To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

21 November 2011 at 10:56 pm (Family, Insight, Plinky Prompts, Psychology, Self, Wellbeing)
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I've never put much stock by dreams, mine or others'. I guess that came in handy when I pretty much stopped having any.

Bows (faux dreamcatcher)

I blame it all on that dreamcatcher. Not sure if it was handmade (it did look a bit too regular for that, though), but a beautiful piece, with a set of wind chimes hanging from it. I hung it at my balcony door and used to give the chimes a ring at least once a day. I'm picky with my chime sounds, and that set was more than nice. I thought I'd got a good bargain.

I didn't even realise for the longest time that I no longer dreamt of anything at all. I'm not very perceptive in the long run, unless I keep notes. I believe it was a few years later, probably after I had grown tired with the thing and got rid of it, that it dawned on me what had happened.

I had found a set of fabulous instructions on how to craft one's own dreamcatcher, and there it was mentioned that the centre of the web should be left open, like in the picture above, not closed with a bead, as is the case with most ready-made dreamcatchers. The lore behind the craft says that nightmares are supposed to get tangled in the web and stay trapped there until the morning light dissipates them, while good dreams find their way through the central opening to reach the sleeper. Blocking that opening can only stop the dreaming altogether. The tribal inventors of dreamcatchers would be appalled.

One way or another, my dream life dwindled away to nothing while the dreamcatcher was in place, and hasn't bounced back since. I'm not particularly sorry. I've always found the fact that dreams remain unfinished (because you can't remember it if you don't wake in its duration) frustrating. Remembering good dreams was also rare, while nightmares stayed with me much longer. Must be my natural glass-half-empty attitude. I wasn't sorry to see those go. Up until I got admitted to university, I'd be chased by Lovecraftian horrors, or falling endlessly, screaming my throat raw without any sound coming out, more nights than not. Enough was enough.

Mind you, I don't mean I don't have REM sleep or anything. I bet I do, or I'd have been a subject of medical study long ago. I just get only the utilitarian dreams, the ones I don't wake in the middle of. I've never had a significant-feeling dream in my life. The odd nightmare still slips in when the stress levels hit the red, but that's par for the course.

A superstition from my neck of the woods claims that when you dream of the dead, they want something from you. My father died unexpectedly when I was 17, before I acquired the dreamcatcher. To this day, I count the event as one of my most traumatic experiences. And yet, I've never dreamt of him, not in the shock of the first nights, not in the quieter grief that has accompanied me since. I take it that he's happy with me, wherever he is.

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Vice Human

19 December 2010 at 11:25 am (Insight, Psychology, Self)
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Yes, I know that’s a Greek heavy metal band. Did you? Well, here’s my contribution to your learning for today.

But we’re not going to talk Greek metal scene here. We’re going to talk flaws of character. I’ve been challenged to confess five of my worst vices, and I’m going to do just that. Just to prove that people should be careful what they wish for, lest they get it. So, in no particular order:

Procrastination. The Spaniards call it mañana. (Actually, the term ‘Spanish practices’, which includes the so-called ‘mañana attitude’, is a British coinage, frowned upon as discriminatory. Here’s another tidbit of knowledge.) For me, ‘later’ is sufficient. Vague enough. Although the Spanish version sounds cooler. Most things sound cool in Spanish. The point is the same, though. I make my deadlines, but so close that sometimes they need a photo-finish.

Resistance to temptation. It’s zero. Whether the temptation involves food, shopping or sex, I fall. Every single time. So, if I’m trying to diet or economise, I have to avoid temptation altogether, because walking away is nearly impossible. Unless I have someone by my side, and the one who’s leading me into temptation doesn’t count.

Interrupting. I can listen attentively, but not for long. I have good advice, and I’ll give it promptly. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be asking me for it, right? And if we disagree, you need to know immediately. Especially if you lay the blame at my door.

Laziness. Now, let’s clear this. I’m not a slacker, just unmotivated. I will put in the necessary effort, and no more – especially if it is a chore, in which case I will also postpone doing it as long as possible (see Procrastination). I don’t know if the path of least resistance is a key to enlightenment, but I can certainly attest to its contribution to one’s peace of mind. I’m not ambitious or driven, not in the way the modern world understands the words. I aim to become better, not necessarily to do better out there, and my priorities have changed a lot. I chalk it up to advancing age.

