Sleep Paralysis

                I have had sleep paralysis since I was very young, perhaps as early as age 6. Some nighttime memories of my younger years eclipse those of conventional nightmares, which indicates something more severe. Sleep paralysis is much more intense and traumatic than anything that occurs during dreaming. Normally I feel a powerful wind or compressive force against my face, or the presence of something menacing. However, my latest sleep paralysis episode was unlike any of my former experiences.

                I went to bed at 10:41 p.m. on April 21^st, 2012, which is not my normal bedtime. I was exhausted after many continuous days of work and after having attended my brother’s wedding. I awoke around 4:30 a.m. on April 22^nd and carried on with my normal activities, despite the fact the time was abnormal. At 8:25 a.m. I fell asleep again, on the couch. I had plantar fasciitis in my left foot, so I was wearing a night splint.

                I had a dream that took place in a world resembling the textures and visuals of the video game Blast Corps (© 1997, Rare). I was not actually in the game, but the real world had been altered to look like the game, with the same textures. The water and concrete was what gave it away. I was driving on a one-lane entrance ramp to a highway, with 1 meter high barriers on either side made of perfectly smooth concrete. Thin black lines ran at regular intervals along the wall, orthogonal to the road, which were flaws that indicated the repetition of the textures. The same flaws were visible on the road. To my right, I could see a perfectly flat and rectangular pool of dark blue water. The water was immobile and made of repeating textures, just like the concrete. Very thin lines of no color showed the delineation between the textures. The sky was pure azure, unending and unfading. No other structures were visible in the distance, and if there was a horizon, it was very far away. Or it was very close.

                The artificial world of Blast Corps suddenly filled in all the infinitesimal gaps between the textures and became visually continuous. The real world, oddly enough, is more like the discontinuous, texture-laden, video game worlds. If one were to view the smoothest known object in the macroscopic* world with high magnification, it would be full of gaps, holes, and caverns. An underlying repeating texture of atoms would soon become apparent. I soon found myself driving on an elevated city highway, with buildings on either side, other cars on the road, and a dark, very dark sky. A tornado appeared next to the highway and it took my vehicle into its vortex, madly grinding it against the other cars, as if it were a giant pepper grinder. I quickly felt my death. I woke up from the dream and I felt the weird electric vibrations that precede every attack of sleep paralysis.

                I was fully awake at this point, yet unable to move. My eyes were closed. I have never, ever, dared to open my eyes during these attacks. A low, quiet growling noise came from the direction of my feet. I desperately tried to move my body, but I couldn’t. The growling noise repeated, but more loudly and persisted longer; I couldn’t breathe. I cried, thinking this was it – I was going to die. I felt my arms on my chest; they began to move. It was over. I got up and felt my face – it was dry. The time was 9:14 a.m. The dream and the paralysis happened in a time span of about 45 minutes.

                I have never heard noises before during sleep paralysis. The noise was definitely coming from inside the room. The constrictive sensation on my left foot due to the night splint may explain why I heard the noise coming from my feet. I had a similar experience when I was in the hospital after lung surgery. In order to prevent embolism, the nurses put python-like devices on my lower legs that cycled through squeezing and relaxing. I had a dream that someone was attacking my legs and I tore off the anti-embolism pads during my sleep. So it is entirely possible that therapeutic, though constrictive, devices can cause the body to become defensive during sleep. A possible explanation for sleep paralysis is that it could be acute schizophrenia. All of the symptoms of sleep paralysis disappear upon recovery of body movements. Take note that the symptoms do not disappear during consciousness; one is fully awake during sleep paralysis. If one were awake and not paralyzed and still suffered all the symptoms of sleep paralysis, then that would be chronic schizophrenia, or simply schizophrenia. My argument is that the hallucinations, false tactile and auditory sensations, are acute schizophrenia. This is what sleep paralysis might be.

                How did I feel about having heard the growling noise? I was immediately traumatized. After I was able to move my body, I turned on the lights and searched for a “something”, an unknown thing that was growling. I was kind of shocked that I didn’t find some new type of mammal; that’s how realistic the growling was. After a thorough search of my condo, I got into my regular bed and slept until 12:30 p.m. No further episode of sleep paralysis occurred. What else was different about this episode? It was immediately preceded by a dream. This is unusual. Sleep paralysis occurs while going to sleep, so I barely managed to wake up from the dream, started to fall back asleep, and became paralyzed. What was usual about this episode is that it happened in the morning. Sleep paralysis almost always occurs (for myself) in the morning, after I have slept for a while, and while I am trying to finish my sleep. Another oddity was the fact that my face was dry when I broke free of the paralysis. I clearly felt myself crying. This means that my mind hallucinated the bodily function of lacrimation.

                I have just described a single episode of sleep paralysis, but I have had multiple attacks before. A multiple attack is when one manages to recover from the paralysis and becomes paralyzed again. In all of those cases, I felt the powerful wind on my face. It’s also very loud. All episodes of sleep paralysis are preceded by the fuzzy electric feeling, where the body slightly quivers. It is not like the tingling of a limb falling asleep; it is a buzzing in the body. It’s very subtle and doesn’t hurt. A similar feeling I have felt was during the insertion of the chest tube after my lung had collapsed, at the point when the nurse administered morphine. I felt morphine flow throughout my whole body. The only real difference here is that morphine provides a fuzzy, pleasant feeling while the fuzziness before sleep paralysis is not warm.

