Sleep Disorders and Werewolves

Sleep Disorders and Werewolves

Have you ever done something unexpected in the night while you were still asleep? I’m talking things like sleep walking, sleep talking, or maybe sleep eating. Other people might even have thought you were really awake. If so, you may have a parasomnia.

Millions of people have parasomnias, a type of sleep disorder with sleep-wake transition issues. It can be a very interesting place, the world of parasomnias.

I am a somnambulist, somniloquist, a sometimes insomniac, a radical dreamer, with a touch of narcolepsy just for fun. Don’t you love these words – sounds like something out of a Shakespeare play.

A somnambulist is a sleep walker and to sleep walk is very common among children. I used to sleep walk all the time. I’d get out of bed and head out to the living room where my parents were watching television. Your eyes are open when sleep walking and you can see what’s happening but you are trapped in the world of sleep and have no control of what you are doing. It’s like being a puppet with your unconscious pulling the strings.

I shared a bedroom with my sister Lisa when we were kids and she was the primary witness to my somnambulism. One night I was standing in front of the mirror brushing my hair while asleep. Another time while sleep walking I started attacking her leg.

A somniloquist is a sleep talker. Often the talking is mumbled and hard to decipher. That’s just as well isn’t it?

So what is going on here? The body is not supposed to wander about when asleep and dreaming, for obvious safety reasons. The brain switches off the body’s ability to move when dreaming. The switch appears to be faulty in the parasomniac.

I am a rabid dreamer and sometimes feel I have been dreaming all night without any deep sleep. We all dream about 5 times a night during what is called REM (rapid-eye movement) sleep. You can see the eyes twitch under the lids of the sleeper during REM sleep. Most people only remember the final dream in the morning when they have been woken from sleep by something like an alarm (which has cut into the REM stage). Some ‘well balanced’ people don’t remember their dreams at all.

I love being able to access my dreams but it can play havoc with the next day. I sometimes feel like I am still dreaming during the day (my poem Realm of the REM pretty much sums up what it feels like for me). I can be tired and disoriented, not sure if I’m really awake.

When I was a teenager I had a recurring dream that I was a werewolf and that I was eating people. Quite a nightmare that one and no comfort to my sister whose leg I had attacked. My brother Daniel used to dream he was being attacked by a werewolf.

The other night I dreamt a wolf was circling me in a menacing manner. I walked up to him and pushed his head and body to the ground, effortlessly. He looked up at me and then slinked off, continuing to circle but knowing his place.

___________________________________________________________________

Note: this is an edited repost. The kids finally got over the flu but now the boy has a vomiting/gastro type thing – ah the joys of parenting 😉

____________________________________________________________________

A Creative Vision: A Solar Field of Dreams

A Creative Vision: A Solar Field of Dreams

It’s my birthday today!

For those who are under the impression I am a young thing (guffaw) I will reveal that I was born in the sixties. Hmm – I just had a thought – that might explain my strange brain 😉

Gabrielle and Daniel Crook

That’s my brother Daniel on the trike and me on the plastic tractor – haha (I was a Crook back then – Crook by name, Crook by nature) in the backyard of our little house in Indooroopilly, Brisbane.

The kids and I have been a bit sick with the flu. It started with Michael, followed shortly by Tessa and then me. Husband – Andy the Great – rarely gets sick, which I think is highly unfair given he is a smoker and fond of the odd beer or two or …

Tessa and I are still a bit under the weather but I’ve had worse flu, so can’t complain. I might be able to struggle to the shops in the afternoon to buy a cake of some sort and maybe a bag of wild raspberries (lollies that is).

Just ignore me – I am prone to a life of exaggeration.

Since it’s my birthday I think I will give myself permission to have a little daydream into the future.

What do you think of this as an idea? A mere seed which may or may not germinate (depending on the prevailing winds, rain, sunshine and finances).

A Solar Field of Dreams

Or to be more precise, a field of solar panels – an array of solar panels on sunny land, shaped like the sun or maybe forming a word like poetry or art.

The solar panels would collect energy from the sun and transfer that energy to our house to be used as the main source of electricity. Our car would be electric with the ability to be plugged into the domestic supply (ala solar powered car).

Excess power will go back to the Grid and we would be paid as a supplier of solar energy.

But, there’s more!

The solar array would also be a work in progress Poetry as Art installation.

Every solar stand (think solar panel on legs) would have a place for one of my weather-proof poems and maybe some photos and commissioned art.

The array then becomes a solar field of dreams:

Solar Field of Dreams

Collecting energy,
collecting poetry and art.
Synergistic solutions
to save the environment
with creativity in the sun.

