BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory

Subject: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 02:57 AM

There was a thread not long ago about whether 'Catters ever sleep. Here at the Bedtime for Bonzo Sleep Disorder Lab over to the Neil Young Center, we have a new theory to advance for your comment.

Seems a big part of my own not-sleeping was having bombarded my pineal gland with hours of bright but non-full-spectrum light, flickers as I page-hopped, 18 inches from my face with other light on in the room. This over-rode, sense, exhaustion, and even sleep-inducing chemicals. I finally reset the system with melatonin and a GOO-GOB of tears, also due for other reasons, physical and stress-levels. (The only other time melatonin helps me is during SAD season, so I had not tried it for this.) I told Hardiman it was like when we artificially light up the henhouse with more than 12 hours light, so the hens will lay eggs in winter-- it resets their diurnal rhythms. He said, I don't see any eggs. I said, well, they're all written ones, and tasty too, because the hens got a great diet. Bright yellow yolks, mmm. 'Course he didn't see them cuz I was taking all the online time!!!

Now I am sensitive to light and lighting effects, so I noticed these effects bigtime. I bet it's a factor for some of you others too.

I'll say more about my own lighting sensitivities cuz maybe that will give someone else a starting point to think about. If I get around a real strobe light I actually... well it's undiagnosed but it's a form of epilepsy similar to what are called phantasmagoria. You get that ometimes when you drive a dappled road and the sun dapples kinda make you... go somewhere... else.

So... anyone out there care to share?

PS, I have a light on now, and I limit my screen time!!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 03:03 AM

....and it's 3 AM where you are, Praise. Hit they hay, hey?
G'nite.
-Joe Offer, where it's midnight and bedtime-

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 03:03 AM

oops correction:

18 inches from my face with other light on in the room

should read:

... with NO other light on in the room.....

(...because I'm dumb, that's why!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 03:04 AM

Yes, Joe, last post, and don't you stay up to fix it either, you doll.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: Escamillo
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 04:46 AM

It's 6:30 AM in the Queen of the Silver River, I'm finishing some copies to ZIP drive and go to sleep. As many professional programmers (isn't it an oxymoron ?), I can't do any useful work when my customers have their machines busy, so my journey starts approx. at 3 PM and ends at 9 PM, then I come home, talk to the family, eat too much, drop asleep in my chair for an hour, then start producing programs until 6 or 7 in the morning. Somehow I steal 1 to 4 hours a day for singing classes, rehearsals and concerts. Some times I meet my wife Graciela in the corridor, and steal 1 hour more. I don't know how this disorder is called, but I'm sure it is driving me to the Neil Young Center. That's ok, I'll find many friends there.
Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 08:44 AM

Un abrazo no solamente por usted, pero tambien a La Graciela, !amigo!

Es el abrazo de las mujeres una abraza?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: Amos
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 08:53 AM

Arbrazar una mujere no es una abraza, Praise. Es una milagre!

Nother piece of this puzzle is the compelling nature of a desired or itnersting reality --like the Cat -- or when I'm right in the crux of a good book. It calls harder than sleep does. I'll wake up after going to bed like a good boy and discover myself all awake just long enough to finish the book or write the song. I pay for it in the morning...

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: wysiwyg
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 09:00 AM

Yeah but it's a fair price and you're rich.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: The Beanster
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 09:07 PM

Sleepy Praise,

I always wondered why it always seems to be just you and me posting to each other in the wee hours when all the other sensible Cats are fast a-snooze. If I see you again tonight, I'll be sure to sing you a lullaby... :) No, no, wait. That'll only give you nightmares.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: MMario
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 09:17 PM

Praise...give up sleep for Lent. You won't be able to stay awake!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: rangeroger
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 10:37 PM

