Saturday, September 17, 2005
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Tonight, my biggest fantasy for the past year or so will come true; I'm going to get 12 hours of sleep.
I've been so tired for so long that I honestly don't remember what it feels like to be truly rested; my life is so full, and so frenzied, that the only way I can keep getting even the most essential stuff handled is to sleep less... and less... and less. And yes, part of what keeps me busy is my daily blog entries, which take up nearly all my "me time" (I still make time to exercise a few hours each week, but that's about it), and some of my sleep time, each day; I've made it a priority to do this daily mental exercise, because if I don't stick to my commitment to stretching my mind every day I'll end up with brain-lock like people I know who're either at work or vegging out, and thus haven't had a new, original, interesting, creative or spiritual thought in 20 years.
Still, my priorities take a toll on me; I'm months behind with my magazines, I barely remember what a book looks like, I have CD's I haven't listened to in YEARS, blah blah blah. When I get tired enough, if I DO manage some spare time I'm too spaced out to concentrate on anything without the adrenaline of "this HAS to get done" pushing me along; I don't think that 1 night of solid sleep, however long, will get me caught up, but hopefully it'll allow me to get my weekend tasks done quickly and be clear-headed enough to read a few articles in Discover.
It takes some work to have a 12-hour sleep session; I've taken some Advil to quiet my lower back, I'm holding as still as possible so that I can wind down and have my muscles get slack (all the physical tasks will wait until tomorrow), I've got an innocuous article to read to clear my mind, and I'm going to take a double dose of melatonin to make sure that my weary body and mind will sink into sleep when I lay down rather than ratcheting back up as they all too often do, especially when I get to bed early.
I can't describe the bliss of getting into bed knowing that I'm going to get REAL sleep... and that goes double tonight, when I'm too groggy to form any illuminating sentences, lol. If I can just get rested enough, I can accomplish more during the day, finish it up faster and thus get to sleep earlier each night, and then eventually, theoretically, get back to the point where I'm NOT tired most of the time, can focus my mind on getting things done, and...
Ah, to heck with it; even if I don't get beneficial side effects, I'm bone tired, I'm getting to bed really early, and I'm going to sleep like the dead for half a day. Life is good.
I've been so tired for so long that I honestly don't remember what it feels like to be truly rested; my life is so full, and so frenzied, that the only way I can keep getting even the most essential stuff handled is to sleep less... and less... and less. And yes, part of what keeps me busy is my daily blog entries, which take up nearly all my "me time" (I still make time to exercise a few hours each week, but that's about it), and some of my sleep time, each day; I've made it a priority to do this daily mental exercise, because if I don't stick to my commitment to stretching my mind every day I'll end up with brain-lock like people I know who're either at work or vegging out, and thus haven't had a new, original, interesting, creative or spiritual thought in 20 years.
Still, my priorities take a toll on me; I'm months behind with my magazines, I barely remember what a book looks like, I have CD's I haven't listened to in YEARS, blah blah blah. When I get tired enough, if I DO manage some spare time I'm too spaced out to concentrate on anything without the adrenaline of "this HAS to get done" pushing me along; I don't think that 1 night of solid sleep, however long, will get me caught up, but hopefully it'll allow me to get my weekend tasks done quickly and be clear-headed enough to read a few articles in Discover.
It takes some work to have a 12-hour sleep session; I've taken some Advil to quiet my lower back, I'm holding as still as possible so that I can wind down and have my muscles get slack (all the physical tasks will wait until tomorrow), I've got an innocuous article to read to clear my mind, and I'm going to take a double dose of melatonin to make sure that my weary body and mind will sink into sleep when I lay down rather than ratcheting back up as they all too often do, especially when I get to bed early.
I can't describe the bliss of getting into bed knowing that I'm going to get REAL sleep... and that goes double tonight, when I'm too groggy to form any illuminating sentences, lol. If I can just get rested enough, I can accomplish more during the day, finish it up faster and thus get to sleep earlier each night, and then eventually, theoretically, get back to the point where I'm NOT tired most of the time, can focus my mind on getting things done, and...
Ah, to heck with it; even if I don't get beneficial side effects, I'm bone tired, I'm getting to bed really early, and I'm going to sleep like the dead for half a day. Life is good.
Friday, September 16, 2005
What do we do about kids being teased?
If you were a regular target for teasing as a kid (as opposed to being the recipient of the occasional comment, which is VERY different), and your parents told you things to do that would allegedly stop the teasing, ask yourself this; did any of their advice actually WORK? The answer is almost certainly "no," as I've never had anyone tell me of a successful parent-supplied strategy that stopped THEM from being teased or harassed as kids... but why would that be? What's so hard about figuring out how a kid should be handling the misbehavior of other kids, that no adult seems to have any idea of what to tell a kid to do about it that will work? Why is it that parents tell kids abysmally stupid things to do instead, as if they don't have the brains to figure out what the ACTUAL response of the teasers will be to those things?
I know about this from experience; because I came from a sick, warped household, I was a weird kid, with the standard result... I was endlessly picked on. The one thing I managed to avoid was getting beaten up, in part because it was well known that I'd report anyone who got physical with me or my possessions to the nearest adult, and in part because of one of the few things my parents ever told me about dealing with people that's actually useful; "If someone hits you, you hit back twice as hard, and twice as many times, so that they THINK twice before daring to raise a hand to you again"... I still know it by heart nearly 3 decades after the last time it was said to me, and, despite the claims that violence never solves anything, it DOES make people disinclined to make you a target for THEIR violence. You can't tell a kid to hit whoever teases them, though, and I understood that I wasn't being given de facto permission to do that, so that useful tidbit didn't help me with the main problem.
One of my parents' ideas was for me to tell an adult if I was being teased; this is usually a waste of time to suggest to a kid because most of them won't do it, and if they DO, as I did, they find that it doesn't help, because, unlike with physical transgressions, adults don't see teasing as something to take action against... enough bullied kids have brought guns to school in recent years that teachers are FINALLY taking teasing, the precursor to bullying, seriously in at least some areas, but there was no shred of that attitude when I was a kid, and that's the way it is in many schools to this day.
My parents' glib advice to "just ignore them" was also a failure, because this led to the teasers escalating their behavior until it HAD to be reacted to in self defense, such as with things like screaming in my face or grabbing at me that didn't quite cross over into what the teachers were willing to take action against; I don't suppose that modern-day teasers are any less persistent, and even those who won't take it that far still aren't stopped by being ignored, because they KNOW that the victim hears them and is being hurt and humiliated by it even if they're stone-faced and unresponsive. When the teasing reaches the point that comments are being called out to the child wherever he is, if he doesn't respond he looks like a helpless victim, a safe and easy target... and a kid that everyone knows can't walk down the halls of the school without being followed by a steady stream of put-downs will tend to become totally socially isolated and friendless (as children fear drawing the attention of teasers and other bullies by being around a known target). This is probably the worst result of teasing, and one that adults consistently fail to take into account when judging the seriousness of those situations; if you don't take effective action about teasing before it reaches this point, there may be literally nothing you can do to get your child accepted back into "society" again... kids are loath to give up a familiar victim, and certainly aren't interested in befriending one.
My mother was big on giving me speeches to memorize that she somehow convinced herself would have a magical effect on the teasers; you might remember an episode of "The Brady Bunch" where the youngest boy (I think) is subjected to the same sort of "assistance," thereby making the bully more contemptuous and determined, with it going on and on until a fight finally ends it... to the dismay of the parents, who honestly thought they could have their son TALK the bully into submission. I'm here to tell you that speeches don't work any better on teasers in real life, any more than they have a salutary effect on ADULTS by anyone who isn't in authority over them... they just make the teasers go from "cheerful" teasing to ticked-off teasing.
