Of all the things I do, sleeping is my undisputed favorite. Anything else has the potential to be disappointing, but a good night's sleep will always satisfy.

There are three, perhaps four distinct ways in which I sleep. I'm not talking about the various positions and contortions I twist into while I'm drifting off. (Such as "The Grad Photo," in which I sleep with my fist underneath my chin, but perhaps I'm revealing too much...) I'm talking about the kind and quality of the sleep I'm getting, and the things I experience while I'm unconscious.

1a) Insomnia Simplex One
This is when I have lots of ideas. I have so many ideas. Ideas are more important than sleeping. I'm going to get rich by curing sickle-cell anemia, and I'm going to do it tonight! [Here's where I usually decide, two hours too late, to take a diphenhydramine tablet, which will put me into a retardedly dreamless and unsatisfying sleep until my cell phone manages to urge me awake by incessantly vibrating against the wood floor.]

1b) Insomnia Simplex Two
This occurs whenever there is any kind of upset in my sleep pattern, whatsoever. For example, if I actually have to wake up at a decent hour, which I almost never do, I will not be able to sleep. I'll drift off and then wake up ten minutes later, wondering if it's time to get up yet. Or if I'm sleeping in an unfamiliar place, I'll almost literally sleep with one eye open, just in case a hotel maid or my girlfriend's mom decides to come at me with a machete in my sleep. Don't even try it, lady! I'll be out the window within seconds!

2) Technical Knockout [TKO]
This is perhaps the most common type of sleep I experience. Here I need no drugs or persuasion to go to sleep. I crawl into bed and I literally have difficulty believing how good a bed can feel. I can't imagine why I just don't stay in bed all the time. I fall asleep completely within three minutes and wake up 10 hours later, wanting more despite the fact that it's time to go to work.

3) The Movie Marathon
Here I fall asleep normally, then wake up 20 minutes later, usually at the point of my intense dream where I'm about to shoot someone, be shot by someone, find out the identity of my long-lost cousin, or pick up a hitchhiker in Germany. I stay awake for about a minute and a half while I roll over and realize that I really want to get back into that dream. I always do manage to get back into the dream, but at a different point, like when you're at the movies and you go to the bathroom and return to find that you've missed a key point. Then 20 minutes later I wake up again and repeat the whole process, over and over, until it's time to wake up, which I do with even greater reluctance than I do in #2.

Some people think that sleeping for one-third of your life is a waste. Me, I think it's probably the most interesting thing you can do. It's all a matter of perspective.