Paint by Numbers Tuesday

[nightdog_barks]

1) It has warmed up again and gotten very humid, so I've had to close the windows and turn on the a/c. Bah, humbug.

2) ALMOST finished with Bone Clocks, and ... I'm not quite sure what to think of it. So far I like 90% of it and am rolling my eyes at the other 10%, and I think that might hold for the rest of the book. All I'll say right now is that David Mitchell cannot write an action scene to save his life.

3) I keep forgetting to mention that I watched Fanny and Alexander a couple of weeks ago and fell in love with it all over again. There are seriously not enough superlatives I can say about this film.

4) Watched Saving Mr. Banks the other night, and hm. In the end I didn't care for it because I don't think the film makers knew which story they wanted to tell. And I recognize that in the movie P.L. Travers is a deeply damaged person, but wow, was she unpleasant. Also it was just weird seeing Paul Giamatti being so ... perky and wholesome.

5) Sleep paralysis dreams are the worst. >:-P

Comments

[taiga13]

I read a review of The Bone Clocks on Slate. I've read Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, but aren't sure I want to read this one.

[nightdog_barks]

Ah, I loved Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas! And Mitchell is following the same formula here, weaving together the stories of X number of people who don't seem to have any connection to each other. And it's FINE when he's following these people -- it's when he gets to the history of the Big Secret behind the stories that I am seriously rolling my eyes and going "OH COME ON." Because I'm sorry, but it's just silly. :(

So I'll finish the book tonight (I really don't have much left) and then I'll look at Goodreads and the AV Club and Slate to see if anyone agrees with me. :D

[silverjackal]

I am very sorry to hear that you've suffered with sleep paralysis. :( Do you normally suffer from it, or is a combination of lack of sleep/disturbed sleep/medication to blame?

[nightdog_barks]

The sleep paralysis dreams are fairly rare with me (THANK GOODNESS). It is, as you suggest, a combination of chronic insomnia, restless sleep, and anastrozole. Or actually, it's most likely the anastrozole causing the insomnia and restless sleep.

The funny thing is that I'm usually able to extricate myself from disturbing and/or anxious dreams by realizing I'm dreaming and thinking very sternly to myself "This is STUPID and it should stop." But a sleep paralysis dream is an entirely different animal for me, and is truly terrifying. Interesting, but terrifying. And they're almost always "intruder dreams." Last night it was a woman dressed in grey and black who wanted to touch my shoulder. What the hell, brain?

[silverjackal]

But a sleep paralysis dream is an entirely different animal for me, and is truly terrifying.

This is entirely normal from my understanding of the subject. The horror and foreboding are part of the physiological process of the sleep paralysis itself, as is the very common sense of some sort of dark figure standing menacingly over the sleeper. Not that that helps at all, but I gather that people who suffer from such dreams regularly learn to identify it "Oh, there's that looming sense of impending doom, it's just sleep paralysis..."

I've actually only ever experienced sleep paralysis once that I recall and I recognised what was happening from knowing the theory so my reaction after the initial wave of horror was to relax and think "Oh, so *this* is what it's like!". I also practice a form of "sleep meditation" where I am fully aware even while I have no control over my body, though that is entirely volitional and an intensely peaceful state. Since I'm accustomed to being awake but unable to move isn't disconcerting, which likely helped with my one and only encounter with sleep paralysis so far. I used to be able to have some lucid dreams as well, but it's a skill that I've lost since I normally don't recall my dreams at all.