Sometimes what my mother told me to say was only a line or 2, but that didn't fare any better; arguing with the teasers prolongs the teasing session, risks ticking them off, and makes more of a spectacle of the thing, making it more likely that others will join in. I learned the hard way that the most counter-productive thing you can have a child tell a teaser is that they're being immature; my use of that word caused increased problems every time, and led to me being targeted by a group of popular 8th graders for most of my 7th grade year (but in that case I managed to turn it totally around through quick thinking, see my post of 10-19-04).
Probably the stupidest advice my mother ever gave me was in reference to a boy in the 6th grade who'd taken to escalating his teasing to include poking or pushing me in a way not severe enough to get him in trouble, and then running away; when asked why I wasn't running after him to poke/push him back, I pointed out what should have been wildly obvious, that he was a much faster runner, and I had no chance of catching him. In reply, my mother told me, a bookish and unathletic girl, that when he next did this I should run after him, and keep running, because "he can't run forever," and when he stopped I could then get him back. I'm sure that you, unlike her, are bright enough to see the inevitable result; he poked me and ran, with me slogging along after him... until *I* stopped from exhaustion, long before he was even winded, while he harangued me from a safe distance until I got moving again, at which point he sprinted effortlessly away again... and this went on until I was too wiped out to continue, giving him a victory beyond his wildest dreams. When I reported this back to my mother, she didn't have the grace to admit that she'd been stupid, of course; she chalked up my inability to chase and catch an athletic BOY as evidence of some sort of character failing on my part.
Why, you might ask, did my mother not just speak to whatever teachers and other adults were responsible for monitoring my class and demand that the teasers be dealt with? It's not like she had any hesitancy about calling them and raking them over the coals when they incurred her disapproval, such as when a gym teacher was telling me to NOT hit back, and wasn't punishing those that hit 1st (as nasty as she was with him, he still shot his mouth off a 2nd time to me on the subject, and her 2nd call to him probably left him scarred for life, lol), but she shared the standard adult mindset in those days before kids started shooting up their schools that teasing wasn't important enough for adult intervention (and never lost her non-facts-based belief that there was some sort of procedure that I could be trained in that would fix things, sigh).
We're more enlightened these days; we know that being habitually teased causes all sorts of mental health problems, and often leads to unacceptable varieties of acting out as well... but we still don't have any better advice to give kids on how to handle it, especially when there are a bunch of teasers rather than just 1 bully who might be avoidable. WHY? Why is there nothing you can tell a kid that works against teasers?
I've wondered vaguely about that for many years, but the answer just occurred to me today:
We as adults can rarely, if ever, stop people who are teasing US... so why should we think we can tell a CHILD how to do it, especially when teasing is so much a part of childhood culture, and there isn't even the tiny bit of leverage offered by potential social disapproval? The scary reality is that, unless there's an authority figure (or someone tough and intimidating) willing to intercede on the victim's behalf, there's simply NO WAY to stop ANYONE from teasing.
For the sort of sporadic teasing that most kids deal with, it IS fine to tell them to ignore it, roll their eyes and walk away, or toss out a one-liner, but if a kid has become the focus for even ONE constant teaser, much less a group, that causes equally-constant stress and upset, and can quickly lead to the victim becoming an outcast, so it's up to all associated adults to take action; whether you're a parent, teacher, the lunchroom monitor, the parent of a classmate, or whatever your connection is with a kid that you find out has become a target, DO something about it, and I don't mean give stupid advice... talk to whoever has authority over the teaser at the location the teasing is taking place, and demand that action be taken to stop the teaser(s), not just for a day but for good. Make clear that you're going to be following up, and DO it, so that the cycle of teasing is permanently broken... BEFORE the victim gets a gun, or starts cutting themselves, abusing drugs, or doing whatever else they can think of to stop the pain.
I know about this from experience; because I came from a sick, warped household, I was a weird kid, with the standard result... I was endlessly picked on. The one thing I managed to avoid was getting beaten up, in part because it was well known that I'd report anyone who got physical with me or my possessions to the nearest adult, and in part because of one of the few things my parents ever told me about dealing with people that's actually useful; "If someone hits you, you hit back twice as hard, and twice as many times, so that they THINK twice before daring to raise a hand to you again"... I still know it by heart nearly 3 decades after the last time it was said to me, and, despite the claims that violence never solves anything, it DOES make people disinclined to make you a target for THEIR violence. You can't tell a kid to hit whoever teases them, though, and I understood that I wasn't being given de facto permission to do that, so that useful tidbit didn't help me with the main problem.
One of my parents' ideas was for me to tell an adult if I was being teased; this is usually a waste of time to suggest to a kid because most of them won't do it, and if they DO, as I did, they find that it doesn't help, because, unlike with physical transgressions, adults don't see teasing as something to take action against... enough bullied kids have brought guns to school in recent years that teachers are FINALLY taking teasing, the precursor to bullying, seriously in at least some areas, but there was no shred of that attitude when I was a kid, and that's the way it is in many schools to this day.
My parents' glib advice to "just ignore them" was also a failure, because this led to the teasers escalating their behavior until it HAD to be reacted to in self defense, such as with things like screaming in my face or grabbing at me that didn't quite cross over into what the teachers were willing to take action against; I don't suppose that modern-day teasers are any less persistent, and even those who won't take it that far still aren't stopped by being ignored, because they KNOW that the victim hears them and is being hurt and humiliated by it even if they're stone-faced and unresponsive. When the teasing reaches the point that comments are being called out to the child wherever he is, if he doesn't respond he looks like a helpless victim, a safe and easy target... and a kid that everyone knows can't walk down the halls of the school without being followed by a steady stream of put-downs will tend to become totally socially isolated and friendless (as children fear drawing the attention of teasers and other bullies by being around a known target). This is probably the worst result of teasing, and one that adults consistently fail to take into account when judging the seriousness of those situations; if you don't take effective action about teasing before it reaches this point, there may be literally nothing you can do to get your child accepted back into "society" again... kids are loath to give up a familiar victim, and certainly aren't interested in befriending one.
My mother was big on giving me speeches to memorize that she somehow convinced herself would have a magical effect on the teasers; you might remember an episode of "The Brady Bunch" where the youngest boy (I think) is subjected to the same sort of "assistance," thereby making the bully more contemptuous and determined, with it going on and on until a fight finally ends it... to the dismay of the parents, who honestly thought they could have their son TALK the bully into submission. I'm here to tell you that speeches don't work any better on teasers in real life, any more than they have a salutary effect on ADULTS by anyone who isn't in authority over them... they just make the teasers go from "cheerful" teasing to ticked-off teasing.
Sometimes what my mother told me to say was only a line or 2, but that didn't fare any better; arguing with the teasers prolongs the teasing session, risks ticking them off, and makes more of a spectacle of the thing, making it more likely that others will join in. I learned the hard way that the most counter-productive thing you can have a child tell a teaser is that they're being immature; my use of that word caused increased problems every time, and led to me being targeted by a group of popular 8th graders for most of my 7th grade year (but in that case I managed to turn it totally around through quick thinking, see my post of 10-19-04).
