We keep our bedroom a bit cooler than the rest of the house. There's a white noise machine that purrs in the background, each light is dimmed or extinguished altogether. Before drifting off to unconsciousness, everything seems perfect. The right amount of blankets, the perfect coverage of said blankets, the firmness of the pillow, a kiss goodnight and its lights out.
Somehow throughout the first hour and a half of dream land...things change. I'm not sure how it happens but the blankets either shrink causing a grab a corner of the blanket and roll over tug-of-war with your spouse; or perhaps some devilish elf casts some sort of spell that makes the blankets exceedingly heavy causing your poor legs to engage into a marathon of a river dance rehearsal. What was the perfect ambience is now some sort of slumber storm.
Personally, I find the temperature to be the thing that fluctuates most. Once again drifting off to sleep in the moment feels great. Perfectly cozy in a quilted Egyptian cotton burrito. That's when you begin to feel like your burrito got left under a heat lamp. Maybe pulling the blanket down just off the shoulder will work; fire an arm out as well. That's fine temporarily then its too chilly again, back to burritoville...for a few minutes. Then the foot wanders out like a turtle peeking out of its shell...followed by the rest of a single leg. That works for a while until it withdraws back under the blankets to join the other. Wash, rinse, repeat.
That's bad enough when you have a solo mattress. As soon as you add company, there's an entirely different element to it. I say company instead of partner or spouse, because one never knows what company will decide they need to add to this melting pot of discomfort. The partner or spouse could be an inferno or an ice block at any given moment. Think your feet are cold? Just wait till Jacqueline Frost puts her feet on you to warm up! Feeling a tad on the warm side try moving a little farther away from the furnace that is intent on taking every inch of your space while leaving an oasis of cool mattress on the other side. Kids are fantastic little lumps under the blanket that sneak in somehow during the night and find whatever space you were going to roll into next. Wear shin pads and cup to bed if these creatures reside in your house or you may feel you ended up in a nocturnal UFC match.
I'm not sure how people allow their dogs into the mix. My guy sleeps on the floor by my bed, then tic tacs to the other side of the bed; then to the bathroom mat; off to the hallway, and then randomly picks any of the aforementioned areas to settle down in for the next 20 minutes before moving again. I let him up on the bed once when it was just he and I travelling for a gig in my hotel room. Dogs sleep with their legs extended as if they fell suddenly from a standing position and landed paralyzed on their sides. Their legs may creep in a bit but that is only until they feel they need to over extend them into a full on stretch putting both front paws anywhere from your upper chest to your face, and sinking their lower paws anywhere from your soft relaxed belly to about mid thigh. Add the crazy dog dream that they are having and the rabbit they are chasing in that dream, and you aren't catching a wink of sleep.
I investigated some sort of wizardry that slips onto your mattress and keeps both sides of the bed customizably climatized. The price was outlandish so I haven't succumbed to that yet, and I don't believe that this company has truly considered any of the external factors I mentioned already about the guest generators that randomly occupy any given space in the surface area of a Sealy Posturepedic.
I don't remember having any of these issues in my early twenties, although it's likely I didn't even remember going to bed on many of those nights. I would just hit the mattress without any consideration whatsoever that I may even stir. Lights could be left on full beam with a Metallica concert left on the TV that eventually turned to some sort of W5 episode at 3 AM, and no factor, I would just drift off and sleep in the middle of that virtual construction zone.
If you do get that perfect sleep....that perfect temperature...it feels like you just sunk a 42 foot putt for birdie on the 18 hole of an otherwise 40 over par round of golf. It's elusive but it lets you know that it's out there and today just may be your day again. Maybe tonight is my night? I'll let you know how it goes. For now, it's time to get things going and wake those mattress mounds up for school.