I don’t sleep at night.

It’s a common annoyance – possibly chronic, sometimes tragic. I want to shut down but can’t. My thoughts will not be still. How do you stop thinking?

It’s unclear what I think about exactly – my mind wanders and settles. I pick apart my day, think about a problem I encountered on a test, plan what I’m going to do when I finally get out of this place.

Some nights I do sleep, but I don’t realize I’ve slept. I still feel awake. It’s all rather confusing and hard to articulate when I think about it.

Usually, my dreams are vivid. Most of the time, I can make decisions in my dreams. In literature, it’s called “lucid dreaming” – I call it not sleeping at all. It’s a bizarre world where anything goes – and you’re in control of it all. Imagine awaking from a near-death experience you narrowly avoided and going to class an hour later.

The worst part of it all is when I become completely aware before awaking. My rational conscious comes alive in a deluded cosmos. My muscles are still weak, and I feel temporarily paralyzed before I physically awake, searching for peace in a demented existence where things sparkle, and you relive the trauma ingrained in your memories. Google tells me it’s called sleep paralysis.

My mother used to always tell me not to speak of my dreams. She would tell me to recite Arabic verses from the Qur’an, from the surah An-Nas. The translation is fairly straightforward: “I seek refuge in the lord of mankind … from the evil of the retreating whisperer – who whispers into the hearts of mankind.”

Across cultures, dreams have always been seen from a spiritual perspective to one degree or another. There seems to be no explanation as to why our thoughts manifest in the way they do at night. Many of us retreat to God–if we believe in one– when our subconscious takes advantage of us.

Beneath this body lies something beyond my control. There is something in me, an internal conflict I cannot shake. No one knows what goes on in the crevices of my neurons.

Sleeping is like death. No one knows what will happen when we pass over to the other side. The idea of not knowing what we will see each night is much the same.

Quite often, I’m afraid to go to sleep at night, so I occupy myself with writing. I need to know someone is listening. On paper, I can plan what will happen.

My sleep patterns have been peculiar for several years now. It’s possible I’m going mad, but I don’t dwell on it. Reality has become perpetual, sleepless delirium. I’m always tired, but I can’t do anything about it.

Maybe I’m blowing it all out of proportion. On occasion, I will crash after I arrive back at my dorm and slip into a deep dream within moments. I guess I do sleep, just in the wrong way.

I suppose this is the way it is. Everyone has their own struggle. Mine is I don’t know how to sleep anymore, that I feel exhausted in my bones every waking moment.

It’s a mad world, but we must keep dreaming. After all, we don’t have a choice.

Tarif Haque is a sophomore majoring in computer science. His column runs weekly.