                The earliest case I can remember of sleep paralysis happened at age 6 or 7. I had a plastic yellow raincoat hanging in my closet and I remember seeing my closet door opening and closing, but the raincoat was not yellow – it was purple. This may explain why I no longer open my eyes during sleep paralysis. Some people do open their eyes. I can remember my old girlfriend, Donna, claiming that she saw a small boy staring at her when she opened her eyes during sleep paralysis. Another early episode of sleep paralysis I can remember happened at age 9 or 10. I was sleeping in my grandparent’s house and I had a dream that the toys in the basement were floating and remaining stationary in the air at strange angles. I somehow became paralyzed after the dream with my eyes open – I couldn’t close them, I couldn’t move my body. But I didn’t hallucinate, either. I was so disturbed that I woke up my grandma and we went to the basement. I didn’t know what had happened. Not being able to move had confused me considerably, so I felt I had to check the basement, to make sure the toys weren’t floating. I had reasonably connected the dream with the sleep paralysis, but they are separate events, which I did not know at the time. That specific episode is the only one I can recall that happened in the middle of the night.

                Sleep paralysis might be caused by stress. I do have unusual stresses and normal stresses. My unusual stresses are mainly derived from paruresis. My normal stresses are derived from work (such as workplace politics), trying to understand women, noisy neighbors and trying to figure out what I should do with my life (other than staying alive). The ultimate solution to stress reduction is diet and exercise. There is no such thing as stress elimination. Here is a relevant quote by Frederik Pohl:

                “You solve one problem and another one comes up and starts biting you on the ass before you have a chance to catch your breath. Welcome to the real world, where the only final solutions come when you die.”

                *I used the word “macroscopic” to refer to the world because we cannot see the microscopic or subatomic worlds without technological aids. Although they are very real and do affect us, the small worlds are not real to everyday people going about their lives. Most people are ignorant of them and ignore them with aggressive persistence. I believe that many people believe only the macroscopic world exists, so I could very well have not specified “macroscopic” when referring to the “world”.

The Ultimate List of the Best and Worst Korean Movies

The movies that started it all....

1. Joint Security Area (2000)

2. Attack the Gas Station (1999)

3. My Sassy Girl (2001)

4. Memories of Murder (2003)

5. Bad Guy (2001)

6. A Bittersweet Life (2005)

The 6 movies listed above were some of the very first Korean movies I watched, back in 2005. I had never seen a Korean movie prior to 2005, so I have no strong nostalgic memories, as with American movies. However, despite the recent introduction, I feel that Korean movies are superior to most Hollywood movies. How so? Korean directors can make a movie about 4 guys attacking a gas station and somehow make it just as interesting and as memorable as Star Wars or Terminator. What is this “somehow”? Through strong character development. Clearly, there are no advanced special effects, so something else must be strengthened. American movie producers tend to have access to vast amounts of money, so they don't need to hire talented actors or get a good script. American movies just need a good special effects team, the results of which can be seen in movies like The Matrix and Transformers.

So, what types of American movies most resemble Korean movies? Anything with no or minimal computer graphics and strong character development. If you like The Shawshank Redemption or Fargo, then you'll probably like Korean movies. Both of those movies invoke memories of the characters and their struggles. Neither relied upon computer animations. They had real people.

Unfortunately, a truly terrible Korean movie was shown in American theaters ‑ D‑War. Do you know why it was shown in American theaters? Because it had good special effects. It's important to understand that I sometimes love movies with special effects, such as The Matrix and Transformers. This is because I understand the point of those movies is not to develop characters, but to wow audiences with explosions and compelling visuals. These types of movies typically are not that interesting when special effects are absent. A primary example is The Lord of the Rings, which was terribly boring, just like D‑War. Only when the computer took over was I able to maintain an interest. Another example of only watching the computer was Peter Jackson's King Kong. A counter example is The Incredible Hulk, which was interesting when the computer took over and when it signed off. And why? Because Edward Norton is a very talented actor.

In evolutionary terms, the origin of my interest in Korean movies can be traced back to the 6 listed at the top. Evolution helps us understand where things come from and its use is not exclusive to biology. I am using evolution to explain an interest. Biological evolution tends to keep things that work, such as gills and eyes. The evolution of my interest in Korean movies also retains things that work, such as an emotional response. The type of emotional response I get when watching a Korean movie is much stronger when watching an American movie. A strong emotional response is retained for a longer time and has more salience than a weak emotional response. I'm not arguing that Korean movies are more emotional than American movies ‑ I'm telling you what actually happens in my mind. Something else may happen in the mind of someone else, although they may not be willing to tell you about it, and you would never know.

I have watched 287 Korean movies since 2005 and arranged them into three tiers, with each tier organized chronologically. I purposefully organized them chronologically because each movie within its respective tier is as good as the others, in my opinion.