Probably the stupidest advice my mother ever gave me was in reference to a boy in the 6th grade who'd taken to escalating his teasing to include poking or pushing me in a way not severe enough to get him in trouble, and then running away; when asked why I wasn't running after him to poke/push him back, I pointed out what should have been wildly obvious, that he was a much faster runner, and I had no chance of catching him. In reply, my mother told me, a bookish and unathletic girl, that when he next did this I should run after him, and keep running, because "he can't run forever," and when he stopped I could then get him back. I'm sure that you, unlike her, are bright enough to see the inevitable result; he poked me and ran, with me slogging along after him... until *I* stopped from exhaustion, long before he was even winded, while he harangued me from a safe distance until I got moving again, at which point he sprinted effortlessly away again... and this went on until I was too wiped out to continue, giving him a victory beyond his wildest dreams. When I reported this back to my mother, she didn't have the grace to admit that she'd been stupid, of course; she chalked up my inability to chase and catch an athletic BOY as evidence of some sort of character failing on my part.
Why, you might ask, did my mother not just speak to whatever teachers and other adults were responsible for monitoring my class and demand that the teasers be dealt with? It's not like she had any hesitancy about calling them and raking them over the coals when they incurred her disapproval, such as when a gym teacher was telling me to NOT hit back, and wasn't punishing those that hit 1st (as nasty as she was with him, he still shot his mouth off a 2nd time to me on the subject, and her 2nd call to him probably left him scarred for life, lol), but she shared the standard adult mindset in those days before kids started shooting up their schools that teasing wasn't important enough for adult intervention (and never lost her non-facts-based belief that there was some sort of procedure that I could be trained in that would fix things, sigh).
We're more enlightened these days; we know that being habitually teased causes all sorts of mental health problems, and often leads to unacceptable varieties of acting out as well... but we still don't have any better advice to give kids on how to handle it, especially when there are a bunch of teasers rather than just 1 bully who might be avoidable. WHY? Why is there nothing you can tell a kid that works against teasers?
I've wondered vaguely about that for many years, but the answer just occurred to me today:
We as adults can rarely, if ever, stop people who are teasing US... so why should we think we can tell a CHILD how to do it, especially when teasing is so much a part of childhood culture, and there isn't even the tiny bit of leverage offered by potential social disapproval? The scary reality is that, unless there's an authority figure (or someone tough and intimidating) willing to intercede on the victim's behalf, there's simply NO WAY to stop ANYONE from teasing.
For the sort of sporadic teasing that most kids deal with, it IS fine to tell them to ignore it, roll their eyes and walk away, or toss out a one-liner, but if a kid has become the focus for even ONE constant teaser, much less a group, that causes equally-constant stress and upset, and can quickly lead to the victim becoming an outcast, so it's up to all associated adults to take action; whether you're a parent, teacher, the lunchroom monitor, the parent of a classmate, or whatever your connection is with a kid that you find out has become a target, DO something about it, and I don't mean give stupid advice... talk to whoever has authority over the teaser at the location the teasing is taking place, and demand that action be taken to stop the teaser(s), not just for a day but for good. Make clear that you're going to be following up, and DO it, so that the cycle of teasing is permanently broken... BEFORE the victim gets a gun, or starts cutting themselves, abusing drugs, or doing whatever else they can think of to stop the pain.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
The possum on my patio
I mentioned recently that a possum had started visiting me, and promised to post about him; here, at last, is the promised post.
For the benefit of my foreign visitors, here are a couple of pics of possums as normally seen
http://users.ev1.net/~katagi/possum.jpg
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/recipes/possum.jpg
and, because it's so cute, here's a pic of 5 possum babies
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/images/opsinbarrel.jpg
I haven't seen babies yet, but I'm hoping... although we're pretty sure that our possum is male. (I know, we've been fooled before, but he periodically walks around with his tail up, and his little male parts have a different color of fur, so they're hard to miss.) The possum is a marsupial, it has a prehensile tail (it can't hang from it past babyhood, though, as it's not strong enough), it's an omnivore, and it's known to faint from fear and thus make predators lose interest... which doesn't help them against cars, of course, which is why you'll periodically see roadkill possums in any area where they live around people.
The 1st time I saw the possum out on the patio, my 1st, panicked reaction was that he was a giant rat; he's small, and the rats infesting my yard are huge, and he does have a rattish sort of face and a naked pink tail. Once I realized what he actually was, I yelled for my husband, and we looked out the window at our new visitor; possums are homely, scrawny, their fur looks moth-eaten, and they have sort of a blank look about them, in addition to their resemblance to rats, so we agreed that our marsupial friend wasn't much to look at, but we were still excited to have a new species of critter hanging around.
We quickly discovered that the typical pics of possums, which show them with their heads hanging down, don't do them justice; when our boy started eating some food put out for the skunks, he tilted his head back, shot his little pink tongue in and out, and SMILED... I know, we're probably anthropomorphizing him, but it really DOES look like he's got a huge toothy grin of enjoyment while he chews, and this made us adore him despite his homeliness, because it was so CUTE. Heck, we even thought it was cute when food fell out of mouth while he ate, and when we realized that he was spitting out the skins of all the grapes he consumed (although the latter is sorta gross to clean up after); we were hooked.
When we got lazy one night and put out grapes still on the stem rather than pulling them off before setting them out, he picked up each bunch and held it in the air in his paw while eating from it, which was REALLY cute; he also figured out that he could grab a whole bunch and run into the bushes where we can't see him to eat it, which was smart of him but dismaying for us, so we stopped giving him grapes on the stems. Possums are supposed to be smarter than dogs, but aside from seeing that grapes in a bunch can be transported together, I've seen no evidence of this; he's too skittish to interact with thus far, so maybe he'll do something clever later on... not that it matters, because he's a sweet and charming creature, and we love him even if he's stupid.
It was my husband's idea to give him some meat, and he really enjoyed it, so we got some bland cold cuts (spices might be bad for him) and tried those, and that's his favorite so far; we tried Spam, too, but he turned up his nose at it, so maybe he's smarter than we think. He'll often eat the cold cuts while holding them in the air with one paw, like with the bunches of grapes, and will also grab a piece and run off into the bushes to eat it if he's nervous. It turns out that a species of tiny ant loves cold cuts too, and apparently also loves to climb onto the possum's hairless pink toes; the 1st time I saw him shaking his paw over and over, I was afraid he was injured, but it was just ants getting on him... and oddly, although he's supposed to eat insects, he doesn't lick them up-he's particular about his food. We also give him periodic chunks of cheese, since my husband read that possums are prone to calcium deficiency; it's a little harder for him to eat, but he gobbles it up eventually.
The possum is pretty much used to me, and doesn't object to my being very close to the sliding glass door, even when it's open, and even when he's right up to it himself and thus as little as a foot away from me. I don't think he sees very well, and unless I make a sudden move he isn't concerned; if I don't see him looking in at me, and stand up or walk around, that'll scare him, although not as much as it used to, but if I move slowly he's ok with it. I talk to him constantly, and I can see his little ears swiveling around to hear me, so he's paying attention; this helps when he's been frightened, as my voice is familiar, and associated with eating in his mind, and so reassures him. When the door's open, I can hear HIM, too; he makes an astonishing amount of noise when he eats, and the CHOMP CHOMP SMACK is often what alerts me to his presence... and I'll look out to see him smiling in at me as he chews.
He doesn't do much besides eat; he sometimes slurps up some water, or wanders around sniffing and eating the occasional bug, and he even checked out the shed once, presumably curious about the rat sounds from within (possums eat rats, but we've seen no evidence that he's killed any of ours, more's the pity). His only other cute behavior is that he sits down and washes his face when he's done with his meal about half of the time, which might not be accomplishing much when his paws are muddy but is still fun to watch; generally, he just eats, saunters over to the tree that he uses to get into and out of our yard, and then either takes off, or, less often, climbs up it and then onto our patio cover, where his tail can be seen hanging down, curling and uncurling... I thought it was a snake the 1st time he did that, but once my eyes adjusted to the dim light and I saw it was pink I knew it was him.
