The Hyland Anomaly

Sarah Hyland, an actress who plays Haley Dunphy on a sitcom titled Modern Family (a good show, IMHO, with good-to-excellent writing and acting) recently recounted on her Twitter account an experience she had. She awoke around 6:30 and saw daylight outside and assumed she had had a wonderful night’s sleep and now it was 6:30 in the morning. But as time passed it dawned (pun intended) on her that it might not be 6:30AM – might, in fact, be 6:30PM on the previous day. And, as it turned out, that is exactly what it was.

It’s disconcerting. I know because the very same thing happened to me, and it happened on the very same day that it happened to Hyland. I awoke, saw the sunshine, and thought, “It’s a beautiful, sunny morning!” I was also feeling just a bit proud of the fact that I had slept all night without having to resort to popping a sleeping pill or drinking alcohol to help me sleep.

Those thoughts didn’t last long. As soon as I walked into the living room, the wrongness of it hit me. The window blinds were open, and they’re never open when I get up in the morning. The “morning light” seemed odd, and though my still-sleepy brain didn’t know exactly why, the oddness assuredly was caused by the sunlight coming from the west instead of the east.

I walked to my computer (why that and not my phone?) and checked the time. PM! Damn it! All the things I thought I had sailed through overnight, like falling asleep so easily, sleeping through the night uninterrupted, waking up on a sunny morning ready for the new day, were all a fiction. None of them happened. Bummer!

When it comes to sleep, there is another kind of bummer that happens to me far more often. I go to bed at a reasonable time – say, 11PM – and fall asleep quickly. I awaken feeling like I’ve been asleep for hours. It’s dark inside and outside, but I’m wide awake feeling like I’ve slept for hours, so I’m sure it is close to the time I should get up. But then I look at the clock beside my bed and my hopes are dashed: it’s 1 AM. Morning is hours away. There’s nothing to do now but get out of bed, pour a drink, and type a blog post.