The aim of this Blog has always been to record the effects of Lockdown on me and my life and hope it might find an echo or a contradiction in yours. It’s solipsistic but that’s in the nature of diaries, so forgive me if I talk about sleep – my sleep. I have always slept badly, unable to drift off at the beginning of the night, with mostly quite trivial anxieties – tasks unfinished, tasks to come, plans for the next day, even what to wear for an event, swarming in my head. I would wake at about 2am, beset by more free-floating anxiety, and snap instantly wide- awake at about 5am, relieved – thrilled – to begin the day, finally released from thought into action.

Beside me,”The Writer” slept solidly and deeply, waking me from my fragile sleep with snoring, visits to the loo and the occasional leap out of bed to walk up and down the bedroom moaning with cramp.

I needed blackout curtains under heavy velvet ones, the red light on the TV had to be blocked with a statuette (It didn’t have to be a statuette, of course, but it was a good excuse to invest in the glorious Art Deco figure I’d lusted after for years), the green light on the telephone cradle was hidden by a carefully -positioned hand-cream tube and in every hotel we visited, I would block out the various standby lights with a rolled towels or plumped cushion.

I knew all about “sleep hygiene”. I’d read every article warning “No TV before bed”, “Warm bath before bed”, “Hot drink before bed” (Goodness knows how you were ever supposed to get to bed if you had to do all that beforehand.) Then there were the proscriptions: “No mobiles in the bedroom “and, of course, “No checking emails or social media in the night”

“No radio” was one of the many strictures I would ignore, trying all manner of speakers before giving up specialised equipment in favour of sleeping with a small radio under my pillow. “The writer” wouldn’t have wakened if I’d played it at full volume on “Rock Radio” or clog-danced round the room but the under -the- pillow method suited me anyway. It would be on as I went to sleep and again immediately I woke up, always on a speech channel. Listening to voices seemed to drive out the voices in my head. (Not literal ones, you understand).

The odd thing was that I didn’t dream. I know everyone dreams and it’s just that I didn’t remember mine, but that feels like not dreaming. Every morning,”The Writer” would regale me with ever more fantastical stories of where he’s been and what he’d done in the night. I was so envious. Compared to my tedious sleeplessness, his nights were packed with excitement. The only other person I have even known like me is Tod. He regularly has barely five hours sleep and spends his mornings listening to Trisha’s dreamtime escapades. Maybe each couple needs one dreamer and one for an audience.

Maybe you’re wondering by now where all this self-confession is going – or maybe you’ve guessed.

Well, Lockdown is the cure!: I go to bed earlier, sleep as soon as I hit the pillow, never wake in the night – and dream– not about Covid -19. Our early mornings have turned into a battle as to which of us tells our dream tale first. The light from windows,TV and ‘phone are invisible to me now, I’m out cold for seven hours and the presenter of my favourite 4am chat-show is chatting to the empty air – or at least to his other thousands of listeners.

As someone interested in human psychology, of course I wonder why this odd thing has happened. Then I realise: I’m no longer worrying – about the minutiae of life, or anything else. I’m just doing the day’s few basic tasks, not thinking about tomorrow’s and enjoying the sunshine. Can it be that what there is to worry about – out there – is so enormous, that my mind can’t cope with it and shuts down in sleep?

That’s my diagnosis, anyway. How are you sleeping?