Where are you, sleep?

It was 3:30am when I woke up hearing Pepper, the dog, whimpering and he sounded like he was crying. Rai woke up, too, and I told him that Pepper wants to get out of the room. He was sleeping with us since 12mn when I called him to enter our room. He probably wants to pee and he knows he can't pee in here. Since I woke up, I also went to pee but can't go back to sleep anymore. Here's one of the dis/advantages of working in our industry: whether you sleep early or late, as long as you woke up during the wee hours, you'll have a hard time sleeping again.

Time check: 5:34am and I'm still awake. I tried browsing Facebook but it doesn't bore me to sleep. I tried reading books, particularly The Litigators by John Grisham, but I remember, while reading, that I'm interested with law and it did not help me with catching some yawns. I'm already at the climax just by reading more than an hour. Who talks about sleeping again?

Moreover, the lights outside, particularly the one at the front of our window, was turned off and I am scared and paranoid. What if I look there and someone's watching? To think that I can hear a lot of dogs barking outside. You know what they say about dogs barking when no one's there? They can see ghosts! 😱😱😱 But then again, the dogs were probably just 'talking' about each other.

I can check out the CCTV monitor since it's at this room but... I'm scared again. What if someone's looking at it? Paranormal activity, y'know? Oh sh*t, I really need to sleep. I'm thinking nonsense and only scaring myself! Hell, I'm even doing a good job about it! 😣😣

I'm actually not alone in this room. Rai is sleeping beside me but it still doesn't dismiss the fact that I'm afraid of what's out there. Every now and then, he reaches out for me and hug me. I was trying to wake him up awhile ago by kissing, smack only!, him but he'll just give me a smack then sleep again. After several tries, I gave up. He woke up a minute ago, too, and after seeing me still up, he started tapping my legs, like what moms do to kids to lull them to sleep, but stopped since he fell asleep again. I really can't disturb him. He's far away to the real world and is enjoying dreamland!

So what to do?

I can't use my 'Sleep Pillow' right now coz it'll wake up Rai.

What do you do when you can't sleep?

I started couting sheeps but it doesn't help!

Any other tricks you know of?