Losing the Fans is Going To Be Harder Than I Anticipated

I knew it wouldn’t be easy to give up having a fan running at night (to save on some electricity), but I was not prepared for what happened the first time I tried to sleep without one.

I was pretty tired, so after a while I was able to fall asleep. That went better than I expected. What happened while in dreamworld is what took me off guard. I normally do not remember most of my dreams.

In the first one, I was the same age as I am now, but I was in a high school in band class. It wasn’t my high school, but one in a few towns over. That wasn’t too bad, until the teacher came out. It was Jack Black. I’m sure this dream was related to watching “School of Rock” which starred Jack Black. He was insisting that I play my instrument but I didn’t have one. Looking down at the floor there was an empty case, but the instrument was missing. I’m not sure what this dream means, but I am convinced that Jack Black is really crazy – in a good way, of course.

The next part of the dream was a little weirder…

After band “class,” I had to go home. I was walking down the road, but I decided to take a shortcut through a field. This wasn’t any field…it was a strawberry field. I was in heaven because I LOVE strawberries. I sat down in the field and all of a sudden my butt and legs became like a hovercraft and I was floating just above the strawberry plants.

Realizing my new found hovercraft abilities, I started buzzing forward towards home. All the way I was grabbing nice, almost over ripe strawberries left and right. The field seemed to go on forever and I finally briefly woke up. Nope, no leftover hovercraft abilities. Bummer.

The next dream was a scary one, so I don’t want to talk about that one. I will say it had bad people in it and they were chasing me.

Overall, it was an interesting night and when I woke up I was exhausted. It could have been the fact I had been hovercrafting across a field of strawberries most of the night and running from bad guys…but it’s probably due to waking up multiple times during the night. With my fan on, I guess I sleep like a baby.

This weekend I plan on trying to sleep fan-free again. If I had “happy dreams” I think I wouldn’t be so reluctant to turn off the fan. It was that one bad dream that put a damper on things.

In any case, I’m still working on getting rid of the fans and I’ll keep you updated.

Posted by Tricia on February 7, 2007 at 9:35 AM in Misc, Saving Money | 8 Comments »
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Tyler responded:
Posted: February 7th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Why don’t you turn down the heat in your house while you sleep? Or even off for that matter if being hot is your issue. I set my digital tstat to automatically go down to about 65 at 10 PM (when I go to bed). Also, open a window or something. If it’s the noise of the fan, try using a radio with a CD player and put in one of those natural sounds cd’s (with the oceans, waves, wind, grass etc.) I wouldn’t want to wake up if it were me!
Tricia responded:
Posted: February 7th, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Our heat for the past few days (during our sub zero cold spell) has been set at 62 at night. Once a better buffer of snow is surrounding our foundation and the weather isn’t quite so cold we will put set our thermostat at 58-60 at night. We installed a digital thermostat a little bit ago – the ability to program is wonderful!

The fan is mostly for the noise. It’s a habit I got into as a child and I’ve never tried to break it before now. I’ve just lived with it. I would even take a fan with me when traveling to go in our hotel room and my in-laws know to have a fan set up in the spare room when we come to visit.
Lauren responded:
Posted: February 7th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Hi there. I love your blog! I’m not trying to be nosy, but why do you need a fan in order to sleep? I’m curious b/c my boyfriend and I just moved in together and he needs to have the fan on when we sleep (it’s located by the bed, on his side) because he gets hot easily and breaks a little sweat. We’re struggling with this because I feel the air blowing on me at night and it’s sort of annoying, not to mention I woke up this morning with the first signs of a cold. I’m not going to blame this solely on the fan (after all, it’s 9 degrees out here in Philadelphia!) but I think it’s a contributing factor. Relationships are all about compromise so I guess I’ll have to concede in this situation because it’s not fair if it’s all about me
Frugal Homemaker Plus responded:
Posted: February 7th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
If you need sound, could you get a white noise CD and put it in a CD player with a “sleep” setting? I used to do this in college. I set it to where it would automatically turn off after an hour. That way you get the sound, but it won’t suck energy all night long- just an hour or two. Here’s to better dreams!
KL responded:
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 3:10 am
how about putting the fan in on an auto timer type plugin thing where it will shut itself off after an hour or so when you will be asleep by then
Mandi responded:
Posted: February 8th, 2007 at 9:18 am
I thought that you had mentioned your son likes to sleep with a fan. Maybe you can keep using it, but for both of you. Put it in the hallway (or some where) between your two rooms. By having it there you both can hear it to relax and wind down, but it will be farther away so you both can eventualy let it go.

Thank you for all you are doing in here. Your up-beat attitude makes life seem a bit easier for many.
Were We Able to Reduce our Electric Bill? : Blogging Away Debt responded:
Posted: March 3rd, 2007 at 11:19 am
[...] when not in use (and I drive my husband crazy with doing it LOL). I did attempt to stop using our fans at night to sleep, but that didn’t work. I think I am going to try to buy some timers when [...]
cindy dawn responded:
Posted: February 15th, 2008 at 7:57 am
there is a gadget called “white noise” it’s small like a radio, and when you turn it on it makes a “wind” sound. i use it instead of a fan too. i got it on line several years ago and it’s still working just fine.