It's a darned good thing that our bodies continue with their maintenance processes automatically, with no conscious direction needed. If awareness were required, I would have been dead by morning.

Because I got home last night, exhausted, and fell onto the bed, fully dressed. A dead person could have taken my correspondence course on sleep.

It was the kind of deep dreamless sleep that you have when you're at the end of your endurance and you pray that no emergency occurs because there's no hope of rousing you.

My SO tried to wake me up to get undressed and could get no response. He slapped me, he sprinkled me with water, he ticked my feet. Nothing.

He said he considered calling 911, but then remembered that I've told him about this happening to me a handful of times earlier in my life, and that I do wake up. Just make sure I can breathe and cover me up from the cold, like a baby.

I eventually woke up at 4 a.m. with that groggy, hit-in-the-head feeling. Another hour nap, and up at 5, feeling much more human and awake.

And ready for another go-round today.