I have taken sleep as a bit a routine and did not write anything scientific or substantial.
If
you read the contents below it was always (with a bit of slant and
satire attached) not to the point but somewhat bizzare in attitude.
Simply
because sleep was not a problem for me.
I
can sleep standing in a bus plying to Colombo but awake quickly
enough to grab a hand of a pickpocket.
Equally,
I can keep up awake with only coffee and tea in between for 48 hours.
I
took a challenge and won.
I
kept up 48 hours without sleeping with the challengers watching me.
Funnily
enough, my watchers, could not keep up with me and they went into
snooze mode while observing me.
Then
of course, I go into sleep mode immediately after, and I won’t wake
up until I had recovered fully.
The
bottom line is nobody tries to wake me up (that includes my mother)
while I am in sleep mode.
I
dip into deep sleep without an intervention.
Nutty
things to do when one is young but I won’t recommend the above to
any living soul.
I
can switch my wake and sleep cycle almost at will and I believed that
others have the same ability.
I
am proven wrong.
Let
me expand.
1.
I have never given a sleeping tablet to a patient for dropping to
sleep except pre-medication for major surgery.
2.
I am very liberal on pain relief (if one is not a drug addict).
The
practice of medicine relies solely on taking grief and pain factor
away from patients.
3.
Sleeping tablets are lethal and one gets addicted after 48 hours.
The
sleep one gets with these tablets is not normal and they upset the diurnal rhythm up to two weeks.
4.
One needs minimum of 4 hours of deep sleep.
Buddha
was an example who slept only 4 hours and if not occupied, he was in
meditative bliss and wide awake.
5.
An average adult (children needs more sleep) needs about 8 hours of
sleep, not necessarily continuous (in one go).
One
can have it in two slots which is much better, if one can afford it.
6.
The bottom line is how to get the most needed 4 hours of deep sleep.
7.
Many does not have the ability to roll into this mode, simply because
of the inhibitions that precedes the rest or the night cap.
8.
Even if one is in bed for 10 hours and not got the required 4 hours
of deep sleep, he/she feels sleepy during waking hours, the next day.
How
to avoid it?
9.
Few guide lines but none might work at the beginning but with
perseverance one can achieve the target of 4 hours of deep sleep
unless one’s physiology is deranged or has chronic painful illnesses.
This
advice is for one who has no other disability including major
depressive illness or manic depression.
10.
One should retire to bed only when days work is finished and not
before.
Similarly, one should have a mental sketch of what has to be
done the next day (not the next week).
11.
Humans work on 24 to 28 hour cycles (unfortunately little longer
than the earth cycle) not less.
This
is why finishing the days major chores is of paramount importance.
Do
not leave the work for the weekends.
In
other words “Moment Meditation” (my coining) in practice.
Do
the things as they ought to be, at the right time.
No
procrastination.
The principle here is one should not detail more work than one can
accomplish in a day or day time.
Nothing
pending at bed time.
If
you practice this dropping to sleep is spontaneous.
More
than likely you get to the deep sleep mode quickly.
It
is the mental anxiety that keeps you awake the first few moments in
bed.
12.
When you wake up (unless you are retired and nothing else to day the
next morning) in the morning do not deliberate and stay in bed for
few more minutes.
Your
sleep is interrupted by normal biological rhythm or the alarm.
You
cannot go back to good sleep again.
Wake
up and if you are bit early tidy up the morning work.
13.
Mind you when you do not have a good sleep the first casualty is YOUR
MEMORY.
You
forget things.
14.
Let me now dispense the factors that hinder your sleep.
Number
one is excess of coffee.
No
coffee at bedtime.
It
is an addiction.
Number
two is tea.
Both
items impair your sleep and more importantly dropping to sleep is
delayed.
Others
includes heavy rice meal or alcohol.
Both
items cause mid night hyopglycaemia and interrupt your sleep when
deep sleep is about to commence.
In
our set up rice and alcohol are culprits of breaking the sleep
pattern.
Not
only that both items cause regurgitation of stomach contents while
flat on bed.
They
cause acid irritation since starch and alcohol cannot neutralize acid
secretions.
Light
beefy (not necessarily beef but soya meat, egg omelette would do)
meal and milk are the antidotes not tea or coffee.
If
tea is desired add lot of MILK.
Adding milk has no effect on coffee.
So
take the mental and physical hindrances to your sleep as cardinal sins.
15.
I have not talked about the bed, the room, the temperature, humidity
and lighting (they are individual variables) BUT your cellphone is
the nasty invention of modern times.
Switch
it off FIRST, before any preparation (for sleep).