What really bothers me,is when I've nodded off and wake up to my finger on the scroll down key and have no idea what I've been looking at.
Two years ago,I changed jobs so now I work day shift with weekends off.For six years prior to that I spent my winters in charge of the snowmaking and grooming crews at a ski area.
This was all night shift work.I would leave the house at 10:30 at night and not get back home until 11 or 12 the next day.I would try to go to sleep,and would wake up three hours later and not be able to get back to sleep.Reading didn't help.Playing music didn't help.It soon began to take a toll on me.I made mistakes.And when you make mistakes while driving a piece of equpment that weighs 8 tons and is 11 feet wide at the tracks those mistakes can be big ones.Sleep deprivation is a very serious disorder.
And all that was at $7.00 an hour.Wasn't worth it.
In staying up to be with the Mudcat cyber-family,I have webtv. So my screen is 10 feet away,and is a 27 incher.I have other things to occupy my vision to break things up.
Praise,what you were talking about with the strobe effects is a very real phenomenon.I studied it in physiogical psych.,but can't remember the name.It affects drivers when there is a line of trees along side the road and the sun is shining through them.It has also been proven to have affected helicopter pilots as the sun shines through the moving rotor blades and has been named as the cause of some crashes.
Anyway now I'm usually in bed by 10 or 11 and sleep the night through,with many wonderful dreams.
rr

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: BlueJay
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 11:57 PM

Rangeroger- I empathize with your night shift work. Congratulations on escapng it. I have to work 11p-7a, so it's really not TOO bad, being only eight hours. But they throw me on other shifts as needed, and my days off tend to change, so it's difficult to get a sleep pattern established. Sounds like perfect mudcat credentials. I really hope to be going into the private business sector soon, which may entail 16 hour days at first. Still, even that doesn't seem excessive when I recall my railroad days.
Hi, Praise! I haven't been on the Mudcat lately as I've been on vacation. That includes from the Mudcat. But I look forward to reading your verses again at 3 am. I haven't had any problems with computer screens, but I do have to be careful about strobe lights. I had some seizures, post head trauma, (ha ha, you all knew it anyway), about twenty years ago. I have felt the beginnings of epileptic "aura", during fire drills with strobe type alarms; I have been able to keep it together by closing my eyes and meditating. RANGEROGER: I hadn't heard of the helicopter blades causing the same effect, but it makes sense to me. Guess I'll not look for work in that sector.
P.S.- Where exactly is the Neil Young Center for the Sleep Deprived? Can I get there from Colorado without crossing the ocean? (You know, the sunlight on the waves could have the same effect, possibly the explanation for the Bermuda Triangle)? And exactly where is Mudcat Central Time? It's about 10 pm where I am. Maybe some of you will read this before I wrote it!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 12:12 AM

BlueJay-- you needed a longer vacation, darlin'! You are already AT the Neil Young Center, just head around back to the Bedtime for Bonzo Sleep Disorder Lab!

Seriously, that strobe thing almost got me in HS. Now I know who to call if it sneaks up on me again.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: BlueJay
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 12:27 AM

Never mind, I now think I know what HS means. I'm conditioned to think it means "hour of sleep", a medical term, which probably has a totally NEW meaning at the Mudcat, where some folks apparantly function on an "HS".

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: Hagbardr
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 12:44 AM

The best cure for insomnia? Swipe a desk from your local high school, turn on the flourescent lights, put a taped lecture in the stereo, and put your head down on a nice soft Algebra II book.

Hagbard

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: Lin in Kansas
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 12:50 AM

Another late-nighter checking in...

Worked a weird (6PM to whenever AM) shift for years, both because I have always seemed to function better late at night than early in the morning, and also to avoid the horrendous traffic up I5 to work. Liked it, got used to it, still sometimes enjoy them even though no longer on a regular basis.

Re: the strobe effect and flying--'tis true. I was taught in ground school to be aware and watch out for the effect of sunlight through a moving prop, and experienced it briefly myself once when flying my Aeronca Chief--scary and disorienting! Forunately not long-lasting in my case or I would have wound up wearing a tree...

Lin

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Reinforced Insommnia Theory
From: wysiwyg
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 08:21 AM

BlueJay, High School!