I've linked to the first two movies. You should be able to learn more about everything I have listed through these websites:

1. ASIANDB
2. Korean Film Org
3. Han Cinema

Tier 1 - Transcendent (89)

These are all films that I feel are better than “very good”, which in my mind translates to “transcendent”. I didn’t pick these because I feel my opinion will be universally approved; it is personal. I feel these are transcendent, but you may not.

Deep Blue Night 3-1-1985

Chil-su and Man-su 11-16-1988

Gagman 6-24-1989

Sopyonje 4-10-1993

The Day a Pig Fell into the Well 5-4-1996

Green Fish 2-7-1997

No. 3 8-2-1997

The Snare 11-1-1997

Christmas in August 1-24-1998

The Power of Kangwon Province 4-4-1998

The Quiet Family 4-25-1998

Birdcage Inn 10-31-1998

Attack the Gas Station 10-12-1999

Peppermint Candy 1-1-2000

Barking Dogs Never Bite 2-19-2000

The Isle 4-22-2000

Virgin Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors 5-27-2000

Joint Security Area 9-9-2000

Plum Blossom 10-14-2000

Pisces 10-21-2000

Address Unknown 5-26-2001

My Sassy Girl 7-27-2001

Raybang 11-2-2001

Bad Guy 1-11-2002

Turning Gate 3-22-2002

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance 3-29-2002

Marriage is a Crazy Thing 4-26-2002

Painted Fire 5-10-2002

Oasis 8-15-2002

Jail Breakers 11-21-2002

Memories of Murder 4-25-2003

A Tale of Two Sisters 6-13-2003

A Good Lawyer’s Wife 8-14-2003

Plastic Tree 8-29-2003

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring 9-19-2003

Untold Scandal 10-2-2003

Once Upon a Time in High School 1-16-2004

Samaritan Girl 3-5-2004

Woman is the Future of Man 5-5-2004

Spider Forest 9-3-2004

3-Iron 10-15-2004

S Diary 10-22-2004

Possible Changes 3-18-2005

A Bittersweet Life 4-1-2005

A Tale Of Cinema 5-26-2005

Rules Of Dating 6-10-2005

Whispering Corridors 4: Voice 7-15-2005

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance 7-29-2005

You Are My Sunshine 9-23-2005

Princess Aurora 10-27-2005

The Customer is Always Right 2-23-2006

Forbidden Quest 2-23-2006

Family Matters 3-24-2006

A Bloody Aria 5-31-2006

A Dirty Carnival 6-15-2006

No Mercy For The Rude 8-24-2006

Woman on the Beach 8-31-2006

Tazza: The High Rollers 9-27-2006

Ad-Lib Night 11-30-2006

Big Bang 3-14-2007

A Shark 5-10-2007

Secret Sunshine 5-23-2007

Black House 6-21-2007

Changing Partners 8-15-2007

Off Road 8-30-2007

Beautiful 2-14-2008

The Chaser 2-14-2008

Sorry 8-16-2008

The Divine Weapon 9-4-2008

My Dear Enemy 9-25-2008

My Friend and His Wife 11-27-2008

Private Eye 4-2-2009

Breathless 4-16-2009

Thirst 4-30-2009

Like You Know It All 5-14-2009

Mother 5-28-2009

Thirsty, Thirsty 6-4-2009

Possessed 8-12-2009

Paju 10-28-2009

Today and the Other Days 10-29-2009

Visitors 11-12-2009

HaHaHa 5-5-2010

The Housemaid 5-13-2010

Poetry 5-13-2010

I Saw The Devil 8-12-2010

A Desire to Kill 8-26-2010

Bedevilled 9-2-1010

Oki’s Movie 9-16-2010

Mother is a Whore 3-31-2011

Tier 2 - Decent to Delightful (144)

These all range from good to very good, in my opinion.