I
do not have one.
16.
Watching TV (passive attention) late at night (unless the next morning is an off day or holiday) is another reason for interrupted
sleep and bizarre dreams.
Unlike
natural vision digital flashes of memory of TV irritate your brain.
What
one need is brain getting ready to relax and then sleep mode
eventually.
It
is not good for your health.
17.
Computer (not cellphone) with a keyboard (you can hit the keys as
they were made of steel) is a good anxiety reliever before bedtime.
My
routine is to look at the emails and deleting the junk.
That
routine start always after mid night.
Looking
at your email is the most boring activity.
So
boring YOU feel like dropping to sleep on your keyboard.
The
advantage is that you save lot of TIME, the next morning.
Nobody
expects (only paranoid person would take emails seriously NOW) YOU
to answer emails as they come.
You
must be liberal with DELETE action.
It
should be like “the knee jerk reaction”.
This
is why I prefer blogging (hate Facebook and social media) to social
media.
Who
cares if you had million hits?
Is
it like an orgasm?
I
doubt its impact.
18.
Dreams are vital ingredients of your sleep and I will enlarge upon
them with my own dreams.
Or
you read my books on Dreams available at Amazon’s.
My
recommendation of Sleep and Dream habits for Married Couples.
This
applies only to married couples.
The
young lovers should do whatever dreaming they do at lib and they
should not read this article which is very obnoxious when infatuated.
I’ll
try to be as brief as possible since married people have no time for
heavy reading but reflex action only.
My
advice to a young couple on sleep and never on dreams (since they are
in a dream world which is going to end soon after the honeymoon) in
good old days was one should match a couple with synchronized sleep.
Night
sleeper who gets up early, late or indifferent.
Day
time napper or of 8 hour 10 or 6 hour sleeper.
Idea
was when two of them sleep which is synchronized, they get up
together and the home and office work is synchronized.
The
advantage is only to the employer and not to the married couple any
way.
That
is my new finding not disclosed.
My
old advice do not stand to reality of married life.
One
should have two erratic sleepers so that when one dreams other one is
up and doing home or office chores.
Married
life is 24/7 schedule and never 9 to 5.
One
has to be working while the other is having a nap unlike in office
life where everybody has to work whether enough work is there or not.
My
recent but not published or disclosed data suggest the only time
married people have a respite is in their real dream world.
So
enjoy them even they are bitter to the opposite sex.
After
all they are dreams.
Have
you ever seen a couple who relate their dreams when woken up to the
opposite spouse.
In
my experience never.
The
reality is that the dream is heavily edited to satisfy the opposite
spouse.
Usually
all the dreams are if not majority are obnoxious ones which even in
reality extend from blue murder or downright slanderous.
If
they truly relate these dreams the marriage won’t last even three
months.
Most
of the breakup are due to recurrent incidences of these obnoxious
dreams.
One
should never go to hypnotherapist for help and they (are the worse)
will record them and use them to blackmail when his/her income is
dwindling or volunteer to supply the information secretly to the
defense lawyer of the other side for inappropriate black income.
This
specially happens in Ceylon
If
these dreams recur it is alright to go to a divorce lawyer but never
to a hypnotherapist.
Who
knows one may take undue advantage.
One
has to bear them, bite the teeth and boldly take them in, one go at a
time, like a true and mature married man or woman.
One
should not give this information to doctors since they will give you
a sleeping pill and inadvertently stop the only entertainment one has
at his/her leisure time activity.
That
is simply a disaster.
If
you want to prolong and succeed in marriage one has to edit every
dream to suit the partner and occasionally relate them saying,
I
had a lovely dream about You KNOW with all the blah blah.
This
has worked for me and I do not know about my wife.
All
bad dreams are censored by default.
Now
I write about dreams, nobody trust my dreams except Maha Brahma who
never dreams in real life.
His
hobby is to listen to my ones and interpret them with wisdom.
If
you have any bad dream about your spouse (not your secret lover)
please post them under comments.
I
may consider sending them to Maha’s perusal and interpretation.
I
assure you he never keeps any record of them since I am the virtual
registrar.
Total
Quality Management (T.Q.M) and my SLEEP
I
have not had good sleep for the last one year or so.
There
were many reasons.
Fact
that, I had to published a book on “My Dreams” and their
Interpretation was a good omen, not an inconvenience.
I
only dream when I am down with fever or recovering form a flu
episode.
I
probably dream a lot but never remember them unless I am
incapacitated.
Be
that, as may be, for the coming year it is not a healthy pastime and
this years resolution is for me to catch up all the lost sleep.