Gabrielle Crook at Holy Family (Primary School)

What would the Brigidine nuns (if they were alive) think of me now 😉
___________________________________________________________________________

Run for the hills: the Gabe files

Run for the hills: the Gabe files

In 1999 I had a very vivid dream. In the dream I am standing at the base of a high-rise building. It’s the Brisbane Stock Exchange. Suddenly a large jet airliner crashes into the building. The plane emerges out of the other side and the building collapses. The devastation is immense and all that is left is a large hole in the ground. I am safe but everything around me is destroyed.

The dream had such an impact on me that I began to fear travelling in airplanes. Every time a plane went overhead my heart would beat a little faster. I got married later in 1999 and my husband and I flew to Far North Queensland for our honeymoon. I remember telling him on the plane about my dream and how I was a bit scared. We both laughed at how silly it sounded.

The day of the terrorist attacks in New York, September 11 2001, I saw a version of my dream played out on every television channel. I couldn’t believe what was happening. My psychiatrist told me that all dreams represent something that has occurred in the previous 48 hours. Maybe, maybe not!

I have another dream which bothers me. It’s a recurring dream that is also very vivid and I think about it often. It takes a number of forms but basically I am living near the coast or in a city with a river running through it (yes, that would be Brisbane). Suddenly there is a tsunami and the sea rises up and destroys the town. Everyone is madly running as fast as they can go, trying to outrun the waves, trying to get to higher territory. The waves do not retreat and the place is completely swamped. I make it safely to higher ground, along with a small group of family, friends and some strangers. We travel as far away from the town as we can get, still fearful of the rising waters. We travel into the hills, to the most beautiful place in the world and we are safe. We decide to make that place our new home. Most people have not survived and we are very grateful that we did.

I had my first tsunami dream the day before the Banda Aceh tsunami of December 26 2004. It was probably just a result of over-indulging on bubbly on Christmas day but maybe not.

I live in a small seaside village on the shores of Hervey Bay in Queensland. It’s a low lying place and 7,000 years ago the seas reached about 1km inland. You can still see the ‘second ridge’ – the elevation of the original beach, now covered in vegetation.

Earlier this year a cyclone hovered about 100km away from our seaside town and we could feel the winds from the edge of the low pressure system. The wind created large waves which pounded on the shore and one day the waves started to break through the ‘first ridge’, something which the locals had never seen happen. After about 10 days the cyclone eventually moved further out to sea.

One day I think we may have to ‘run for the hills’.

________________________________________________________________

This is a repost from 2009.

Well, I do have a sick chicken to take care of 😉

sleep post

Sleep Disorders and Werewolves

Have you ever done something unexpected in the night while you were still asleep.  Other people might even have thought you were really awake. If so, you may have a parasomnia.

Millions of people have parasomnias, a type of sleep disorder with sleep-wake transition issues. I’m talking things like sleep walking, sleep talking, and for some people sleep eating.

It can be a very interesting place, the world of parasomnias.

I am a somnambulist,  somniloquist, a sometimes insomniac, a radical dreamer, with a touch of narcolepsy just for fun. Don’t you love these words – sounds like something out of a Shakespeare play.

A somnambulist is a sleep walker and to sleep walk is very common among children. I used to sleep walk all the time. I’d get out of bed and head out to the living room where Mum and Dad were watching TV.  You have your eyes open when sleep walking and you can see what’s happening but you are trapped in the world of sleep and have no control of what you are doing. It’s like being a puppet with your unconscious pulling the strings.

I shared a bedroom with my sister Lisa when we were kids and she was the primary witness to my somnambulism. One night I was standing in front of the mirror brushing my hair while still asleep. Another time while sleep walking I started attacking her leg.

A somniloquist is a sleep talker. Often the talking is mumbled and hard to decipher. That’s just as well isn’t it?

So what is going on here.  The body is not supposed to move when asleep and dreaming, for obvious safety reasons. The brain switches off the bodies ability to move when dreaming. This switch appears to be faulty in the parasomniac.

I am a rabid dreamer and sometimes feel I have dreamt all night and not got any deep sleep. We all dream about 5 times a night during what is called REM (rapid-eye movement) sleep. You can see a sleepers eyes twitch under their lids during REM sleep. Most people only remember the final dream in the morning when they have been woken from sleep by something like an alarm (which has cut into the REM stage). Some ‘well balanced’ people don’t remember their dreams at all.

I love being able to access my dreams but it can play havoc with the next day. I sometimes feel like I am still dreaming during the day (my poem Realm of the REM pretty much sums up what it feels like for me). I can be tired and disoriented, not sure if I’m really awake.

When I was a teenager I had a recurring dream that I was a werewolf and that I was eating people. Quite a nightmare that one and no comfort to my sister whose leg I had attacked. My brother Daniel used to dream he was being attacked by a werewolf.

The other night I dreamt a wolf was circling me in a menacing manner. I walked up to him and pushed his head and body to the ground, effortlessly. He looked up at me and then slinked off, continuing to circle but knowing his place.