The possum comes around 3 times a night, and we pile plenty of food near the door for him so he'll hang around as long as possible; we never tire of watching him eat, so I suppose we're easily amused, lol. We've gotten better about being careful when we move around the room he can see into, so we don't run him off inadvertently; I check around for his pale triangular face before I chase the rats away, too, because once I caught him cowering in fear at the edge of the patio during a tirade against the evil rodents, and it was an hour or so before he dared come and get his food.
We've gotten some video of him doing his thing, although with the door open now we're stymied by the screen; I did manage to catch him out there when a skunk was here too, which made us plenty nervous, but they ignored each other and stayed on opposite ends of the patio, with the possum claiming the feeding area as his, which was either very brave or very stupid... luckily, the skunk was happy to snarfle around the landscaping, eating bugs and snails.
Even though possums have long and sharp-looking teeth, I'm of course eager to pet our little friend; I guess the next step is to try to get him to take food from me, but I'm concerned that his lack of understanding of where the food ends and the hand begins might work out badly for me... it's not like with the squirrel that couldn't have hurt us if she'd tried, or with a more courageous animal that'd be less likely to make a frantic grab and run. I know I shouldn't try to interact with a wild animal, that I shouldn't get attached, blah blah blah, but I miss my little squirrel girl (who hasn't been seen since she came to, I now believe, say good-bye, at least until the weather turns cold again and she gets hungrier), and the skunk that was hanging around alot got trapped and relocated, as happens regularly, so I missed my chance to try to pet her (probably just as well, considering the risk), and... and I love our little possum, so how can I not try?
Stay tuned.
For the benefit of my foreign visitors, here are a couple of pics of possums as normally seen
http://users.ev1.net/~katagi/possum.jpg
http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/recipes/possum.jpg
and, because it's so cute, here's a pic of 5 possum babies
http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/images/opsinbarrel.jpg
I haven't seen babies yet, but I'm hoping... although we're pretty sure that our possum is male. (I know, we've been fooled before, but he periodically walks around with his tail up, and his little male parts have a different color of fur, so they're hard to miss.) The possum is a marsupial, it has a prehensile tail (it can't hang from it past babyhood, though, as it's not strong enough), it's an omnivore, and it's known to faint from fear and thus make predators lose interest... which doesn't help them against cars, of course, which is why you'll periodically see roadkill possums in any area where they live around people.
The 1st time I saw the possum out on the patio, my 1st, panicked reaction was that he was a giant rat; he's small, and the rats infesting my yard are huge, and he does have a rattish sort of face and a naked pink tail. Once I realized what he actually was, I yelled for my husband, and we looked out the window at our new visitor; possums are homely, scrawny, their fur looks moth-eaten, and they have sort of a blank look about them, in addition to their resemblance to rats, so we agreed that our marsupial friend wasn't much to look at, but we were still excited to have a new species of critter hanging around.
We quickly discovered that the typical pics of possums, which show them with their heads hanging down, don't do them justice; when our boy started eating some food put out for the skunks, he tilted his head back, shot his little pink tongue in and out, and SMILED... I know, we're probably anthropomorphizing him, but it really DOES look like he's got a huge toothy grin of enjoyment while he chews, and this made us adore him despite his homeliness, because it was so CUTE. Heck, we even thought it was cute when food fell out of mouth while he ate, and when we realized that he was spitting out the skins of all the grapes he consumed (although the latter is sorta gross to clean up after); we were hooked.
When we got lazy one night and put out grapes still on the stem rather than pulling them off before setting them out, he picked up each bunch and held it in the air in his paw while eating from it, which was REALLY cute; he also figured out that he could grab a whole bunch and run into the bushes where we can't see him to eat it, which was smart of him but dismaying for us, so we stopped giving him grapes on the stems. Possums are supposed to be smarter than dogs, but aside from seeing that grapes in a bunch can be transported together, I've seen no evidence of this; he's too skittish to interact with thus far, so maybe he'll do something clever later on... not that it matters, because he's a sweet and charming creature, and we love him even if he's stupid.
It was my husband's idea to give him some meat, and he really enjoyed it, so we got some bland cold cuts (spices might be bad for him) and tried those, and that's his favorite so far; we tried Spam, too, but he turned up his nose at it, so maybe he's smarter than we think. He'll often eat the cold cuts while holding them in the air with one paw, like with the bunches of grapes, and will also grab a piece and run off into the bushes to eat it if he's nervous. It turns out that a species of tiny ant loves cold cuts too, and apparently also loves to climb onto the possum's hairless pink toes; the 1st time I saw him shaking his paw over and over, I was afraid he was injured, but it was just ants getting on him... and oddly, although he's supposed to eat insects, he doesn't lick them up-he's particular about his food. We also give him periodic chunks of cheese, since my husband read that possums are prone to calcium deficiency; it's a little harder for him to eat, but he gobbles it up eventually.
The possum is pretty much used to me, and doesn't object to my being very close to the sliding glass door, even when it's open, and even when he's right up to it himself and thus as little as a foot away from me. I don't think he sees very well, and unless I make a sudden move he isn't concerned; if I don't see him looking in at me, and stand up or walk around, that'll scare him, although not as much as it used to, but if I move slowly he's ok with it. I talk to him constantly, and I can see his little ears swiveling around to hear me, so he's paying attention; this helps when he's been frightened, as my voice is familiar, and associated with eating in his mind, and so reassures him. When the door's open, I can hear HIM, too; he makes an astonishing amount of noise when he eats, and the CHOMP CHOMP SMACK is often what alerts me to his presence... and I'll look out to see him smiling in at me as he chews.
He doesn't do much besides eat; he sometimes slurps up some water, or wanders around sniffing and eating the occasional bug, and he even checked out the shed once, presumably curious about the rat sounds from within (possums eat rats, but we've seen no evidence that he's killed any of ours, more's the pity). His only other cute behavior is that he sits down and washes his face when he's done with his meal about half of the time, which might not be accomplishing much when his paws are muddy but is still fun to watch; generally, he just eats, saunters over to the tree that he uses to get into and out of our yard, and then either takes off, or, less often, climbs up it and then onto our patio cover, where his tail can be seen hanging down, curling and uncurling... I thought it was a snake the 1st time he did that, but once my eyes adjusted to the dim light and I saw it was pink I knew it was him.
The possum comes around 3 times a night, and we pile plenty of food near the door for him so he'll hang around as long as possible; we never tire of watching him eat, so I suppose we're easily amused, lol. We've gotten better about being careful when we move around the room he can see into, so we don't run him off inadvertently; I check around for his pale triangular face before I chase the rats away, too, because once I caught him cowering in fear at the edge of the patio during a tirade against the evil rodents, and it was an hour or so before he dared come and get his food.
We've gotten some video of him doing his thing, although with the door open now we're stymied by the screen; I did manage to catch him out there when a skunk was here too, which made us plenty nervous, but they ignored each other and stayed on opposite ends of the patio, with the possum claiming the feeding area as his, which was either very brave or very stupid... luckily, the skunk was happy to snarfle around the landscaping, eating bugs and snails.
Even though possums have long and sharp-looking teeth, I'm of course eager to pet our little friend; I guess the next step is to try to get him to take food from me, but I'm concerned that his lack of understanding of where the food ends and the hand begins might work out badly for me... it's not like with the squirrel that couldn't have hurt us if she'd tried, or with a more courageous animal that'd be less likely to make a frantic grab and run. I know I shouldn't try to interact with a wild animal, that I shouldn't get attached, blah blah blah, but I miss my little squirrel girl (who hasn't been seen since she came to, I now believe, say good-bye, at least until the weather turns cold again and she gets hungrier), and the skunk that was hanging around alot got trapped and relocated, as happens regularly, so I missed my chance to try to pet her (probably just as well, considering the risk), and... and I love our little possum, so how can I not try?