Angels on the Streets 2-19-1941

The Insect Woman 1972

Yeong Ja’s Heydays 2-11-1975

The Ball Shot By a Midget 10-17-1981

Knee to Knee 1984

The Entertainer 1985

Mulberry 2-8-1986

Winter Wanderer 1986

Hello, God! 1987

Youth Sketch 1987

Our Sweet Days of Youth 1988

Come, Come, Come Upwards 1989

General’s Son 1990

The Road to the Race Track 12-21-1991

Passage to Buddha 5-18-1993

Two Cops 1993

The Taebaek Mountains 1994

Two Cops 2 4-27-1996

The Contact 9-13-1997

Downfall 9-13-1997

Whispering Corridors 5-30-1998

Shiri 2-13-1999

Nowhere to Hide 7-31-1999

Tell Me Something 11-13-1999

Whispering Corridors 2: Memento Mori 12-24-1999

The Foul King 2-4-2000

Secret Tears 6-3-2000

Real Fiction 6-24-2000

I Wish I Had a Wife 1-13-2001

Bungee Jumping 2-3-2001

Running 7 Dogs 2-3-2001

Love Her 3-17-2001

Friend 3-31-2001

Failan 4-28-2001

Indian Summer 5-5-2001

Humanist 5-12-2001

Summer Time 5-26-2001

Kick the Moon 6-23-2001

Say Yes 8-17-2001

My Wife is a Gangster 9-28-2001

Guns and Talks 10-12-2001

Take Care of My Cat 10-13-2001

Hi Dharma 11-7-2001

Last Witness 11-16-2001

Flower Island 11-24-2001

Public Enemy 1-25-2002

No Blood No Tears 3-1-2002

A Funny Movie 4-12-2002

Bet on My Disco 6-6-2002

Break Out 7-17-2002

Phone 7-26-2002

Wet Dreams 11-6-2002

The Coast Guard 11-22-2002

A Bizarre Love Triangle 12-6-2002

Sex is Zero 12-12-2002

Save the Green Planet! 4-4-2003

Whispering Corridors 3: Wishing Stairs 8-1-2003

Into the Mirror 8-14-2003

My Wife is a Gangster 2 9-5-2003

Acacia 10-17-2003

The Road Taken 10-24-2003

Do You Like Spring Bears? 10-24-2003

The Greatest Expectation 10-24-2003

If You Were Me 11-14-2003

Oldboy 11-21-2003

Happy Naked Christmas 12-17-2003

Silmido 12-31-2003

Taegukgi 2-4-2004

The Big Swindle 4-15-2004

The Doll Master 7-30-2004

Hypnotized 8-6-2004

R-Point 8-20-2004

Three...Extremes 8-20-2004

Ghost House 9-17-2004

Some 10-22-2004

Wet Dreams 2 1-14-2005

Another Public Enemy 1-27-2005

The President’s Last Bang 2-3-2005

She’s on Duty 3-17-2005

Crying Fist 4-1-2005

Blood Rain 5-4-2005

The Bow 5-12-2005

Green Chair 6-10-2005

The Red Shoes 6-30-2005

Heaven’s Soldiers 7-15-2005

Welcome to Dongmakgol 8-4-2005

The Wig 8-11-2005

Cello 8-18-2005

Duelist 9-8-2005

The King and the Clown 10-29-2005

Art of Fighting 1-5-2006

Running Wild 1-12-2006

If You Were Me 2 1-13-2006

Holiday 1-19-2006

Vampire Cop, Ricky 2-9-2006

Bewitching Attraction 3-16-2006

My Scary Girl 4-6-2006

Bloody Tie 4-26-2006

Don’t Look Back 7-13-2006

The Host 7-27-2006

D-day 8-3-2006

Dasepo Naughty Girls 8-10-2006

Time 8-24-2006

Like A Virgin 8-31-2006

Mission Sex Control 9-28-2006

Righteous Ties 10-19-2006

Cruel Winter Blues 11-9-2006

I’m a Cyborg But That’s OK 12-7-2006

My Wife is a Gangster 3 12-28-2006

This Old Garden 1-4-2007

The Show Must Go On 4-5-2007

Beyond the Years 4-12-2007

Paradise Murdered 4-12-2007

Breath 4-26-2007

Hwang Jin Yi 6-6-2007

May 18 7-25-2007

Epitaph 8-1-2007

Love Exposure 10-18-2007

Shadows in the Palace 10-18-2007

Desert Dream 11-8-2007

Forever the Moment 1-10-2008

Once Upon a Time 1-30-2008

The Game 1-31-2008

Girl Scout 6-5-2008

Life is Cool 6-12-2008

My Mighty Princess 6-26-2008

Rough Cut 9-11-2008

Truck 9-25-2008

Crush and Blush 10-16-2008

Iri 11-13-2008

Portrait of a Beauty 11-13-2008

Scandal Makers 12-4-2008

Frozen Flower 12-30-2008

Turtles Run 6-11-2009

Lifting King Kong 7-1-2009

Tidal Wave 7-22-2009

The Sword With No Name 9-24-2009

Attack the Gas Station! 2 1-21-2010

Nice Shorts 1-21-2010

Moss 7-14-2010

The Man From Nowhere 8-4-2010

Hanji 3-17-2011

Moby Dick 6-9-2011

Poongsan 6-23-2011

Tier 3 - Abysmal (54)

These are films that I either did not like or disliked so much that I could not finish watching them. These are the stinkers of Korean cinema, in my opinion.

