Sometimes we are just thirsty or too hot, but most often our insomnia is psychological.
有时我们失眠只是因为口渴或太热，但最常见的失眠其实是心理上的原因。
It is the mind's revenge for all the efforts we have, largely unbeknownst to us, been making not to have certain thoughts in the day.
这是大脑对我们所做的一切努力的报复，这些努力在很大程度上是我们不知道的，在一天中我们并没有产生这些想法。
We are being woken up by a need to think about something that we have assiduously been ignoring, probably thanks to our work, or our social and family commitments.
我们被一种需要唤醒，去思考一些我们一直忽视的事情，这可能是由于我们的工作，或者我们的社会和家庭承诺导致的。
Having attempted to get our attention by more normal means in the clamour of the day, our deep minds are now trying to get us to have an appointment with certain insights in the quieter hours of night.
在白天的喧嚣中，我们试图通过更正常的方式来吸引我们的注意力，我们内心深处的思想正试图让我们在晚上更安静的时候进行有一定洞察力的约会。
Our 3am awakenings are signs that we have repeatedly not been doing the sort of self-reflection we need to do in order to be at peace.
我们凌晨 3 点仍然醒着表明，我们一直没有完成我们需要做的自我反省来获得平静。
We are not being lazy; we are not shunning our responsibilities out of wilfulness.
我们不是懒惰；我们不是故意逃避我们的责任。
We are simply escaping, for very understandable reasons, from what are liable to be a range of difficult thoughts, perhaps about work, a relationship, or our childhoods.
出于非常可以理解的原因，我们在逃避一系列可能比较困难的想法，也许是关于工作、关系或我们的童年。
If we are to regain sleep, we should begin to visit — with greater tenderness and imagination than we allow ourselves in the day — some of the bolted and locked rooms of our mind.
如果我们想恢复睡眠的话，我们应该开始探访——带着比白天更强的温柔和想象力——一些我们头脑中被锁上的锁着的房间。
In a spirit of gentle curiosity, protected by our duvet, under the care of darkness, we might dare to raise certain sorts of enquiry:
本着温和的好奇心，在羽绒被的保护下，在黑暗的呵护下，我们可能会敢于提出某种询问：
What am I truly, truly sad about at the moment?
我现在真正悲伤的是什么？
Who has hurt me?
谁伤害了我？
What needs to change?
需要改变什么？
What is the real grief beneath the surface anxiety?
表面焦虑背后真正的悲伤是什么？
What is my gut telling me I need to know now?
我的直觉告诉我我现在需要知道什么？And do next?
接下来做什么？
These can be uncomfortable questions no doubt, but we can use the night to help us to face them.
毫无疑问，这些都是令人不舒服的问题，但是我们可以利用夜晚来帮助我们面对它们。
Everyone else is asleep.
其他人都睡着了。
It matters a little less now that we think in conventional ways.
与我们传统的思维方式相比，它已经不那么重要了。
We can be odd, fanciful, imaginative and kind.
我们可能古怪、富于想象力，而且很善良。
We can go a little mad between 3 and 4am and no one will ever need to know.
我们可以在凌晨 3 点到 4 点之间变得有点疯狂，没有人需要知道这件事情。
We can write things down in a notebook and destroy the pages in the morning.
我们可以把心中所想记在笔记本上，然后在早上销毁。
What counts is that we give ourselves the chance to understand our shy and pained psyches a little better.
重要的是，我们给自己一个机会，更好地理解我们害羞和痛苦的心理。
They have been crying out for our attention and we have — till now — run away from our duty of care.
它们一直在呼唤我们的关注，到目前为止，我们已经逃避了我们的照护义务。
Our minds' ultimate responsibility is to our growth and self-understanding.
我们大脑的最终责任是我们的成长和自我理解。
They want us to sleep of course, they understand as well as any expert that rest is important, but they have as a priority something even more important than energetic limbs: psychological insight.
它们想让我们睡觉，它们和任何专家一样明白休息很重要，但是它们优先考虑的是比精力充沛的四肢更重要的东西：心理洞察力。
They need us to have felt what needs to be felt, to have been angry where we are in a rage, to be sad where we are grief stricken.
它们需要我们去感受到我们需要感受的东西，在愤怒的时候生气，在悲痛的时候悲伤。
They are irrepressibly driven to try align our surfaces with our depths.
它们不可抑制地试图将我们的表层世界与我们的深层内心对齐。
They are trying to send us, as it were, to the School of Night, not to be unkind, but so that we can catch up on some very key lessons about who we really are that we have until now been too distracted or squeamish to attend.
他们试图把我们送到夜校，并不是不友好，而是为了让我们能够去上一些关于我们到底是谁的非常关键的课程，直到现在我们都因为太分心或神经质所以还未曾参加。
We would sleep better once we begin to ask ourselves these questions on a regular basis.
当我们开始经常问自己这些问题之后，我们肯定就可以睡得更好了。
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