Sleep schedule. I don’t care that the years when I pulled all-nighters on the net are long gone. Even though having a young child forces me to be not only diurnal, but also functional in the early morning, I still find myself lingering on later at night than is good for anyone’s health or peace of mind. Although I can no longer manage without adequate sleep (another sign of advancing age), and end up sleep-deprived or headachey, occasionally needing to sleep half the Saturday or Sunday to recover, I still can’t get to bed at a sensible hour. Or rather, I can, but I won’t, because the sirens of the ‘net are beckoning (see Resistance to temptation).

And that’s it. A full house of vices for your perusal. Nothing that will make me a bane of society any time soon, but hey, little people, little troubles. It could have been worse. I could have been Amy Winehouse. Or Britney Spears.

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Mezzo-Mezzo

27 November 2010 at 4:47 pm (Insight, Plinky Prompts, Psychology, Self)
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Half full or half empty, it’s still the same quantity. What the vessel is half of can make more of a difference. Too bad that has to be another ballgame altogether.

WINE_GLASS_NOVELTY_MG_1444

Why on earth is a half-glassful such a dirty word, I can’t understand. While empty glasses, of course, are pretty much useless, a completely full glass is a pain as well. Have you tried to move around holding a glass full to the brim without splattering yourselves and/or some unfortunate along your path?

Facetiousness aside, I can’t really call myself either an optimist or a pessimist, and that’s not because I’m a realist who balances smack in the middle, but because I hop from one camp to the other and back, not only with ease, but also with little provocation. It’s called mood swing, people.

I can hope that things will turn out all right, but not actually believe it. I know that, all too often, things don’t turn out all right, and I make provisions for that case. I play the lottery, but stick to my budget as much as I can. When I take on a challenge, I always steer by the worst case scenario. I do my best, and trust myself and my abilities to succeed, but I’m always prepared for failure, so as not to be disappointed.

Optimists call pessimists Scrooges who have forfeited their ability to enjoy the good times. Pessimists call optimists Pollyannas with no grounding in reality. Self-styled realists call both extremists who can’t see the complexity of the world through their own prejudice. Everyone calls those who switch camps feckless. Is life all about name-calling?

Life, the universe, and everything, in the end, are like the hot beverage referenced up there in the title. ‘Mezzo-mezzo’ means ‘half and half’, which doesn’t refer to dairy cream but to a mix of espresso and hot chocolate, which I learned to love when I worked at the Athens airport and a barista at the station cafe had taken a liking to me and made it extra large for my sake. It’s always hot and rich, but it is both sweet and bitter, and it was a toss-up which taste would prevail each day, even though the mix was the same. It was my taste buds that made the difference, not the ingredients or the barista’s skill. Similarly, I can be an optimist, a pessimist, and anything in between, depending on which side of the bed I get up each morning. As long as life is fluid and nothing is assured, this is going to be a perfectly acceptable path.

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The Spectre Without

25 November 2010 at 3:46 pm (Entertainment, Insight, Movies, Plinky Prompts, Psychology, Reading, Religion)
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Belief in ghosts seems to be for some a substitute for more organised spiritual systems, and for others, a throwback to the Dark Ages and proof that we’re still primitives at heart. As usual, I can agree with neither. On the fence, moi?
Marley’s Ghost

I’m going to be upfront: I’ve never seen a ghost. I’ve never thought I saw a ghost. I’ve never witnessed a haunting of any kind, be it spectral figures, slamming doors, eerie lights, or what have you. I have been spooked in certain places, but it has always been a case of ‘this is giving me the creeps’ rather than ‘what was that?’, if you know what I mean.

I still don’t know how I feel about the existence of ghosts as a theory. My personal religious and spiritual path has led me to believe that the dead are removed from the world of the living. They can’t come back, contact the living (seances are either frauds or extremely dangerous), or, more importantly, lose their way to the afterlife and linger in some sort of in-between state, because it is not up to them to move on or not.