In
fact, I am practicing it for the last few days and it seems to be
becoming infectious in the family.
The
reason for lack of sleep was my obsession of downloading 100 Linux
distributions to begin with but it ended up passing over 200 and not
out, which Tandurkar should be bit concerned with.
It
was shear perseverance.
Lot
of odds!
I
wish Tandukar make it this year for the record.
Good
luck it will be on your way soon.
Do
not believe on lucky stars but believe in yourself.
My
reason for keeping up in the night is that I could never get our
Telecoms the speed above 5 to 10 bits in day time even though I pay
for 50 bits/sec.
This
is where lack of quality (Telecom) is judged by every minute of loss
of my sleep.
Then
there was regular electricity breaks downs.
I had
to get up (before UPS shuts up) before the download stream breaks
down and shutdown the computer and restart again when power is
restored almost every other day due to sudden interruption to
electricity supply.
That
is number two in my list of lack of Quality.
Number
three is the water supply.
All
of the above three I pay through my nose and I have decided to
terminate my Linux adventure soon.
That
is after I have downloaded a few Linux gamers for demonstration.
I am
trying the Ultimate gamer for the last two weeks and there is still 1
GiB left.
Hopefully
without any break I would be able to download it from a point to
point server.
Hope
they place the image in Linux-tracker soon.
Ultimate
Linux 3.0 (without games) I was able to download through Linux-tracker
in 2 days.
My
quality of sleep is interrupted by two or more sources.
Number
one is Global Warming and its attendant increase of mosquito menace.
Number
two is my dog barking at night.
Number
three is the fire crackers which my dog hates.
He
does not sleep and so do I.
So to
solve my quality problem, I need to bring down the ambient
temperature.
With
coal power and the rest of the factors contributing to its upward
mobility I won’t be able to solve it.
I
will try my ZERO carbon out put (that means I have to die) and
failing which low carbon output.
I
must go into Metta Meditation and the Dream Mode to conserve energy
and low CO2 output.
When
I do that mosquito attraction is less.
I
will encourage the misquotes to breed in my water buckets.
Then
add two or three Guppy fish when full of larvae.
Water
plants of course I cannot use as vegetables but I will try to find a
water plant that prevent mosquito breeding.
When
I sleep well my dog also sleep well.
The
mosquitoes reach me first and then the dog who is under the bed.
I
cannot do anything about the fire crackers.
I
will put some ear plugs and possibly to my dog’s ears too.
I do
not think my dog will love ear plugs.
So
those are the few steps of quality control I may employ coming year.
Mind
you I will stop downloading Linux within the next few weeks.
I
have enough in my archives now.
One of My Typical Dreams and its interpretation from Heaven
I
had two bad nights in which I kept up all night doing some bizarre
routines of editing a long text file into print form, downloading,
burning iso images and testing them, blogging and making PowerPoint
type of presentation with Google’s Free TripWoW.
I
had a good night sleep yesterday and woke with a nice dream.
I
thought Maha Brahma would be happy since the dream was related to
heaven itself.
I
was fed up with living on this planet with so much mosquitoes and
very warm weather and sleeping only a brief period at night (reason
for my keeping up at night is to thrash mosquitoes and send them to
heaven instantaneously with my blessings).
They
are crushed with rapid alternative and reciprocal movements of my
hands closing together in symphony with mosquito music beating down
by ears and the mosquitoes are not spared a moment of thought
(thought block) of their own (when they die) and when they wake up,
really reborn, they are there in heaven with Maha, fanning the senior
Devas with hand held fans (instead of beating drums like on earth).
The
Dream
I
decided to vacate my post on earth and made an early entry to heaven,
with the message in a long electronic PHP form.
1
made sure, I entered every cage, like when you fill the USA Visa
forms, similar to our elderly politicians who wish to be born in
America instead of heaven.
They
call America the heaven on earth and only the most corrupt
politicians that curry favour America, including Indians organizing
IPL Cricket are allowed (Not Qaddafi Type) Visa to America and reborn
again, there.
In
my case I made sure I did not leave any gaps fearing anybody who
enter the data into the computer might add unnecessary details that
might prevent my qualification for entry to heaven.
Then
I saw Maha himself going through the form personally because it was
recognized as my personal writing by Maha.
However,
he was not happy for not leaving any room inside and between cages
where he can make some entries, if he so desires and put his stamp of
approval.
This
was very unusual for me unlike e-forms in the web where they make it
compulsory for almost all the entries to be filled so that search
engines can put you in some form of commercial category to market web
goods and services at lib.
