What I think about while I lie awake at night, Part II: Is there a psychologist in the house?

As I said in the last post, I often wake up in the middle of the night with some question or idea that won't go away, and that I end up lying awake thinking about it for hours when I'd much rather be sleeping. There's a definite association, but what about causation? Is there some subconscious need to lie awake thinking about these things, or are these just things that occupy my mind when I can't sleep for other reasons? Did the sleeplessness come from the thinking, or the thinking from the sleeplessness? Which came first?

And, as I said in the previous post, I spent hour after sleepless hour last night thinking about a scene from Apollo 13. During one of those hours, I took a brief detour and as I wandered down that road, I ran across this "chicken or the egg" problem.

If this were something work related--something that I'd been working over in the back of my mind--and my subconscious was just shouting "Eureka!" and insisting that I pay attention, I'd go with the thinking causing the sleeplessness.

But I have no idea why, out of the blue, I would feel compelled to try to imagine as many possible (or impossible) explanations for what happens to heat in space.

Maybe someday a psychologist well studied in these things will run across this blog and post an explanation in the comments section.

Or maybe I've got it all wrong. Maybe it's not so much a "chicken or the egg" as a Wild Turkey problem.