The Terrorist 1995

The Eternal Empire 1-28-1995

The Gingko Bed 2-17-1996

Piano Man 5-24-1996

The Soul Guardians 8-15-1998

Motel Cactus 10-25-1997

The Ring Virus 6-12-1999

Doctor K 10-1-1999

Black Honeymoon 3-11-2000

Nightmare 7-29-2000

Dead if Recorded 8-26-2000

Butterfly 10-13-2001

Volcano High 12-8-2001

Out of Justice 12-21-2001

2009 Lost Memories 2-1-2002

Four Toes 5-17-2002

Yesterday 6-13-2002

Family 8-23-2002

Can’t Live Without Robbery 9-27-2002

Unborn But Forgotten 11-15-2002

H 12-27-2002

Tube 6-5-2003

The Uninvited 8-8-2003

Natural City 9-26-2003

Once Upon a Time in a Battlefield 10-17-2003

Arahan 4-30-2004

Face 6-11-2004

Bunshinsaba (Ouija Board) 8-5-2004

None Of Your Cheek! 12-3-2004

Antarctic Journal 5-19-2005

City of Violence 5-25-2006

Arang 6-28-2006

Apartment 7-6-2006

Bloody Reunion 8-3-2006

Cinderella 8-17-2006

Dark Forest 8-17-2006

How the Lack of Love Affects Two Men 11-16-2006

Small Town Rivals 3-29-2007

The Cut 7-11-2007

Muoi 7-25-2007

D-War 8-1-2007

Return 8-8-2007

M 10-25-2007

The Guard Post 4-3-2008

The Good, The Bad, The Weird 7-17-2008

Death Bell 8-26-2008

Dream 10-9-2008

Written 12-26-2008

Five Senses of Eros 7-9-2009

Chaw 7-15-2009

Whispering Corridors 5: A Blood Pledge 8-12-2009

Yoga Class 8-20-2009

Secret Reunion 2-4-2010

Outlaw 3-18-2010

DREAMS

     In this post I have listed some of my dreams, in a random order. I have listed the origins to the best of my memory.

1.

I was in a massive structure that solely consisted of long hallways ‑ as far as I could tell. People were, for the most part, just walking aimlessly about. There were very nasty creatures rolling through the hallways. They never bothered anyone while in transit through the hallways. In fact, people seemed rather used to vile things rolling past them all day.

I noticed several things. At the very start of a hallway, a creature would sometimes talk to a person. That would result in the person running as fast as they could to the end of the hallway. The person would simply stop at the end. The creature rolled to the person and uncurled. (I never got close enough, but they did look extremely scary.) At this point, the creature proceeded to heartily maul the person to death. Heavy cracking and smacking of bone could be heard.

Here were the facts I compiled after wandering the hallways for several days:

1. People only run after a creature has talked to them.

2. After they run to the end of the hallway, they die.

3. Creatures never stop people in hallways, only at ends and beginnings.

I did not want to gamble anymore. I needed to get out of that place. If one of those things talked to me, I would find out why the people run, and consequently, die.

So here's what I did. I ran. I figured that the creatures wouldn't mess with me as long as I ran. They would think I was the meal of some other creature. My strategy paid off. I got out and came upon a vast field ‑ and never stopped running....

  (Suspected Origin: The dream occurred after I watched Logan’s Run, so it may be the basis.)

2.

 As she stood on the roof, her father was crying in the basement. That was a paradox to me. If he knew it was coming, he would not be worried. But he knew it was coming, therefore he had to be involved. Why would he cry? He was down there with a bottle of Jack Daniels, one knee on the ground.

She stood proud on the roof, eyeing the skies. The farm girl was prepared for this. Her role in the plan was beginning to take shape. A faint rumble in the distance was all she needed. This was it; the culmination of years of training could finally be put to use. It came quickly, crashing into the surrounding woods and fragmenting into thousands of pieces, as an airplane should. There was no fire, no smoke, no bodies. Although she didn't understand what they signified, the symbols "TWA" were still visible on some of the wreckage.

Ah, part of the camouflage, she thought.

Then they came. The rocks rolled out of the wreckage, spinning faster and faster. They knew where to go.

One came by me, as a matter of fact. It was pulsating as it rolled, a truly vile creature.

Somehow I knew it all. That wasn't an airplane ‑ it was an alien vessel in camouflage. It was merely dispatching troops and crashing was meant to cause confusion. No one would figure out where the airplane came from. Even aliens have a sense of humor.

(Suspected Origin: I don’t know. Completely generated by my unconscious mind.)           

3.

I awoke suddenly, because something was making a noise. Usually it's the cat, but the noise was slightly different. I was on my right side and looked up to notice a flexible tube hovering near my face. Whatever it was, it probably wouldn't expect an attack, so I grabbed it and pulled hard. It didn't offer much resistance and I had pulled in nearly 15 feet of it until I reached the end. It shrunk quickly, to perhaps 1 foot in length. I picked up the peculiar tube and placed it on my computer desk, turning on the lights in the process. It looked like a cylindrical piece of bubble gum and felt rather pliable; it had ceased moving. I went into my closet to get a small box. When I returned to my desk, the tube was gone.

Confounded, I let my eyes wander for a moment, searching for signs of the tube. I decided to look under my bed and noticed lots of little tubes, perhaps 4 inches long and 1/10 of an inch in diameter. They were squirming. I gathered them all and held them in my hand, squeezed hard, and felt them resist. They didn't like being squeezed. At this time, I was trying to decide if the original had broken into smaller pieces or if the others were already under my bed and the bigger tube was seeking them out. Either scenario was equally strange. But something even stranger happened. As I was squeezing the tubes, they eventually stopped resisting. This was not good. Either they had disappeared or sensed...an exit. They could've shrunk so small to have tunneled within my skin and into other areas. And what if, while inside of me, they decided to expand again? That would be very bad. I panicked and ran outside and stopped cold. The ground was covered with little pink tubes, squirming.

(Suspected Origin: The short story Colony, by Philip K. Dick.)

4.

I had found a special shoe which could also be used as a horn, for the purpose of producing mating calls of killer whales. I never investigated the reason for needing such a thing, but I had one and my friend had one as well. We both decided to blow the shoe horns and see what would happen. A killer whale suddenly rose out of the water and swam towards the shore. It hit the beach and did not slow down; it was slightly different from a standard killer whale and could move like a snake on solid earth. We both froze and watched it moving towards us, mouth open. It realized we were not a mate, but food. Our ability to move was temporarily disabled by fear and I recall feeling the tip of its teeth on my shoulder ‑ it came that close. I lost track of my friend; he dashed in one direction and I darted in another, up a hill. I expected to be safe on high ground, but it was slithering up the hill.