Stay tuned.
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
An interesting realization
If you've been reading here for a while, you've grasped that my father was a sick, evil person, which makes him fairly unusual. There's another, even more unusual thing about him, though; he's been impotent his entire life. Today, for the 1st time, I started wondering if there's a connection between those 2 things.
If you're wondering how I know about him being impotent, it's because my mother inexplicably felt it necessary to tell me; he'd just turned 22 when they got married, and should have been bursting with hormones like every other man of that age, but instead... my mother's line is that she was a virgin on her wedding night, and for several nights thereafter. He never improved his level of performance, and in fact it declined steadily; in the latter years with my mother, he never managed to complete the act at all. His lack of male functionality extended all the way down to the cellular level; he had such low sperm count and poor sperm motility that it's amazing that any of his sporadic encounters with my mother ever resulted in a pregnancy (it took them nearly a decade)... and yes, my mother told me that too, and yes, I found it icky.
Is it a coincidence that he became such a warped, belligerent person, so determined to exert his power by making and enforcing endless, ridiculous rules, and behaving in an unrestrainedly ugly way because he COULD? Can all, or even most, of the blame for the despicable creature he became be assigned to his near-total inability to perform his 2 most basic manly functions (sex and reproduction), and his inability to deal with that? Was the nightmare of my childhood and early adulthood due to something as simple as my father trying endlessly to prove his manhood?
Words fail me.
If you're wondering how I know about him being impotent, it's because my mother inexplicably felt it necessary to tell me; he'd just turned 22 when they got married, and should have been bursting with hormones like every other man of that age, but instead... my mother's line is that she was a virgin on her wedding night, and for several nights thereafter. He never improved his level of performance, and in fact it declined steadily; in the latter years with my mother, he never managed to complete the act at all. His lack of male functionality extended all the way down to the cellular level; he had such low sperm count and poor sperm motility that it's amazing that any of his sporadic encounters with my mother ever resulted in a pregnancy (it took them nearly a decade)... and yes, my mother told me that too, and yes, I found it icky.
Is it a coincidence that he became such a warped, belligerent person, so determined to exert his power by making and enforcing endless, ridiculous rules, and behaving in an unrestrainedly ugly way because he COULD? Can all, or even most, of the blame for the despicable creature he became be assigned to his near-total inability to perform his 2 most basic manly functions (sex and reproduction), and his inability to deal with that? Was the nightmare of my childhood and early adulthood due to something as simple as my father trying endlessly to prove his manhood?
Words fail me.
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Odds and ends
I was opening up the mail today, not really paying attention to what was on the envelopes, and looked down to see a pic of a cute teddy bear wearing a t-shirt that said "Home Sweet Home"... and "Habitat For Humanity." Regular readers will know that I can't resist sending $ to any charity that offers me a cute stuffie (which is why I'm on the list for every charity in the Western hemisphere, lol), and I'd already been thinking about what a good charity this would be to donate to because of all the volunteer work, and donations of goods such as appliances, that get added in along with the $, giving major bang for the buck; strangely, there was no mention of Katrina in the letter they sent me, but they ARE going to be doing a huge amount of home-building once it's possible for them to get started, so if you get a request from them for a donation do be generous... I'm going to be.
As I was typing the above, an ad came on with Bush Senior and Clinton asking people to donate $ for the Katrina victims; bravo to them both for doing this together, sending the message that people of all political parties need to work as one in this time of crisis.
Last night I saw an amazing program about chimps that're being taught to communicate via computer; the thing that totally blew me away, though, was the story of how one of the chimps was being asked to hand over trash to get a treat, and he brought it over... but when he saw the woman tear the piece of licorice she'd been holding in half and only offer him one piece, he tore the paper bag he was holding in half and held out just one piece!!!!!!!!! How SMART was that? Heck, plenty of humans wouldn't work it out that well, so I was astounded that even so bright of an animal had instantly figured out how to ideally handle the situation.
And finally, the moth and larvae report; we continue to endure a plague of Biblical proportions of these disgusting creatures, with dozens of moths being visible at any given time no matter how fast we kill them, and larvae squirming across the walls and ceilings, and clinging to food packages (sometimes in cocoons). I yanked all the food off of the shelves I can reach without climbing on anything, and discovered that they'd gotten into a sealed Ziploc bag, and then into sealed individual wrappers, to reach fortune cookies; some of the cookies had a big hole in them, some were so chewed up that they looked like lace... and some of the little wrappers had nothing but dust in them, I kid you not. I gathered up all the stray fortune cookies too, just in case, and had my husband take it all out to the trash.
Later, as I was typing away, I saw a faint flash of something light passing right in front of my eye, flinched back, looked down... and there was a larva, having just missed landing on my FACE in its fall to the floor. I picked it up with a napkin, beat it to a pulp, and screamed to my husband to clear out that upper shelf with his food on it NOW, despite his claims that he was SURE that they weren't into anything up there (with said claims, as always, being based on nothing more than his desire to avoid a task). He reluctantly started doing it, and quickly found the craziest thing imaginable for them to be into; a huge container of pepper flakes, all solid plastic with no visible way for them to be getting in or out, with the flakes all globbed together and covered in larvae and moths... it was so gross that he ran outside with it before I could examine it further, which is probably just as well, given my tendency towards nightmares. He also found some open food packages on his shelf, including the favorite of moths, chocolate, that he didn't even have the heart to look into to verify if they had vermin in them; he just threw it all out.
Are we FINALLY rid of them now? I wish I could believe that we were...
As I was typing the above, an ad came on with Bush Senior and Clinton asking people to donate $ for the Katrina victims; bravo to them both for doing this together, sending the message that people of all political parties need to work as one in this time of crisis.
Last night I saw an amazing program about chimps that're being taught to communicate via computer; the thing that totally blew me away, though, was the story of how one of the chimps was being asked to hand over trash to get a treat, and he brought it over... but when he saw the woman tear the piece of licorice she'd been holding in half and only offer him one piece, he tore the paper bag he was holding in half and held out just one piece!!!!!!!!! How SMART was that? Heck, plenty of humans wouldn't work it out that well, so I was astounded that even so bright of an animal had instantly figured out how to ideally handle the situation.
And finally, the moth and larvae report; we continue to endure a plague of Biblical proportions of these disgusting creatures, with dozens of moths being visible at any given time no matter how fast we kill them, and larvae squirming across the walls and ceilings, and clinging to food packages (sometimes in cocoons). I yanked all the food off of the shelves I can reach without climbing on anything, and discovered that they'd gotten into a sealed Ziploc bag, and then into sealed individual wrappers, to reach fortune cookies; some of the cookies had a big hole in them, some were so chewed up that they looked like lace... and some of the little wrappers had nothing but dust in them, I kid you not. I gathered up all the stray fortune cookies too, just in case, and had my husband take it all out to the trash.
Later, as I was typing away, I saw a faint flash of something light passing right in front of my eye, flinched back, looked down... and there was a larva, having just missed landing on my FACE in its fall to the floor. I picked it up with a napkin, beat it to a pulp, and screamed to my husband to clear out that upper shelf with his food on it NOW, despite his claims that he was SURE that they weren't into anything up there (with said claims, as always, being based on nothing more than his desire to avoid a task). He reluctantly started doing it, and quickly found the craziest thing imaginable for them to be into; a huge container of pepper flakes, all solid plastic with no visible way for them to be getting in or out, with the flakes all globbed together and covered in larvae and moths... it was so gross that he ran outside with it before I could examine it further, which is probably just as well, given my tendency towards nightmares. He also found some open food packages on his shelf, including the favorite of moths, chocolate, that he didn't even have the heart to look into to verify if they had vermin in them; he just threw it all out.
