Nap Time?

I'm sitting here watching a DGQ concert on Netflix when I should clearly be grading. What I'd really like to be doing though is taking a nap. It's been quite a while since I've scheduled a nap as I used to do, but I still get the occasional impromptu doze once in a while. A few years ago, I used to be thinking about naps from the moment I rolled out of bed, scheduling them around my lunch & break opportunities. These days, they happen more or less based on the convenience.

However, I laid down the other morning after taking the kids to school & running a couple errands intending to sleep for a bit. I couldn't fall asleep though because I laid there obsessing over a simple question: "Does going back to bed @ 9:15 actually constitute taking a nap or is it simply continuing the slumber from before?" When is a nap a nap? Clearly, laying down @ 3:00PM when one has been awake for 6 hours & sleeping for a half hour is a nap. Not every afternoon sleep could be called a nap though. People working midnight shifts sleep daily @ 3:00PM but would never see that as a nap. The same could be said for any time's slumber so naps are clearly not determined by the time frame.

What about the length of the slumber? Is a 20 minute rest always a nap? I would have said yes except that many people have trouble sleeping & only get 20 consecutive minutes on a nightly basis. They are not taking 25 naps; they are simply not sleeping soundly. I can relate to this some nights... not as often as others though. On the other hand, 8 hours probably shouldn't be called a nap either, but in "A Visit from St. Nicholas" I think it is. We can presume that the speaker of the poem is planning to sleep through the night when he hears the prancing & pawing on the roof. In this case, "laying down for a long winter's nap" is simply akin to going to bed.

Maybe that's always the case though. Had I slept @ 9:15, just an hour & a half after waking up initially, I may have been napping even though in my mind I was simply continuing the previous sleep session. See, here's the thing: I clearly feel there should be a duration of time between waking & going back to sleep for the second sleep to be considered a nap. That specific duration is hard to nail down though. Then again, perhaps I napped w/o realizing it. I mean, I know I didn't fall asleep, but maybe the nap is really just the act of laying down w/ the intent to sleep. Napping seems contingent on sleep, but people go all night w/o sleeping yet still claim they "went to bed." The phrases "going to bed" & "taking a nap" seem almost synonymous except that one can nap w/o a bed. If this is the case, & if sleep isn't really necessary for a nap, I guess I took a nap after all. I don't know. I know I could use one right now though, but alas, I'm off to class.