I found a wooden tower and ascended. There was a man on the top, in a small cabin. He was older than I and listened to my wild claims, while phoning the police.

"I've got some nut here. I need someone to ‑" The snake‑whale slithered past the tower as he was reporting me, and he dropped the phone.

I woke up at this point, and seeing a killer whale/snake hybrid was quite interesting.

(Suspected Origin: The novel Maker of Universes, by Philip Jose Farmer.)

5.

 The surface they were walking on looked like grass, but was really an advanced polymer. They didn’t know the difference for they’ve never seen real grass. The only obstruction in their view was a huge mountain, with an opening at the bottom. The mountain was to their east and a vast ocean of green invaded their eyes. No one knows if they were real humans, all 150,000 of them or so. The difference between artificial and real has long been forgotten and not a single person is aware the entire planet is artificial, created millennia ago. But such concerns were not on their minds. This was where they needed to be, for this was the entry point. If necessary, they would wait for days.

Sharp cracks and hisses like miniature lightning bolts penetrated their ears and a vast portion of green polymer was pelted with thousands of objects. Some were still kicking, some were still clenching and unclenching. What lay before these wretched, worthless people was a mound of freshly severed human limbs. These were to be saved for later, of course. They had to be gathered up and deposited in the mountain. For the next 50 days they would have food. It has been this way for countless generations.

(Suspected Origin: The “thinny” from the Gunslinger books, written by Stephen King.)

6.

 A swimming pool lay in the middle of an infinitely vast sheet of white flexible plastic. The weight of the water was enough to dent the plastic, thus forming sides and making a standard swimming pool. In this isolated pool were many people, none of which were swimming. Rather, they were treading water, as they were engaged in a game of water volleyball. The dent made by the weight of the water was great enough to make the walls unscalable; they were like sheer cliff faces, but completely smooth. So these people had been treading water their whole lives, playing water volleyball. They knew of nothing else.

Suddenly, one man started screaming. His screams became muted as his head was pulled under the water by an unseen force. In an attempt to help him, other people submerged and soon swam away, in terror. A powerful grinding force tore through bone, tendon, and internal organs, mixing them up and distributing the remains throughout slightly ellipsoidal regions, which exuded into smaller passages. A faint outline could be seen through the man’s blood as it made a tube-like path in the water.

Another man was grabbed by the invisible force, and through more entrails, an outline became more apparent. The people writhed, screamed agonies, screamed for help. Help that would never come. A shark, completely invisible, had slipped into their pool.

(Suspected Origin: I have never read in a book of this or seen such a thing happen in any movie. I have also never consciously thought of such a thing happening. This is a fabrication of my unconscious. The infinite white plastic sheet definitely came from the video game Super Mario 64. If you looked “outside” some levels, you could see an unending white surface.)

7.

            I was traveling in an RV with a co‑worker, named Tony. He was seated at the dining table and staring daggers into a plate of quesadillas. There were other people in the RV with us and they became panicked; Tony was not Tony. Somehow, we all suddenly knew his brain was empty. While the actual brain was there, his consciousness was gone. It had somehow left and entered the quesadillas. So the quesadillas contained Tony's consciousness; they were him ‑ his personality. Since Tony's body no longer contained a mind, it ran purely on instinct. The smell from the quesadillas was enough to make the body start eating them, which horrified us. He was devouring himself.

(Known Origin: One of my co‑workers went to Jamaica with his girlfriend and he paid $4200 for 6 days, which included airfare and 24 hour room service. One day at work he suddenly started talking about it and told me he kept ordering quesadillas. If he wanted a plate of quesadillas at 3 in the morning, then they had to cook them and provide room service. He kept going on and on about the quesadillas. This naturally became embedded somewhere in my wetware and my unconscious mind decided to play with it.)

8.

            There was something wrong with my abdomen. Little white bumps protruded from the skin, like jelly beans. One of them was squirming, and I grabbed it. I pulled out a very large maggot, about as large as a good‑sized shrimp. Another one stuck its head out but slipped back into the safety of my stomach before I could grab it. Rather than going into a wild rage, I drove to the hospital.

     By the time I got to the hospital, all of my internal organs were gone. Never mind how I was breathing or pumping blood. It apparently wasn't necessary. It was such a strange sight, to look down and observe one's midsection and chest cavity empty. There was a benefit to this. The maggots were gone.

     I walked into the doctor's office and he seemed perfectly content with the fact I was still alive. After some close inspecting, the doctor said to me, "I think you have a chest infection."

(Suspected Origin: The dream felt like I was in a Robert Sheckley short story and I have read nearly a hundred of his stories, so they may be the basis. It’s what I call “humor of the horrible”. My lung surgery and hospital stay had no influence, since I had this dream several years before the surgery.)

9.