Are we FINALLY rid of them now? I wish I could believe that we were...
Monday, September 12, 2005
9-11 and Katrina
With the 4 year anniversary of 9-11 on the one hand, and the continuing grim saga of Katrina on the other, it was a sober and reflective day for many Americans... some of whom undoubtedly shared my emotional turmoil as to how to apportion my grief, especially since the full extent of the destruction of Katrina is still unknown. My buddy Smedley, whose excellent blog is here
http://thesmedleylog.com/
posted a photo of the New York city skyline at night that shows the twin lights symbolizing the Twin Towers, and the sight of it choked me up as it probably does most Americans... and also like most Americans, I've been choking up every time I've encountered news over the past couple of weeks, as the horror rolls on and on.
As if the memories of 9-11 and the disaster area that a part of this nation the size of Great Britain has become aren't enough, there's sadness from a 3rd source; that for every person online I see who reports what they personally have done to help the Katrina victims, there are 100 people eagerly using the tiny % of the total information about how relief efforts were handled that currently exists to point fingers and make melodramatic claims as to the evil intentions of everyone involved. I'm not saying that we don't need to figure out what went wrong, or that we shouldn't talk about it and demand that answers be provided (AFTER those in need have been helped), just that I'm dismayed that the political aspect of things is getting so much more "web space" overall than the humanitarian aspect in the sites I've visited in my endless surfing via the "next blog" button... and I hardly dare contemplate what that looks like to people from other countries. Since nearly all of those people blogging about who did what wrong HAVE most likely donated $, or clothes (etc), or their time for the Katrina victims, because Americans are always quick to give to everyone in need, I hope that they'll eventually tell us about it, and encourage us to keep giving for as long as it takes to make things right for those who've lost so much. I hope they'll take a break from their anger and share their sadness... and, eventually, their hope, the hope that we need to keep alive to allow us to take on the enormous task of putting all the affected areas to rights.
And there's a 4th source of sadness; that we're so deeply immersed in the Katrina issues that we didn't really give 9-11 and its victims the space in our minds and hearts that we should have today; I know that it wasn't really possible, and the survivors and loved ones of the fallen most likely understand, but... it just doesn't seem right that we weren't able to focus on it as a nation as we did the past 3 years on this day.
If you suffered a loss on 9-11, my heart goes out to you, and the pain you're suffering as you relive those awful memories; to the heroes of 9-11, my gratitude to you is undimmed by the passing of the time.
If you've suffered a loss because of Katrina, I know that your pain is too raw and recent to allow much comfort, but be aware that this nation grieves with you.
To the heroes who continue to emerge in the aftermath of Katrina, many of whom are ordinary citizens who've come forward to do amazing things; I salute you.
Joel Osteen's sermon today was a re-run, I think, because I recognized one of the stories he told, but his message was timely; that you may have lost much, or everything, through no fault of your own, but God will compensate you double if you simply have faith in his willingness to do so. I can't verify that God exists or will do any particular thing, but I hope that all the survivors of our nation's greatest tragedies will be buoyed up by our caring and generosity to the point where they at least feel like they've gotten the chance at a decent life again... and that we as a nation will be pulled more closely together by all of this, rather than broken apart by blame and recriminations.
http://thesmedleylog.com/
posted a photo of the New York city skyline at night that shows the twin lights symbolizing the Twin Towers, and the sight of it choked me up as it probably does most Americans... and also like most Americans, I've been choking up every time I've encountered news over the past couple of weeks, as the horror rolls on and on.
As if the memories of 9-11 and the disaster area that a part of this nation the size of Great Britain has become aren't enough, there's sadness from a 3rd source; that for every person online I see who reports what they personally have done to help the Katrina victims, there are 100 people eagerly using the tiny % of the total information about how relief efforts were handled that currently exists to point fingers and make melodramatic claims as to the evil intentions of everyone involved. I'm not saying that we don't need to figure out what went wrong, or that we shouldn't talk about it and demand that answers be provided (AFTER those in need have been helped), just that I'm dismayed that the political aspect of things is getting so much more "web space" overall than the humanitarian aspect in the sites I've visited in my endless surfing via the "next blog" button... and I hardly dare contemplate what that looks like to people from other countries. Since nearly all of those people blogging about who did what wrong HAVE most likely donated $, or clothes (etc), or their time for the Katrina victims, because Americans are always quick to give to everyone in need, I hope that they'll eventually tell us about it, and encourage us to keep giving for as long as it takes to make things right for those who've lost so much. I hope they'll take a break from their anger and share their sadness... and, eventually, their hope, the hope that we need to keep alive to allow us to take on the enormous task of putting all the affected areas to rights.
And there's a 4th source of sadness; that we're so deeply immersed in the Katrina issues that we didn't really give 9-11 and its victims the space in our minds and hearts that we should have today; I know that it wasn't really possible, and the survivors and loved ones of the fallen most likely understand, but... it just doesn't seem right that we weren't able to focus on it as a nation as we did the past 3 years on this day.
If you suffered a loss on 9-11, my heart goes out to you, and the pain you're suffering as you relive those awful memories; to the heroes of 9-11, my gratitude to you is undimmed by the passing of the time.
If you've suffered a loss because of Katrina, I know that your pain is too raw and recent to allow much comfort, but be aware that this nation grieves with you.
To the heroes who continue to emerge in the aftermath of Katrina, many of whom are ordinary citizens who've come forward to do amazing things; I salute you.
Joel Osteen's sermon today was a re-run, I think, because I recognized one of the stories he told, but his message was timely; that you may have lost much, or everything, through no fault of your own, but God will compensate you double if you simply have faith in his willingness to do so. I can't verify that God exists or will do any particular thing, but I hope that all the survivors of our nation's greatest tragedies will be buoyed up by our caring and generosity to the point where they at least feel like they've gotten the chance at a decent life again... and that we as a nation will be pulled more closely together by all of this, rather than broken apart by blame and recriminations.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
What's behind alleged alien abductions?
And sightings of at least MOST demons, angels and ghosts that occur when people wake up, feel paralyzed, and see... something? (I'm not quite willing to dismiss 100% of such experiences as being caused by one thing without proof.) "Paralyzed" is the big clue, because the cause is called "sleep paralysis," and it provides yet another biological explanation for experiences seen as spiritual or supernatural in nature.
From Stanford's website
http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html
comes this list of symptoms:
"A complaint of inability to move the trunk or limbs at sleep onset or upon awakening
Presence of brief episodes of partial or complete skeletal muscle paralysis
Episodes can be associated with hypnagogic hallucinations or dream-like mentation (act or use of the brain)"
It's also possible to have realistic physical sensations:
"In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the 'Hag Phenomena' and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm."
If that happened to ME, there'd sure be physical harm... from when I regained my ability to move and jumped out of my skin.
An excerpt from a paper on the subject, found here
http://www.angelfire.com/co/SleepParalysisLucid/moreInfoPar.html
shows a wider range of possible perceptions during sleep paralysis:
"Waves, vibrations and earthquake-like tremors.
Crackling, snapping, high-pitched, ringing (hours preceding and/or during SP) and booming noises.
Luminous blobs, auras, perception of objects and details of wall crevices and bed lining fabric.
