1612 Night Mare

I read about “sleep paralysis” recently, and how in certain cultures with a rich spiritual tradition it can sometimes lead to death.
Sleep paralysis is what happens when you have an out-of-sequence dream state. Your brain normally disconnects from your muscles when you dream so you don't run out of bed or jump off the balcony or something. Sleep paralysis is what happens when you sort of wake up while you're still dreaming and can't move your body.
It's the origin of our word nightmare. Mare is from the German mahr, which denotes a female supernatural being who lies on your chest and suffocates you.
Two possible solutions come to mindlarger beds, or divorces.
The article cited people from the Southeast Asian Hmong culture, who actually died from nightmares when they first immigrated here and didn't have a spiritual infrastructure in place to help.
Oddly, our spiritual infrastructure doesn't seem to help things much for us. Especially westerners raised with the two bedtime items guaranteed to make sleep feel safe and wholesome: Rock-a-bye baby, the lullaby that describes babies falling out of trees, and my favorite, the bedtime prayer I was forced to recite as a child.
Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake. I pray the lord my soul to take.
Um, I remember thinking, I can die when I sleep? Is there a big chance of this? 'Cause, you know, I may not want to close my eyes and go over into that whole unconsciousness thing, which is kind of weird anyhow.
"Pleasant dreams," my mom would say.
"And say your prayers," (with that unspoken subtext) just in case...
Can't imagine why I might have a nightmare...
America, ya gotta love it.

1611 Back Alley

I love our English language. Because every now and then the sound of a word sends me into interesting mental back alleys.
Like the other day. I picked up a package someone had handed me at a trade show. The package was a sample vitamin. Not an ordinary vitamin though. Not even a liquid vitamin, supposedly more absorbable by your body than dry vitamins mixed with your own spit.
No, this vitamin was a "gummy" vitamin. Gummy, I assume, as in gummy bear. And apparently the company that manufactured them thought I would think that too since in smaller letters it said, "Gummy Vitamins for Adults."
Of course, the big letters said "Daily Immune Antioxidant Complex" so, you know, not your basic kid's vitamin right there. Hey kids, here's your immune complex antioxidant Flintstone.
But the rest of the package did leave me wondering how adult. As in denizens of adult care facilities. Because really, gummy could also refer to the type of food toothless oldsters have to masticate. Or at least how they have to masticate it. Gumming it as it were.
Even more of a hint in that direction was the fruit flavor they used—Elderberry.
Nope. Another back alley. Probably not. The Elderberry Gummy vitamins contained no fiber.
Which is hard to say for the Premier of Russia. Or perhaps he's President again. How much of his ambition was compensation behavior for his name?
Putin. Really? We have a powerful leader whose name sounds like an act of biological gas propulsion. That's got to have caused him some teasing in 4th grade.
"Where's Vladimir?"
"He's Putin."
There's a rumor floating around that way back his family changed their name to conceal Polish origins.
Their real name was Flatulentski.
Mental back alleys are fun.
America, ya gotta love it.

1610 Insightettes

I have these little epiphanies from time to time, minor realizations, tiny inspirations. I like to call them insightettes.
Like the other day, I was filmed by someone at a public event. Actually, I was phoned. Because there was no film, and no photographing in the old sense. There was video and audio, so I could say I was videoed and audioed, but that's too cumbersome.
So since I was captured on a smartphone, I was phoned.
I wasn't under any illusions about my privacy as the phoning took place at a public event. Still, it brings up an interesting wrinkle in modern culture. If you're not comfortable with having something repeated endlessly on the web, don't do it.
The social electronic conscience. In the old days, you had that invisible angel guy sitting on your shoulder acting as your conscience. You still have him, it's just that now he's holding an iPhone.
On another note, I saw an odd thing on the road recently. A crusty old guy was driving an equally crusty old pick-up truck. And it had two, count 'em two, of those "Stop Thurston County from taking our property" bumper stickers on the tailgate. Then I saw what he was carrying in the back of his truck. A big pile of soil. And I thought, "Wow, looks like he's taking some of his property back."
Lastly, I was having a discussion with a friend about the failure of "open source" operating systems compared to Windows and Mac and such. And it occurred to me, the dream of open source is good but really... would you be comfortable going to a restaurant and ordering an open source burrito?
"Um, this tastes different than last week."
"Yeah, we had a new cook wander through and add something..."
"Did you phone him doing it? Because it tastes like soil from the back of a pickup..."
America, ya gotta love it.