Memorandum on Pre-Sleep Room Scan

MEMORANDUM
Subject: Pre-Sleep Room Scan
Filed: Late evening, approximately 11 p.m.
Status: Ongoing

I. The Situation

The subject is in bed. The room is approximately as settled as it was going to be. This is not the moment at which the scan begins.

The scan begins after the subject has adjusted the pillow, pulled the blanket to the correct position, and allowed approximately forty seconds to pass. At this point, a mental inventory of the room's unsettled elements commences without the subject's formal consent.

II. The Inventory

The items reviewed are consistent across nights and represent a closed set: the door (is it closed), the main light (is it off), the phone charger (is it connected), the window (is it latched), and one additional item that varies but always presents itself as equally important as the others.

The scan would take thirty seconds performed standing up. Performed horizontally, at intervals, with the lamp off, it takes considerably longer and is less effective.

III. What the Scan Finds

The door is closed. The door has been closed. The door was closed before the light was turned off, before the charging cable was plugged in, and certainly before the subject got into bed and began wondering whether the door was closed. The door is closed at the time of the scan for the same reason it has been closed at every previous scan: the subject closed it.

The charger is plugged in. The light is off. These facts were also true before they were checked, and checking them did not make them more true.

IV. The Structure of the Problem

The pre-sleep room scan is not a search for problems. It is a requirement that the subject produce a feeling of having searched for problems before permission to stop thinking is granted. The room is fine. The scan is an audit of a settled situation by a mind that has not yet agreed to let the situation be settled.

The charger will be checked one more time. This is known. It will still be plugged in.