Rotation of the body (pivot: the belly area), twisting of the body, rolling into oneself. Also, pressure on different parts of the body, but most commonly the belly area; floating, flying and being squeezed through tunnels.
Microsomatognosia: Shrinking in size.
Dissociation: Out-of-the-body experiences.
Hypnagogic hallucinations; Nightmare
Presence in the room, benign or maleficent; sense of suffocation; sense of entity sitting on one's chest; sense of entity pulling ones feet (more common than incubus).
Bolt of lightening exploding at the base of the neck, pain in the midsection."
It doesn't take a medical degree to see how this adds up to even so "physical" of paranormal claims as alien abductions, does it?
The website for "Science News" has a recent article on this topic
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050709/bob9.asp
in which an anthropologist describes an incident that he experienced, which shows just how detailed and realistic this can be:
"... he awoke with a start to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open-the same door he had locked and bolted before going to bed. Hufford then heard footsteps moving toward his bed and felt an evil presence. Terror gripped the young man, who couldn't move a muscle, his eyes plastered open in fright.
Without warning, the malevolent entity, whatever it was, jumped onto Hufford's chest. An oppressive weight compressed his rib cage. Breathing became difficult, and Hufford felt a pair of hands encircle his neck and start to squeeze. 'I thought I was going to die,' he says.
At that point, the lock on Hufford's muscles gave way. He bolted up and sprinted several blocks to take shelter in the student union."
YIKES!! I can certainly see how it's easy to believe that something like that was a real experience... but it's biological in nature, and found in cultures all over the world, as Hufford himself discovered:
"... in Newfoundland, and he heard from some of the region's inhabitants about their eerily similar nighttime encounters. Locals called the threatening entity the 'old hag.' Most cases unfold as follows: A person wakes up paralyzed and perceives an evil presence. A hag or witch then climbs on top of the petrified victim, creating a crushing sensation on his or her chest."
And we can score a point for so-called "primitive" peoples:
"Although widely acknowledged among traditional cultures, sleep paralysis is one of the most prevalent yet least recognized mental phenomena for people in industrialized societies, Hufford says."
If you share my love of words, you'll like this:
"Curiously, although the word nightmare originally described sleep paralysis, it now refers to a fearful or disturbing dream, says Hufford, now at the Penn State Medical Center in Hershey, Pa. Several hundred years ago, the English referred to nighttime sensations of chest pressure from witches or other supernatural beings as the 'mare,' from the Anglo-Saxon merran, meaning to crush. The term eventually morphed into nightmare-the crusher who comes in the night."
This shows that the sleep paralysis phenomenon USED to be recognized in Western civilization... how did we "forget"?
On to the connection with "the unknown":
"Sleep paralysis embodies a universal, biologically based explanation for pervasive beliefs in spirits and supernatural beings, even in the United States, Hufford argues. The experience thrusts mentally healthy people into a bizarre, alternative world that they frequently find difficult to chalk up to a temporary brain glitch.
Hufford doesn't believe that an invisible force attacked him in his college room or during several sleep paralysis episodes that have occurred since then, but he sees the appeal of such an interpretation. 'We need to deeply question 2 centuries of assumptions about the nonempirical and nonrational nature of spirit belief,' he says."
As I always say, there's plenty of biology behind what many people believe to be spiritual or other paranormal events, and it's vital that we face up to that and separate these things from those that truly defy scientific explanation.
Not everyone views the sleep paralysis experience with dismay, oddly enough:
"Many who experience sleep paralysis also report sensations of floating, flying, falling, or leaving one's body. The condition's primary emotion, terror, sometimes yields to feelings of excitement, exhilaration, rapture, or ecstasy. 'A small number of people, while acknowledging fear during initial episodes of sleep paralysis, come to enjoy the experience,' Cheyne says."
It's surprisingly common:
"In surveys that he has conducted with large numbers of college students and other volunteers, about 30 percent report having experienced at least one incident of sleep paralysis."
and has been studied in Japan:
"In a sleep laboratory, the Japanese team monitored the volunteers, whom they roused at various times during the night to trigger the phenomenon. The researchers found that during sleep paralysis, the brain, suddenly awake, nonetheless displays electrical responses typical of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement (REM)."
That makes sense, as dreams can include all the sense and seem very real... and of course can be terrifying. But:
"Hufford, however, regards the intrusion of REM activity into awake moments as inadequate to explain sleep paralysis. Dream content during REM sleep varies greatly from one person to another, but descriptions of sleep paralysis are remarkably consistent. 'I don't have a good explanation for these experiences,' he says."
That consistency is used on some paranormal websites as "proof" that these are true experiences with other sorts of beings, but my $ is still on this being biological, just not pinned down fully yet.
Here's a story from a Cambodian woman:
"... events of a type known among her fellow Cambodians as 'the ghost pushes you down.' At these times, the woman said, she awakens from sleep unable to move. Three ghastly demons stalk into her room, each covered in fur and displaying long fangs. One of the creatures then leans close to her head; the second holds down her legs; and the third pins down her arms. She told Hinton that when these terrors befall her, she knows that the demons want to scare her to death and she feels that they might succeed."
I'd be afraid to sleep if I were going through that!!
Some of the possible causes of sleep paralysis are:
"Panic attacks, PTSD, and other mental disorders may indirectly promote sleep paralysis by disrupting the sleep cycle and yanking people out of REM sleep during the night, he adds. Other factors that disturb sleep, such as jet lag and shift work, have also been linked to sleep paralysis."
"Sexual abuse may also make a person susceptible to sleep paralysis. Harvard University psychologists Richard J. McNally and Susan A. Clancy have found that, among adults who report having been sexually abused during childhood, nearly half describe at least one past episode of sleep paralysis. In their study, only 13 percent of participants who hadn't been sexually abused reported sleep paralysis."
As to the connection to perceptions of alien abductions:
"Accounts of space-alien encounters typically begin with the abductee waking in the night while lying face up, McNally says. The person can't move but senses electric vibrations. A feeling of terror makes breathing difficult. Alien beings advance to the foot of the bed or climb on top of the person, who then experiences a sense of floating or of being transported to an alien craft."
Sounds pretty much like cause and effect, doesn't it? Still, they SEEM real to those that go through it, and are genuinely terrifying:
"McNally and Clancy linked the claims of 10 alien abductees to episodes of sleep paralysis. Memories of the scary incidents sparked heart-rate increases and other physiological stress reactions that exceeded those previously reported for Vietnam veterans with PTSD as they recalled distressing combat events."
Hoo-boy, I REALLY hope I never experience this; the nightmares and night terrors I've already had are more than enough.
It's easy to brush off those who claim to have been abducted by aliens or encountered demonic beings (or angelic ones) as being liars or crazy, or at the very least unable to tell if they're asleep or awake; while there are undoubtedly people who DO fall into all of those categories, it's important to note that some are also describing actual perceptions they had, that truly seem to them to have been real.
As to spiritual or paranormal experiences that did NOT occur at the point of waking, or with any of the attributes of sleep paralysis... those are still part of "the unknown."
From Stanford's website
http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html
comes this list of symptoms:
"A complaint of inability to move the trunk or limbs at sleep onset or upon awakening
Presence of brief episodes of partial or complete skeletal muscle paralysis
Episodes can be associated with hypnagogic hallucinations or dream-like mentation (act or use of the brain)"
It's also possible to have realistic physical sensations:
"In some cases, when hypnogogic hallucinations are present, people feel that someone is in the room with them, some experience the feeling that someone or something is sitting on their chest and they feel impending death and suffocation. That has been called the 'Hag Phenomena' and has been happening to people over the centuries. These things cause people much anxiety and terror, but there is no physical harm."