On the other hand, I do believe that great spiritual or, especially, emotional activity can leave a residue when the person that was the focus of such activity is gone. Random apparitions can very well be residual presence of the departed, not themselves. Or, in the worst of cases, especially in cases of great negativity, there can be gateways into the spirit world that allow other kinds of spirits to come through. Those can impersonate the dead, but are other things altogether. Such can happen spontaneously in locations loaded with emotion, especially if it keeps being fed by the emotions of others (I wouldn’t be surprised at all if cathedrals had all their resident ‘ghosts’, just as many people claim that concentration camps do), or they can be created through ritual. Spiritualist seances open the gates wide for such intrusion, and I believe there’s more there than horror movie fodder.

Speaking of which, I want it on record that I can enjoy a good ghost story as much as the greatest believer in the real thing. A Christmas Carol is a perennial favourite and it’s not a proper holiday season without re-reading it, and preferably watching it as well (Sir Alec Guinness, in the 1970 musical version, is easily the best Jacob Marley out there). The Victorians generally created great ghost stories, from Joseph Sheridan LeFanu to Oscar Wilde through Algernon Blackwood. (And Patrick Stewart as the Canterville Ghost? Win!) The Sixth Sense is high on my list of memorable movies, and I’m looking forward to the new season of Being Human, to see what became of Annie – and I’ll be quite miffed if she’s written clean out.

To conclude the ramble, the jury’s out on the issue, and I may be swayed towards either extreme still. I do know, though, that such is not going to happen through New Age wishiwashiness, nor through militant materialism.

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Pen and Paper, Upgraded

19 November 2010 at 11:36 pm (Education, Entertainment, Internet, Plinky Prompts, Psychology, Reading, Roleplaying, Self, Writing)
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The internet is not for porn, it is for wasting time… Porn is just the excuse.

Laptop and working lunch. An outside table with a silver laptop, coffee and a sandwich on it.

You know, I can hardly believe myself that I’ve only been on the internet for nine years (since 27 December 2001, to be precise), and only the last five of them on a broadband connection. I feel like I’ve been online forever, and I wouldn’t even be able to imagine my life without being permanently hooked up. Addicted, me? Well… just a little.

Mind you, I don’t just waste time on the ‘net. I don’t do social networks, so no hours on Farmville. Despite the suggestions up there in the intro, porn is not my thing either. When I first got a computer, I was a bit worried that I’d be consumed by games. I needn’t have worried, in that respect. I never took to gaming; instead, when I discovered how much free reading material there is out there, ready to be downloaded, there was no stopping. So much that I hardly leave myself time to actually read the material I get. Irony much?

No, it’s the writing that consumes me. Both roleplaying forums I belong to are busy, and juggling my stories can be overwhelming. I’m currently involved in a couple dozen storylines in total, and although my partners and I are anything but daily posters, the owed replies can pile up very quickly if anything gets in the way of inspiration. In my case, a toddler does come in the way, very often, and gets precedence as well. I feel particularly bad if I catch myself getting impatient with him because he’s keeping me from my writing (and administrative duties, considering I’m staff at both places).

And those are without counting all the blogging. I currently maintain four blogs, all with different purposes and audiences, from personal journaling to formal writing projects – this one being something in the middle. I have another project in the sidelines, something I should have started two years ago but, as usual, I bit more than I could chew. The cherry on top is NaNoWriMo, which I could never have done without my connection.

Sometimes I feel guilty when I let things slide onto the back burner because I can’t tear myself away from the computer. I should go out more with the young one, find more socialisation options for him… but it’s so easy to put off playgroup when it looks like rain, and stay in and write instead. I don’t get twitchy if the ‘net goes down for a few hours, but I do carry my netbook with me when I go out of town, hoping to leech off some neighbour’s connection.

An indication of how much time my online writing takes up: Last time we went to visit with my mother-in-law and were unable to get a connection, I read some 600 pages in just under four incommunicado days, including a 375-pager in just over 24 hours.

When I return to gainful employment, work had better keep me damn busy, if I’m not to resort to sneak peeks or suffer withdrawal.

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