Wednesday 22 August 2001

Pic of the day: Comic books, printed daydreams. And in this one, fire demons trash Oslo! In color! Oops, that title should be "THOR", not "HOR". Artifact of the lighting. Honestly. ("Hor" is the Norwegian word for adultery, etymologically related to English "whore".)

Daydreams

I got a reasonable amount of sleep tonight, and on my way to work another fictional story started to unfold in my head. As I took notes, the story continued to tell itself, as they are wont to do. Of course it won't get far. I always move on to another fad after a while. Anyway, it's a concept that must have been done to death, but I'm unable to find it: Young person from the future accidentally drops into the present. Sounds like something from an anime, ne?

In this case, as I started to write, I was first met by the present, in the form of bored suburban boy who briefly told me his life story. Then Future Girl drops down from the third floor of a building that won't exist for a few more generations. Luckily she has a Pocket Protector (TM) so she is not hurt ... Boy meets girl, not knowing who she is. Girl acts funny.

Did you know that in the future, there will be a sound for the slash (/) letter? It sounds like something inbetween a "t" and the smacking sound you make with your tongue to sound like a squirrel. I know this because the girl from the future uses it in almost every sentence. She speaks IRC English. Everyone in the future speaks IRC English. So that's what happened to the English language, may it RIP.

***

According to some literature I have seen, the human brain undergoes the same cyclical changes when awake that it does when sleeping. More or less.

When we sleep, we spend approximately 90 minutes completing one full cycle, which consists of: Sinking down through two layers of disjointed, fragmented imagery and random thoughts, down to deep dreamless sleep which lasts for a while. Then we rise slowly through those same layers to dreamsleep, and stay there for a while. Repeat. In the beginning of the night, the deep sleep is longer and dream sleep shorter. Later in the night, this shifts: Less deep sleep, more dreams.

(I can't believe I started to write "nate" instead of night. This is the second time in two days, and last time I only caught it while proofreading. I don't know any Nate, excluding Marvel Comic characters.)

Anyway, it seems that during the corresponding points in waking life, the sleep cycle will sometimes break through, with vivid daydreams in the phase when REM sleep would have been. When this phase fades, the human sits there baffled and can't believe he or she was thinking that! And when deepsleep should have been, one may get very sleepy and unable to stay awake during boring activities such as office work or, sadly, driving a car. If given the chance to sleep (please park car first) the subject will immediately sink down into restful, dreamless sleep. (I occasionally do this at the office. It takes no more time than smoking a couple cigarettes. More often, it happens somewhere on the bus. It is OK if I fall asleep just as we start, but is kinda irritating when it happens when we have 2 kilometers left.)

A more severe (dare I say pathological) case is narcolepsy, in which REM sleep enforces itself on the waking subject, endangering her very life. The body may go limp, whether or not the person actually falls asleep. If she does, dream sleep starts immediately. This dangerous condition may have been what alerted researchers to the undercurrent of the sleep cycle under our waking life. The condition is severely underdiagnosed. No, I don't have it. It just made an impression.

I think it was Scientific American that illustrated narcolepsy with two drawings. One showed a man sleeping in his chair before the TV while the newsman was jabbering. "This is not narcolepsy." The other showed a wide awake man in front of a TV where the newsman was sleeping. "This is narcolepsy." Test yourself.

***

I also bought two American comics today. Young Justice and Thor. I find myself hoping that Marvel Comics will just close down Thor so I don't need to terminate my subscription. It's kind of like an old friend. On the bright side, this issue had a ferocious battle taking place in Oslo, with fire demons trashing the city! And one of my favorite characters, Surtur. Shame about the ending.

You know, comics are kind of like printed daydreams, are they not? I know when I was a kid, my daydreams were heavily inspired by comics. The heroic daydreams were inspired by Superman and (especially) Green Lantern. (I mean the real Green Lantern, Hal Jordan. Heh.) Oh, and Snoopy! My all time favorite hero. I can still whistle the Snoopy theme melody. I bet my brothers can too, though they would prefer not to.

On a rather different note, Donald Duck, Daffy and their respective friends inspired my erotic daydreams. Yeah, I was a horny little kid. Luckily the adults (as far as I remember) had the good grace to stay out of it. I don't think I talked with them about it anyway. Somehow I must already then have known that erotic daydreams were bad and something to be ashamed of. That must be around 35 years ago, and I still feel the same way. At least now I'm not particularly excited by the sight of naked pigs. I definitely count that as progress.

Ooh, I almost forgot. There were also a couple used comics in the store, in my native language Nynorsk! (New Norwegian.) True, one of them had quite a bit of nudity and some graphic violence, and the other was about a pedophile teacher making passes at a 13 year old girl who preferred to make out with her classmate. But that's New Norwegians to you. The publisher? Now that's the punchline. "Norsk Barneblad" - Norwegian Children's Magazine.