question: why is it that even in pitch black darkness it’s near impossible to fall asleep with your eyes open?
comment: Because: 1) keeping your eyes open requires muscles to be active - usualy muscles being relaxed is more conductive to sleeping. 2) having your eyes open dries them out, making it uncomfortable.
passages: Dim or dark surroundings with a peaceful, quiet sound level are conducive to sleep. Retiring to a bedroom, drawing the curtains to block out daylight and closing the door are common methods of achieving this. When this is not possible, such as on an airplane, other methods may be used, such as masks and earplugs for sleeping which airlines commonly issue to passengers for this purpose.
  
  Section::::Activities.
  
  Section::::Activities.:Guided imagery.
   Section::::Production.:Adaptation.
  
  Arthur Schnitzler's 1926 novella "Dream Story" is set around Vienna after the turn of the century. The main characters are a couple named Fridolin and Albertina. The couple’s home is a typical suburban middle-class home. Like the protagonist of the novel, Schnitzler was Jewish, lived in Vienna, and was a medical doctor, although he left medicine to write.
   Koestler drew on the experience of being imprisoned by Francisco Franco's officials during the Spanish Civil War, which he described in his memoir, "Dialogue with Death". He was kept in solitary confinement and expected to be executed. He was permitted to walk in the courtyard in the company of other prisoners. Though he was not beaten, he believed that other prisoners were.
  
  Section::::Characters.
   BULLET::::- Alteration of circadian rhythm and sleep disturbance – The lack of time references and limited facilities affect sleep quality and cycles length
  
  BULLET::::- Sensory alteration / deprivation – Not only caves are lightless, they also provide almost no auditory or olfactory stimuli
  
  BULLET::::- Limited privacy – Small, confined spaces do not offer much room for privacy or to keep spaces between team members
   “I couldn’t function in the dark, but he 'sees,'" says Dr. Nancy Barklage, who recalls entering a room prior to a UW Health staff meeting, turning on the lights and finding Cordes quietly working on his laptop while waiting for others to arrive. “I’ve experienced this a number of times now and it still kind of puts you into his reality.”
   As an undergraduate, the intern had built a device for two-way telepathic communication which he had tested with a fellow student with no result. The device was designed around his principle that thought was ultimately a form of radiant energy. Heedless of any ethics, he attached himself with Slater to the device as Slater lay near death. With the device switched on, he received a message from a being of light whose experiences had been what were transmitted through the medium of Joe Slater. This being explained that, when not shackled to their physical bodies, all humans are light beings. The thought-message went on to explain that, as light beings within the realm of sleep, humans can experience the vistas of many planes and universes which remain unknown to waking awareness.
   "Jacobson’s message is that by learning the art of being fully present in the moment, it is possible to awaken now." In an interview with The Edge Magazine, he states, "to be awake is as simple as being fully present in the moment of now. If you’re fully present with something that’s actually here in the moment with you, your mind will fall silent, thoughts will stop, and you’ll be awake in the truth of life." 
   A dawn simulator can be used as an alarm clock. Light enters through the eyelids triggering the body to begin its wake-up cycle, including the release of cortisol, so that by the time the light is at full brightness, sleepers wake up on their own, without the need for an alarm.
   Kxng Crooked has battled alcohol abuse on and off for years and told MTV News, “I’ve been in several dark places in my life. Betrayed by those closest to me or feelings of hopelessness in situations I can’t control or even others trying to remove me from this earth… It takes its toll. I have to rise above and keep moving forward for myself and my loved ones. I like to meditate and read a lot so that helps. Music is my ultimate medicine, though."
  
  Section::::Music video.
   On December 15, 2014 it was announced that lead vocalist Sam Robinson had decided to leave the band and to continue his music career with a different project. Later that day it was announced that Close Your Eyes would be attending South By So What festival 2015 with the return of their original lead vocalist Shane Raymond.
   St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, OCD, a 19th-century French nun and Doctor of the Church, wrote of her own experience of the dark night. Her dark night derived from doubt of the existence of eternity, to which doubt she nonetheless did not give intellectual or volitional assent, but rather prevailed by a deepening of her Catholic faith. However, she painfully suffered through this prolonged period of spiritual darkness, even declaring to her fellow nuns: "If you only knew what darkness I am plunged into..!"
   Blue light, principally around , suppresses melatonin biosynthesis, proportional to the light intensity and length of exposure. Until recent history, humans in temperate climates were exposed to few hours of (blue) daylight in the winter; their fires gave predominantly yellow light. The incandescent light bulb widely used in the 20th century produced relatively little blue light. Light containing only wavelengths greater than 530 nm does not suppress melatonin in bright-light conditions. Wearing glasses that block blue light in the hours before bedtime may decrease melatonin loss. Use of blue-blocking goggles the last hours before bedtime has also been advised for people who need to adjust to an earlier bedtime, as melatonin promotes sleepiness.
   Section::::James Taylor's version.
   Sailors can take reliable star sightings of well-known stars, during the stage of nautical twilight when they can distinguish a visible horizon for reference (i.e. after astronomic dawn or before astronomic dusk). 
  
