December 11, 2025
what was meant to be an ordinary Thursday dissolved into a sea of unconsciousness. From 8 p.m. the night before to 7:45 p.m. today, I slept like a bear in hibernationdeep, uninterrupted, and almost otherworldly in its stillness. Twenty-three hours and forty-five minutes vanished, not in productivity or distraction, but in the quiet theater of dreams that flickered between joy and sorrow like an old film reel skipping between reels of laughter and tears.
At first glance, this might seem like indulgencea rare luxury in a world that praises busyness. But for someone whose mind never truly rests, such prolonged sleep feels less like escape and more like involuntary retreat. My body, weary beyond words, simply shut down. No alarm could stir me; no message could reach through the thick fog of slumber. In that suspended time, I wasn't Alice the student, the Class Representative, the aspiring computer scientist, or the person carrying eleven pills and heavier thoughts. I was just a vessel drifting through subconscious landscapes, untethered from the weight of waking life.
The dreams themselves were a mosaic of contradictions. One moment, I was laughing with friends under a sun-drenched campus skyremembering the warmth of genuine connection, the kind that makes you feel seen. The next, I stood alone on a crowded bus, watching familiar faces turn away as if I were invisible. Happy memories twisted into melancholy echoes: birthday parties where I belonged, only to dissolve into scenes where I'm watching from the outside, unseen, uninvited. The emotional whiplash of dreamingwhere grief and gladness share the same breathleft me disoriented even after waking.
When I finally stirred at 7:45 p.m., blinking into the dim evening light filtering through the curtains, time itself felt fractured. Had I missed a day? Had the world moved on without me? My phone buzzed with missed notificationsgroup messages about assignments, reminders for tomorrow's schedule, a gentle "you okay?" from a friend who noticed my silence. Guilt prickled at the edges of my awareness. As Class Representative, there were attendance logs to update, announcements to relay. But my body refused urgency. It demanded stillness.
There's something quietly profound about losing an entire day to sleep. In a culture obsessed with optimizationwhere every hour must be accounted for, monetized, or maximizedchoosing (or being forced) to do nothing is almost rebellious. Yet this wasn't a choice. It was survival. My mind, constantly navigating academic pressure, social isolation, and the internal storms of mental health, needed a reset. Sleep became the only sanctuary where the noise could soften, even if just for a while.
Still, I couldn't shake the melancholy that followed. A day gone. Meals skipped. Responsibilities paused. And yet… there's also grace in it. In that deep slumber, my nervous system recalibrated. My brain sorted fragments of memory, processed unspoken hurts, and perhaps, for a fleeting moment, granted me peace. The dreamshowever bittersweetwere proof that even in rest, my heart is still trying to heal.
I wonder if hibernation isn't just a biological process but a metaphor for emotional preservation. Bears don't sleep through winter because they're lazy; they do it to endure. To conserve energy until conditions improve. Maybe I'm doing the samenot out of weakness, but out of a quiet, stubborn will to keep going.
Now, as night falls again, I sip water slowly, reorienting to the present. The world didn't end while I slept. The moon still rose. My sister might've texted. Life continued and yet, I'm still part of it. I may have lost a day, but I didn't lose myself.
In fact, maybe I found a sliver of myself in those dreamsthe part that still hopes, still remembers joy, still aches for connection. And that's worth something.
So, to anyone reading this who's ever slept through a day because your soul needed it: you're not failing. You're enduring. And endurance, in its own quiet way, is a form of courage.
Tomorrow, I'll wake with the sun. I'll take my eleven pills. I'll attend class, mark attendance, maybe help a classmate with something or the other . I'll carry the weight but today, I let the weight carry me.
And that's okay.
Because where there is life, there is hopeeven if that life spends a whole day dreaming beneath the covers.