If that happened to ME, there'd sure be physical harm... from when I regained my ability to move and jumped out of my skin.
An excerpt from a paper on the subject, found here
http://www.angelfire.com/co/SleepParalysisLucid/moreInfoPar.html
shows a wider range of possible perceptions during sleep paralysis:
"Waves, vibrations and earthquake-like tremors.
Crackling, snapping, high-pitched, ringing (hours preceding and/or during SP) and booming noises.
Luminous blobs, auras, perception of objects and details of wall crevices and bed lining fabric.
Rotation of the body (pivot: the belly area), twisting of the body, rolling into oneself. Also, pressure on different parts of the body, but most commonly the belly area; floating, flying and being squeezed through tunnels.
Microsomatognosia: Shrinking in size.
Dissociation: Out-of-the-body experiences.
Hypnagogic hallucinations; Nightmare
Presence in the room, benign or maleficent; sense of suffocation; sense of entity sitting on one's chest; sense of entity pulling ones feet (more common than incubus).
Bolt of lightening exploding at the base of the neck, pain in the midsection."
It doesn't take a medical degree to see how this adds up to even so "physical" of paranormal claims as alien abductions, does it?
The website for "Science News" has a recent article on this topic
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20050709/bob9.asp
in which an anthropologist describes an incident that he experienced, which shows just how detailed and realistic this can be:
"... he awoke with a start to the sound of the bedroom door creaking open-the same door he had locked and bolted before going to bed. Hufford then heard footsteps moving toward his bed and felt an evil presence. Terror gripped the young man, who couldn't move a muscle, his eyes plastered open in fright.
Without warning, the malevolent entity, whatever it was, jumped onto Hufford's chest. An oppressive weight compressed his rib cage. Breathing became difficult, and Hufford felt a pair of hands encircle his neck and start to squeeze. 'I thought I was going to die,' he says.
At that point, the lock on Hufford's muscles gave way. He bolted up and sprinted several blocks to take shelter in the student union."
YIKES!! I can certainly see how it's easy to believe that something like that was a real experience... but it's biological in nature, and found in cultures all over the world, as Hufford himself discovered:
"... in Newfoundland, and he heard from some of the region's inhabitants about their eerily similar nighttime encounters. Locals called the threatening entity the 'old hag.' Most cases unfold as follows: A person wakes up paralyzed and perceives an evil presence. A hag or witch then climbs on top of the petrified victim, creating a crushing sensation on his or her chest."
And we can score a point for so-called "primitive" peoples:
"Although widely acknowledged among traditional cultures, sleep paralysis is one of the most prevalent yet least recognized mental phenomena for people in industrialized societies, Hufford says."
If you share my love of words, you'll like this:
"Curiously, although the word nightmare originally described sleep paralysis, it now refers to a fearful or disturbing dream, says Hufford, now at the Penn State Medical Center in Hershey, Pa. Several hundred years ago, the English referred to nighttime sensations of chest pressure from witches or other supernatural beings as the 'mare,' from the Anglo-Saxon merran, meaning to crush. The term eventually morphed into nightmare-the crusher who comes in the night."
This shows that the sleep paralysis phenomenon USED to be recognized in Western civilization... how did we "forget"?
On to the connection with "the unknown":
"Sleep paralysis embodies a universal, biologically based explanation for pervasive beliefs in spirits and supernatural beings, even in the United States, Hufford argues. The experience thrusts mentally healthy people into a bizarre, alternative world that they frequently find difficult to chalk up to a temporary brain glitch.
Hufford doesn't believe that an invisible force attacked him in his college room or during several sleep paralysis episodes that have occurred since then, but he sees the appeal of such an interpretation. 'We need to deeply question 2 centuries of assumptions about the nonempirical and nonrational nature of spirit belief,' he says."
As I always say, there's plenty of biology behind what many people believe to be spiritual or other paranormal events, and it's vital that we face up to that and separate these things from those that truly defy scientific explanation.
Not everyone views the sleep paralysis experience with dismay, oddly enough:
"Many who experience sleep paralysis also report sensations of floating, flying, falling, or leaving one's body. The condition's primary emotion, terror, sometimes yields to feelings of excitement, exhilaration, rapture, or ecstasy. 'A small number of people, while acknowledging fear during initial episodes of sleep paralysis, come to enjoy the experience,' Cheyne says."
It's surprisingly common:
"In surveys that he has conducted with large numbers of college students and other volunteers, about 30 percent report having experienced at least one incident of sleep paralysis."
and has been studied in Japan:
"In a sleep laboratory, the Japanese team monitored the volunteers, whom they roused at various times during the night to trigger the phenomenon. The researchers found that during sleep paralysis, the brain, suddenly awake, nonetheless displays electrical responses typical of sleep characterized by rapid eye movement (REM)."
That makes sense, as dreams can include all the sense and seem very real... and of course can be terrifying. But:
"Hufford, however, regards the intrusion of REM activity into awake moments as inadequate to explain sleep paralysis. Dream content during REM sleep varies greatly from one person to another, but descriptions of sleep paralysis are remarkably consistent. 'I don't have a good explanation for these experiences,' he says."
That consistency is used on some paranormal websites as "proof" that these are true experiences with other sorts of beings, but my $ is still on this being biological, just not pinned down fully yet.
Here's a story from a Cambodian woman:
"... events of a type known among her fellow Cambodians as 'the ghost pushes you down.' At these times, the woman said, she awakens from sleep unable to move. Three ghastly demons stalk into her room, each covered in fur and displaying long fangs. One of the creatures then leans close to her head; the second holds down her legs; and the third pins down her arms. She told Hinton that when these terrors befall her, she knows that the demons want to scare her to death and she feels that they might succeed."
I'd be afraid to sleep if I were going through that!!
Some of the possible causes of sleep paralysis are:
"Panic attacks, PTSD, and other mental disorders may indirectly promote sleep paralysis by disrupting the sleep cycle and yanking people out of REM sleep during the night, he adds. Other factors that disturb sleep, such as jet lag and shift work, have also been linked to sleep paralysis."
"Sexual abuse may also make a person susceptible to sleep paralysis. Harvard University psychologists Richard J. McNally and Susan A. Clancy have found that, among adults who report having been sexually abused during childhood, nearly half describe at least one past episode of sleep paralysis. In their study, only 13 percent of participants who hadn't been sexually abused reported sleep paralysis."
As to the connection to perceptions of alien abductions:
"Accounts of space-alien encounters typically begin with the abductee waking in the night while lying face up, McNally says. The person can't move but senses electric vibrations. A feeling of terror makes breathing difficult. Alien beings advance to the foot of the bed or climb on top of the person, who then experiences a sense of floating or of being transported to an alien craft."
Sounds pretty much like cause and effect, doesn't it? Still, they SEEM real to those that go through it, and are genuinely terrifying:
"McNally and Clancy linked the claims of 10 alien abductees to episodes of sleep paralysis. Memories of the scary incidents sparked heart-rate increases and other physiological stress reactions that exceeded those previously reported for Vietnam veterans with PTSD as they recalled distressing combat events."
Hoo-boy, I REALLY hope I never experience this; the nightmares and night terrors I've already had are more than enough.
It's easy to brush off those who claim to have been abducted by aliens or encountered demonic beings (or angelic ones) as being liars or crazy, or at the very least unable to tell if they're asleep or awake; while there are undoubtedly people who DO fall into all of those categories, it's important to note that some are also describing actual perceptions they had, that truly seem to them to have been real.
As to spiritual or paranormal experiences that did NOT occur at the point of waking, or with any of the attributes of sleep paralysis... those are still part of "the unknown."