            I was in class and the teacher walked in and asked if we had our remixes ready. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but the other students had prepared elaborate arrangements of songs from video games. I wanted to slowly disappear into the back of the room, because I had prepared nothing. So I thought. I knew the Dr. Wily theme from Mega Man 2 pretty well, and figured I could whistle it. When my turn came up, my mouth was too dry and it sounded wrong. I knew how the song was supposed to go, so I got pretty frustrated. But I didn't give up. I stood there and whistled the whole thing. I could see a lot of confused faces after whistling, and I had to explain it was Dr. Wily's theme from MM2. One student snapped and said, "Yeah! I remember that!"

(Suspected Origin: My unconscious desire to remix game music coupled with my fear of failing before a crowd.)

10.

Every human on the planet (not necessarily Earth) lived inside a giant covered building. The building was technologically asymmetrical, as one end was more advanced than the other end. When construction started, they used wood. But nothing was ever torn down. If one was really inspired, they could walk back to the oldest wood sections. The building was hundreds of miles in length and the newest sections were made of material we do not have; something more advanced than our metals, concrete and synthetic materials.

Very few people wanted to live in the older sections, so in order to cope with the bursting population, new sections were always being added. The population density was so high that groups of 4 people were required to occupy a single bedroom. I was in a room with another man and two women, both of which were attractive. I could have had either woman, but there was some other woman I wanted. Unfortunately, she had committed suicide.

I had hired a guide to take me back to the old wood sections and we found her hanging from a crossbeam. It was possible to bring the dead back to life, but with a caveat. They could not be rejuvenated into a biological body; it had to be plastic. I really wanted her, so I decided to go with the plastic.

(Suspected Origin: I’ve read so much science fiction, that I’m not entirely sure. I remember reading a story about a structure that was never demolished. Workers just kept adding new sections. It is probably a Robert Sheckley story.)

11.

            Unusual looking crickets were getting stuck in the glue traps in my parent’s house on Pinecone Trails. Warm shafts of sunlight penetrated the curtains in the front room, as I noticed the little critters eating the glue and becoming larger. However, as they increased in size, they did not become more insect-like in appearance, but feline. A full grown cat/insect hybrid began walking around the house, in the usual way that cats stalk their territory, so it seemed completely normal. However, when I petted the creature, I could clearly feel the exoskeleton. It had an ersatz fur covering. This didn’t seem all that strange, so I went outside for a walk and noticed tall weeds between my parent’s house and the Glasper’s house. Amongst those weeds were many dead people that were clearly quite dead, as is typical of dead people. They died in the oddest of positions, choosing to bend their arms and legs at uncomfortable looking angles.

            I called the police and told them about the dead people. Within minutes, a coroner’s truck and several police cars drove down Pinecone Trails, carefully going around the island, rather than driving directly to my house. The coroners started to unload the black body bags and gurneys, when the dead people began stirring. As it turned out, they were quite OK, and began talking amiably amongst themselves. The coroners were rather upset and started to put away the black bags. A police officer exited his car and slammed the door. He walked towards me, shaking his finger in the direction of the people in the weeds, while giving me a venomous glare. He shouted in my face, “THOSE PEOPLE AREN’T DEAD!”

(Suspected Origin: The novel The Right Hand of Dextra, by David J. Lake. This was probably the most humorous dream I’ve ever had. One would expect the police to be relieved that the people weren’t dead, but in my dream they expected to see some dead people and were quite upset to find them alive. My dream came from the novel because it happened shortly after reading it and I suspect that the insect/cat hybrids were meant to imitate cats and infiltrate our households, while the people in the weeds were newly formed imitations of humans.)

12.

            I was standing outside of Hazelwood West, my high school. Someone had painted the exterior in a chaotic striped pattern of solid white and black. Nothing stirred, no one was visible. There were no sounds outside and the only weather seemed to be sunlight. I slowly approached the building and used the entrance that led to the junior high math rooms and main office. No lights were on inside; the electricity had apparently been disconnected. However, there was a deep humming noise, indicating heavy machinery. I entered the hallway and saw a person being skinned by a machine resembling a printing press. But it was far more sophisticated. The machine ran the length of the hallway and was designed to deorganize humans, starting with the skin. Morbidly intrigued, I followed the hapless individual as he passed through the machine, watching his intestines collect onto a spool and his other organs collect onto appropriately shaped surfaces. I didn’t quite make it to the end of the process, since by that time I had noticed what was operating the machine. It was a group of those creatures from the movie “Alien”.

(Suspected Origin: The operators of the machine clearly came from that classic movie. However, my unconscious generated the machine. This is an old, old dream. I had this one probably before age 15. I’m able to write about it because I remember it vividly. I invented the word “deorganize”, which has a double meaning. It’s an interesting and appropriate pun.)

13.

A physics experiment had gone awry; we had somehow screwed up the Fine Structure constant. It no longer approximated 1/137. This caused perturbations in the quantum foam that pervades the seething, completely full, ill-named “vacuum” of space. It became thicker because virtual particles (electron-positron pairs) were no longer annihilating. This halted the orbits of stars around the cores of galaxies, halted the orbits of planets around stars, etc. It halted everything. We never saw it coming, since space itself became thicker. The entire Universe had come to a full stop.