  Under good atmospheric conditions with the absence of other illumination, during nautical twilight, the human eye may distinguish general outlines of ground objects but cannot participate in detailed outdoor operations.
   The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends screen time for children be limited for multiple reasons, among them that "Too much screen time can also harm the amount and quality of sleep".
  
  Many apps promise to improve sleep by filtering out blue light produced by media devices; there have been no large studies to assess whether such apps work. Some users express dissatisfaction with the resultant orange tint of screens. Some people use blue-blocking glasses, for the purpose of attempting to block out blue light both from electronic media and from other artificial light sources.
  
  Section::::See also.
  
  BULLET::::- Dark therapy
   In a study done on the effect of lighting intensity on delta waves, a measure of sleepiness, high levels of lighting (1700 lux) showed lower levels of delta waves measured through an EEG than low levels of lighting (450 lux). This shows that lighting intensity is directly correlated with alertness in an office environment.
   Open Your Eyes (band)
  
  Open Your Eyes is an American rock band from Chicago, IL. Their debut album, "Truth or Consequences", was released on March 25, 2016 and peaked at #25 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart.
  
  OYE is currently recording their sophomore album with producers Matt Good of From First To Last , & Ben Bruce of Asking Alexandria .
  
  Section::::History.
   The internal circadian clock is profoundly influenced by changes in light, since these are its main clues about what time it is. Exposure to even small amounts of light during the night can suppress melatonin secretion, and increase body temperature and wakefulness. Short pulses of light, at the right moment in the circadian cycle, can significantly 'reset' the internal clock. Blue light, in particular, exerts the strongest effect, leading to concerns that electronic media use before bed may interfere with sleep.
   In mammals, the eye is the main photosensitive organ for the transmission of light signals to the brain. However, blind humans are still able to entrain to the environmental light-dark cycle, despite having no conscious perception of the light. One study exposed subjects to bright light for a prolonged duration of time and measured their melatonin concentrations. Melatonin was not only suppressed in visually unimpaired humans, but also in blind participants, suggesting that the photic pathway used by the circadian system is functionally intact despite blindness. Therefore, physicians no longer practice enucleation of blind patients, or removal of the eyes at birth, since the eyes play a critical role in the photoentrainment of the circadian pacemaker.
   An organism whose circadian clock exhibits a regular rhythm corresponding to outside signals is said to be "entrained"; an entrained rhythm persists even if the outside signals suddenly disappear. If an entrained human is isolated in a bunker with constant light or darkness, he or she will continue to experience rhythmic increases and decreases of body temperature and melatonin, on a period which slightly exceeds 24 hours. Scientists refer to such conditions as free-running of the circadian rhythm. Under natural conditions, light signals regularly adjust this period downward, so that it corresponds better with the exact 24 hours of an Earth day.
   The lamp flickers. From under the blanket, the woman looks towards the power strip it’s plugged in to. She nervously reaches out, locates the plug, and pushes it in more firmly. The flickering stops. The hallway light clicks back on and she sees it’s on again and the door is only slightly ajar again. She calms down, then suddenly sees a monstrous humanoid with all-white eyes and an open mouth at her bedside table. It turns off the lamp, and the screen goes dark.
  
  Section::::Production.
   "Luminosity" or "clear light" (Tibetan "'od gsal", Sanskrit "prabhāsvara"), is a central concept in Esoteric Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. It is the innate condition of the mind, associated with buddha-nature, the realisation of which is the goal of meditative practice. It is said to be experienced when the coarse and subtle minds dissolve during deep sleep, during orgasm, and during the death process. All systems of Tibetan Buddhism agree that the clear light nature of mind is non-conceptual and free from all mental afflictions, and that tantra is the superior method of working with this nature of the mind.
   F.lux
  
  f.lux is a cross-platform computer program that adjusts a display's color temperature according to location and time of day, offering functional respite for the eyes. The program is designed to reduce eye strain during night-time use, helping to reduce disruption of sleep patterns.
  
  Section::::Functionality.
   In some places (away from urban light pollution, moonlight, auroras, and other sources of light), where the sky is dark enough for nearly all astronomical observations, astronomers can easily make observations of point sources such as stars both during and after astronomical twilight in the evening and both before and during astronomical twilight in the morning. However, some critical observations, such as of faint diffuse items such as nebulae and galaxies, may require observation beyond the limit of astronomical twilight. Theoretically, the faintest stars detectable by the naked eye (those of approximately the sixth magnitude) will become visible in the evening at astronomical dusk, and become invisible at astronomical dawn.
   Darkness
  
  Darkness, the polar opposite of brightness, is understood as a lack of illumination or an absence of visible light.
  
  Human vision is unable to distinguish color in conditions of either high brightness or high darkness. In conditions with insufficient light levels, color perception ranges from achromatic to ultimately black.
  
  The emotional response to darkness has generated metaphorical usages of the term in many cultures.
  
  Referring to a time of day, complete darkness occurs when the Sun is more than 18° below the horizon, without the effects of twilight on the night sky.
  
  Section::::Scientific.
  
  Section::::Scientific.:Perception.
  