of something of that sort.

>>2679 (OP) 
>What do you guys do before going to bed?
Step 1. Floss
Step 2. Brush teeth
Step 3. Stay up way too late
Step 4. Journal
Step 5. Commune with the dead
Step 6. Pray
Step 7. Do my planner for the next day
Very very rarely I'll read a little after that.

>Do you guys sleep well?
No. Maybe?

>>2757
>one of my many physical books
what do you have

>>2776
>Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft
>Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe
>Tales of the Dying Earth
>Egyptian Book of the Dead
>The Silmarillion
>instead of reading any of these, I am reading The Lord of the Rings for the millionth time
It doesn't sound like a lot, but they're all pretty hefty. Trying to wait until I actually make progress on some of them before I get any more. I also forgot that I have a cheap e-ink tablet, but that's kind of annoying to use.

>>2802
Not a lot of relaxing light reads there.

0cbf45bf84d4101ec88aaee3469a2e66.gif
[Hide] (737.3KB, 498x279)

>>2679 (OP) 
I'll write in my planner what I'll do tomorrow, then I read a physical book, watch something, listen to music, meditate, or daydream. Despite it being the end of the day, it's at these times I feel the most lucid.

>>2802
>Complete Works of H. P. Lovecraft
>The Silmarillion
peak comfy
LOTR is always a good option tho

>>2803
shush

>>2803
Haha, one time I listened to The Shadow over Innsmouth read by a Dagoth Ur AI voice and at some random point deep in the story, uncorrelated with the events, there was the sound of mechanical wolves growling that persisted a few minutes before fading into the ambience of the crashing waves. I couldn't find anyone in the comments mentioning it, and the sound alone was inordinately terrifying for some reason.

Unrelated, but it really reminded me of this old game called Sir(/Madam), You Are Being Hunted. It has a Victorian-era UK theme and ironically it really shows its age, even years ago when I first played it, but I think that gives it a unique charm and it definitely adds to the horror aspect. The sound design is wonderful, especially when it betrays the light-hearted and somewhat cheesy intentions of the developers. I just learned that the game got an official update through a collaboration with the Dutch in 2021 which fixes the broken multiplayer mode among other things, so definitely check it out if you want a unique spin on the classic indie horror game experience (from back before everyone and their dog was pumping out lackluster "PS1 style horror" games or whatever the new YouTuber/streamerbait strategy is now).

1735073377148457.png
[Hide] (335.5KB, 493x471)

Merry Christmas, /late/ !

>>2853
>>2853
Helo anon merry christmas to you! I hope the warmest of feet and coziest of foods to you. This christmas and every day. Thank you for lifting up my spirit as my family doesnt celebrate christmas so i had no idea how to. But i like it and thanks again for posting just because you can

yours truly

>>2738
Pretty much this, except the last part. I have a during the week routine that I’m in bed by 22:30 at the latest, hopefully asleep by 23:00. My sleep varies on inebriation level, and/or what I’ve eaten and how close to bedtime. dark chocolate gives me pretty wild, and vivid dreams sleeping with a gril not necessarily banging either tends to be the best sleep ever for me.

>>2747
>Suggesting that anyone cut back on any of it usually elicits a curious reaction.  Kind of like when Gandalf tells Bilbo to leave his ring behind, or if you try to part a meth addict from his meth.
Spot on. I used to be like this about fapping, until the excrutiating horror I went through the first time I attempted NNN.

>>2772
>Step 7. Do my planner for the next day
That's a good one, or at least roughly sketching out the main things to do.

Charcole-Warning-Label.jpg
[Hide] (41.6KB, 500x185)

>>2867
My brother in Christ, you are not falling asleep you are becoming unconscious.

uf0ljzb20ay61.webp
[Hide] (145.1KB, 921x688)

Whether I sleep well or not has to do with a few variables. 

One, I have to feel clean, so if I feel dirty then I typically shower before bed. If I don't then I won't sleep well. The bed being made before hand is also a big one that I didn't realize effected me until recently. Climbing into a nicely made bed every night feels amazing. If the sheets are untucked or my pillows are all over the place, then I find it much harder to sleep.

Two, if I've just eaten something high in sodium, like fast food, then I know I'll be awake for a while, so I try to keep the eats to a minimum at least 2 hours from sleep time. 

Three, I sleep much easier if I go to bed before my set time that I typically go to bed. The longer I stay up past bed time, the more anxious I am about how painful the next day is gonna feel when I inevitably have to wake up and don't feel well refreshed. 

Something else I've been doing lately is watching a streamer play a couple games I used to play religiously back in the day (haven't been back in years, but I enjoy watching this particular streamer). It's very soothing and normally puts me to sleep in 15 minutes if I don't fight to keep watching. Without him, having recently eaten, sleeping in a junky bed, and already being up past my bed time, I can sit there for hours tossing and turning as my mind races thinking about the most irrelevant things. It's literal hell.

A couple years ago I moved for work and now have a roommate I share a kitchen and bathroom with. The person I'm living with is really disgusting and loud, so it can be hard to stay consistent with things like sleep as I have to wear earbuds every single night or I simply cannot sleep because I can hear other rooms around me as well.

A couple years prior, however, I had one of the most consistently good sleeps of my life and this went on for years. I don't remember my late night routine much, but I remember waking up at least two hours before work to get ready, which was really unnecessary but I enjoyed that job so much that I would go out of my way to wake up earlier and get to work an hour before we opened. 

I really liked that job, but I also really looked forward to the commute from my home to work. It was just long enough to not be annoying and I had a car at the time that I absolutely loved to drive to and from work, so there was this excitement every morning that I'd be able to enjoy that car and then get to work with people I loved doing a job I was good at. The streets were so empty that early in the morning, so I'd tear ass.

I remember it was the best feeling in the world waking up before the sun or really before the rest of the world woke up. Beating the sun made my whole day and I'd go to sleep pretty early to do it all again the next day just from remembering the feeling from the morning prior.

Contrary to now, The sun is always coming through the blinds when I wake up, I hate it. I also don't particularly like the job I'm doing now, so it really has to do with my current living situation and current job. My commute is also a joke now. I could walk to work if I felt like, which sounds great to some people, but I get such a kickbfrom driving 20- 30 minutes on a mix of open highways and curvy roads in a fun car. If I ever had a bad day at work, I'd almost forget about it by the time I'd get home just from the drive. It was also a great opportunity to occasionally reflect on the work day before I got home.

My situation has changed a lot since then. I still have that car, but rarely get to drive it or do anything fun with it anymore. In the next few years, if things go the way that I'm actively manifesting them to go, then I'll be back to those times where I beat the sun every morning working a job I hope I'll enjoy maybe even more than the one I had years ago :)

To know life can be like that and be like that once again, keeps me pushing through even the darkest days. Writing this felt very therapeutic 

>>2747
Your scripts sound pretty cool. I'm just getting into the I.T space and the way some people can manipulate computers is fascinating. What do you use to make that possible?

>>2935
>pic
<based "Gas Gas Gas" knower...

Thanks for the good advice, Anon!