Sleep Deprived

I have been struggling to sleep again. I hate it when this happens.

Part of the trouble is my caffeine addiction. You see, I wake up in the mornings feeling tired and worn out. By mid-afternoon, I feel exhausted. What occasionally happens at this point is that I have a nap, but regardless of whether I do or not, I end up feeling lethargic by late afternoon, and find myself needing caffeine to get my through the rest of the day. Coffee isn't my fix (though I do have a cup every now and then). Coke sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. My real addiction is Red Bull. At least one and at least three times a week. And then I can stay awake, stay focussed, stay in a happy mood for the rest of the evening rather than reverting into a slum where I won't talk and will just sit there being miserable until Grant asks me what is wrong, when I will respond that it is nothing but me being tired. Red Bull for the win!

But then the trouble comes in when I want to go to sleep. Yes, Red Bull keeps me awake and happy and lively when I want to be, but it also keeps my mind working even when I want to shut it down completely. I lie in bed, waking Grant up with my constant rolling around and sighs of frustration, with my mind jumping from subject to subject.
I need to book flights to Johannesburg.
I need to find accomodation in Johannesburg,
I need to make sure that the dress is ready on time.
I wonder if I can take photos at the wedding.
I should be taking more photos.
When was the last time that I took a photo?
I need to get more photography gigs.
I need to get my website up and running.
I need to write another blogpost.
I need to write another chapter of my book.
What will I write for the book?
What happened on this day last year?
You see... it is utter nuttiness. And these were just some of the subjects that were floating through my mind two nights ago when I literally rolled around for over two hours unable to fall asleep.

Now, you might say that the solution is simple enough - stop drinking Red Bull or, if I need to drink it, drink it earlier in the day so that my sleep isn't affected. That would probably be the smart thing to do, but as I said, my caffeine addiction is only a part of my sleeping woes. Even on days when I have had no caffeine - zero, zip, none - I often struggle to sleep. Sometimes it is because my mind is just on overdrive, sometimes it's because the things that my mind conjures up are either insanely weird (cue the semi-dream of me flying around on my mount from WoW taking photographs of my goddaughter) or just plain scary (cue the semi-dream of people breaking into my house on a nightly basis and not only taking all of my stuff, but breaking the things that they didn't take eg. my camera lenses.)

I know that many people believe that dreams have meanings, and the meanings behind my dreams are not hard to realise. I am obsessive. I get into a habit of doing something, and I become obsessive about that habit. Take photography, for example. I enjoy taking photos, but at some point photography became a giant part of my life, so much so that I eat, drink and sleep photography. At one stage back when I was in high school and didn't have a particularly advanced computer, I became obsessed with minesweeper, and my dreams consisted of clicking little grey buttons and praying that a bomb didn't blow me up when I clicked it. You see, whatever my hobby of the moment is, my dreams tend to take that on, but to the extreme. To the point where the hobby isn't fun anymore, purely because the stress that comes with it (and yes, even the funnest hobbies can be stressful sometimes) seeps into my dreams making it difficult for me to sleep.

So, my question for you today is this: How do you get to sleep when your mind is driving you nuts?