How To Study In Your Sleep

“Now raise both your palms skywards,” a girl said. She sounded incredibly familiar.

Seri giggled. “It’s so weird listening to a recording of myself.”

“…”

“Sunny?”

“Don’t distract me,” I scolded. “I’m just getting into it.”

“Sorry. My voice just sounds weird to me.”

“It’s okay,” I affirmed. “Your voice is soothing. I’m trying not to fall asleep.”

“… thanks,” she said quietly.

What a gentle response. I wondered the expression she had at the time; her sleeping face, earbuds in, eyes closed…

The recording continued slowly. “Now make sure your forehead is slightly higher than your chin so that your neck is fully extended, and relax the spine. Relax the spine… now relax the shoulders.”

With each step, I felt a deeper connection with the aforementioned body part. A numb awareness permeated through my limbs. It was a strangely spiritual experience. If Seri wasn’t my trusted friend, I would’ve thought I joined a cult.

“Now let’s begin a mental body scan. Be fully aware of your position in this universe. Start by paying attention to your right foot…”

Ignoring the body scan, my mind latched onto the idea of being “aware”. I was aware that Seri was in my earbuds, both live and in-recording; one Seri guided me through the meditation, while the other one participated with me. I was also aware that it was the night before our final exam, and we had studied our harfest for the past week of classes. Having finished my final project for english, my brain was filled with nothing but calculus.

So how’d we end up here, you might ask?

Long story short, I agreed to do a day-in-her-life for the twenty-four hours leading up to finals, and unlocked a secret fourth step in her three-step study strategy: studying in your sleep. At least, that’s what she called it. According to my google research, it’s some kind of meditative practice called yoga nidra, where you maintain consciousness while engaging in deep rest.

Study time was study time. That’s what I always told myself, but Seri really pushed for this activity today. Considering how she made an hour-long recording and everything, I couldn’t blame her — she was sharing habits that could maximise my neuron potential out of the goodness of her heart. Pharmacy was a competitive program too, so she had no need to help me…

Wait. Seri has no need to help me. There’s no way she’s sabotaging me, right? This girl has ate with me, laughed with me, and bought me numerous cheeseburgers. I nearly fell for her honey trap a couple times too. Could she be a traitor?

“Now as you focus on your head, let go of the weight in your mind…” the recording prompted enticingly. I brushed the silly thoughts out of my head. Those were exactly the type distractions we were training to overcome.

I heard Seri’s rhythmic breathing through my earbuds; streaming live. We were going to be connected virtually all night. What a time to be alive.

“Now visualise the derivative of x to the third…” the recording said. My brain did a double-take. Perhaps the word “derivative” triggered my fight or flight response, since my heart rate sped up immediately. The vibe went straight from a calm spiritual experience to a PTSD nightmare.

My eyes fluttered open. “What is this?”

“This is to help us study, remember? We review maths during conscious deep rest instead of sleeping.”

“It feels kinda we-“

“Shhh! Stop distracting me,” she scolded. “I’m just getting into it.”

“Alright.” I complied with my silence, and listened to the recording. As I kept my hands still, they began to tingle. The urge to move them kept growing, but I knew that was precisely what Seri wanted me to fight.

“Don’t give into temptation,” was what she said. “Before you know it, you’ll gain the habit of self-discipline!”

I can definitely see how that would help me study. Her logic is flawless: controlling myself from giving in to impulses would help me control myself when I’m getting distr- shoot, I got distracted again.

Seri’s voice continued to chant equations through my earbuds. “Visualise the natural log of four x minus two equals five…”

I exhaled. It was more of an exasperated sigh, really. Trying to imagine the maths questions frankly stressed me out and lowered the quality of my rest. But as I breathed, I noticed Seri did too, and the task of trying to match our breaths began to occupy me. She was smaller than me, but her respirations were deep and long even by my standard. It was suspiciously easy to be in sync with her, and the tingly sensation expanded from my limbs to my chest.

Does she know what I’m doing? Is she doing the same?

I could no longer pay attention to whatever her recording said. All I had awareness of was the cycle of breathe in and breathe out… breathe in and breathe out… breathe in…

BOOM BOOM BOOM

Deep bass drums pounded in my ears. Then a synthetic instrument began to play, as if the percussion wasn’t annoying enough. Its audio quality was rather terrible, but the volume was enough to wake me up.

Startled, I opened my eyes and scanned my room. Light creeped out from under my blackout curtains. The sound didn’t seem to come from anything within my range of vision. Why was it so loud?

“Uuuugh…” Seri groaned. Then the sound disappeared with a clack.

The electronic dance music seemed to be her alarm. I had completely forgotten we were still in a call. My earbuds miraculously stayed in all night, even with my tossing and turning. Happy with having called Seri for so long, I stretched and glanced at my own alarm.

The clock said it was eight in the morning, which gave me a pleasant surprise. I rarely felt so well-rested waking up before noon.

“You ready for our final?!” I asked enthusiastically. Even my own voice startled me. It seemed to have been warmed up already.

“…”

“Seri?”

Her reply was deep and tired. “Yeah yeah… just let me wake up…”

Was this the same girl that had lulled me to sleep?