(Suspected Origin: Simply having knowledge of quantum foam and the fine structure constant. It also behooves me to point out I had this dream before reading Schild’s Ladder by Greg Egan. Those of you that have read Schild’s Ladder will understand why it behooved me to mention that.)

The conundrum of the Catholics.

     A word of interest to me is “catholic”. I had always assumed that it referred to a religion, but it is chiefly identified as an adjective which means: (1) Of broad or liberal scope; comprehensive. And: (2) Including or concerning all humankind; universal.
     Based on this new knowledge I can state that the antonym of “catholic” is “parochial”, which I find highly ironic, as Catholic schools are often referred to as parochial.
     If Catholics were in fact catholic in their outlook, then perhaps Giordano Bruno would not have been burned at the stake and Galileo would not have been placed under house arrest. Those things happened a long time ago and it is illogical for me to be disturbed by them, but those facts are still being chewed on by others, since the Catholic Church waited some 350 years to exonerate Galileo.
     In reality, Catholics are parochial, and thus exhibit mental attitudes which conflict with their decent name. If Catholics were in fact catholic, then they would not believe in just one god. In fact, Catholics don’t even believe in the facets of their own religion. As an example, the Pope makes public appearances on roads in a vehicle armored with bulletproof glass. In the Catholic religion, the Pope is the top dog (pun intended) and he doesn’t even believe that praying works. If the Pope believed that praying actually works, then he would pray to God that no one would shoot him. After praying, he should then make public appearances without hiding behind bulletproof glass. If the Pope is shot and killed, then that would serve as proof to the world that praying does not work. But we already have the proof in the form of the Pope’s behavior.
     Honestly, I would like to call myself a “Catholic”, due to the optimistic nature of its adjectival definition. However, other people would assume I was referring to the childish religion that propounds absolutism and traditionalism. Catholics are children, even if they are morphologically adults. I’m not concerned with their bodies, or with what I can see; I am concerned with the mentality of Catholics and all other religious people, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, etc.
     When I think of religion, I think of absolutism, which reminds me of Hitlerism. Since I’m not religious, does that mean I am an atheist? Many people think in those simplistic terms, always correlating beliefs with God or other gods. But did you know that there are these things called humans? I believe in humans; God and gods are completely irrelevant and archaic. Only traditionalist and absolutist people concern themselves with God and gods. I am concerned with humans, which makes me more mature than religious people, because, at least we have evidence indicating that humans exist. In fact, I made the existence of humans the starting point for my Philosophy of Reality, which is posted elsewhere in this blog.
     I am clearly not an atheist, since that solves nothing by placing God at a level of paramount importance by denying His existence. God is the main point in atheism. And that’s why I don’t like it. So what am I? In my studies, I have discovered two terms that I really like. They are:

       1. Meliorist
       2. Secular Humanist

     What is a meliorist? The Latin root is melior, which means better. You’ve probably seen the word ameliorate, which is one of the English words derived from melior. A meliorist is someone that believes humans can be improved or there is a tendency for humans to improve themselves. I also want to point out I did not make up the word meliorist; it is listed in my 2011 American Heritage Dictionary. This quote aptly summarizes meliorism:

     "In my case this article of faith is that the human race will continue to live forever and will develop and progress without limit. This is an assumption that I must make for my peace of mind. Living is worthwhile if one can contribute in some small way to this endless chain of progress."
-Paul Dirac, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1933

     A secular humanist is someone that places precedence on humans, rather than religion. I automatically became a secular humanist when I placed humans above God in my Philosophy of Reality. I have always believed in the importance of humans. Do bear in mind that my bias plays a role in this inclination. I am a human. People that place God above humans must have an infinitely odd identity crisis. I also agree with the related notion of secularism, which is the view that religious teachings are irrelevant to society. It’s more relevant to teach the reality of religion and not teach religion as if it is descriptive of reality.
     Catholics are neither secular nor melioristic. The orthodox Catholic has a paradoxically heretical parochial mentality. This is the conundrum of the Catholics.

What is a wife?

     One of the activities I engage in with my free time is the perusal of my dictionary, or now, my dictionaries. I own the 3rd and 5th editions of The American Heritage Dictionary, which were published in 1992 and 2011, respectively. There are some interesting differences between the two, such as the exclusion of the word “internet” from the 1992 edition. However, I find the differences between the definitions of “wife” and “husband” rather compelling.

Consider the 1992 definitions of “wife” and “husband”:

wife - A woman joined to a man in marriage; a female spouse.

husband - A man joined to a woman in marriage; a male spouse.

Now consider the 2011 definitions:

wife - A woman joined to another person in marriage; a female spouse.

husband - A man joined to another person in marriage; a male spouse.

     I find the definitions compelling because they make me wonder what they will be 20 years from now, since they have already changed within a span of less than 20 years. Take keen notice that one simply needs to be joined to another person; gender of the other person is not specified, as it is in the 1992 definitions.

Ted Chiang's science fiction.

I want to mention that Ted Chiang's science fiction is better than exceptional. As Greg Bear stated, I agree that it is essential.

I read "Stories of Your Life and Others" this weekend and my attention was frozen, immobilized, by his erudition and exploration of complicated topics. This is science fiction for aggressive readers and autodidactically inclined people.