I
was making a big fuss why do you make it so difficult like pension
claims and Maha put his hand on my shoulder and said, you are trying
to be very clever aren’t you?
With
the press of his hand I felt very heavy shock and woke up.
Sadly
I was not in heaven in my bed.
But
I had a very pleasant sense of some ease and happiness that even in
my dream I was speaking to the all almighty the Maha and not to a
political big wig or a Ceylonese cricket selector who is a decider
cum political leader who invites a yesteryear cricketer out of his
skeleton cupboard to represent at Kingston Oval having looked at his
previous record book on political affiliations.
Of
course one gets a ticket to London and return on Cricket Board
expenses.
Maha
was bit puzzled.
He
thought I really wanted to join him in a hurry and deprive him some
good dreams from earth.
Equally
he was concerned I was pulling a fast one to get some facilitator for
rear entry like our old politicians and national thinkers who are
almost demented but want to secure a National List MP Post.
Did
you really dream this?
Of
course, I replied.
Do
you know how the leave is granted in heaven?
Not
a slightest bit of idea, Sir.
Then
he calmed down a lot and said, this was a good dream and it is
futuristic and does not apply to you.
I
was relieved.
Why
were you concerned about NOT leaving gaps in the e-form.
It
is like this.
In
heaven we grant leave to all applicants irrespective of their need.
But
one has to leave a little space as a grace, offering me some
administrative work space which is mandatory.
You
have to mention the date of commencement only and not the date of
return.
In
our case what is important is the date of return.
Not
the date of commencement, Sir.
We
tend to fall sick for no reason, if the leave is not granted and if
the date of return is not entered, then there is a bigger problem.
It
is not like that in heaven since we leave the date of return cage
empty, I can just put a date at random when things demand and
automatically the server sends an email alert with nice music to wake
up the angels on leave on the right day.
By
doing this I never have the problem of everybody applying for leave
at the same time.
Or
I see.
Do
they sleep on holidays and do you go to other heavens for vacation?
I
suppose they do so, but they get easily bored when on leave and want
to come back and activate their inborn desires and pastimes like
listening to music, bit of gossiping about earth and it’s politics
and interpreting dreams like what I am doing, now.
Did
your boss real Maha leave an empty space.
No.
My
goodness.
That
is why I am stuck here.
I
do not have a space to make an entry and call him back even if I
wanted to.
So
this new regulation is one of your own creations to call back
whenever you need somebody.
Yes,
that was why I was bit worried and thought you are trying a fast one
to get to grips with administration here even before coming here.
It
is like our U.G.C Chairman putting a backdated regulation for his own
survival.
Can
I put an entry without empty spaces.
I
will let you do that since now you know my devises but do not tell
other gods and angles.
OK,OK.
Dream
Interpretation.
The
interpretation is very simple because it relates mostly to Ceylon.
In
future when the future presidents want some things for himself he
calls the guy /girls to the president house and give them a sumptuous
meal.
Then
he gets you to sign some blank papers undated and make you to leave
gaps in the entry form.
For
example you have a Tourist Hotel which is very popular at the beach
side.
He
comes there for a holiday and become interested in the property.
He
invites you to his house for a drink and get all the papers ready for
a 10 year rolling lease period.
So
that is the end of the property, I guess.
Yes,
especially if the guy or girl rub shoulders at a re-election or of
the ruling party.
The
problem is he will do this to the entire registered population with
in one year of election.
Only
one census is enough and he will own the entire length and breath of
the country.
How
big is the country then?
The
sea has advanced almost to Kandy and all the population is now in the
hills and population is 100 times now.
If
they do not sign what happens?.
They
are loaded and sent as refugees to India by boat and India has
100,000 times more people than now and their sea has advanced almost
to foothills of Himalaya.
There
is no room for someone to lie down and all are standing upright and
one out of thousand get a chance to lie down once a year for a
holiday break for 10 to 15 minutes.
The
humans have mutated a lot and have very strong legs and very long
tapering hands to reach even trees (or for begging) and hang on for
few minutes a day to give the legs a break and that also has to be
done in turns and there is a token that handshake like a tablet (Like
in Ethernet and railway) that pass around from hand to hand and one
can keep it only for few minutes lest you get a teaser shock with a
laser satellite in orbit.
One
takes the table in one hand and reach a branch of a tree and let go
the tablet before the tracer shock is given.
What
about the toilets.
There
is no problem, there is an automatic suction tube that sucks urine
and scat separately even when one does not have the urge to go and
they are used for new form of energy and water is recycled for reuse.
This
is similar to the space technology developed in the shuttle.
What
about the air one breaths.
One
has to open an insurance policy, the moment one is born for air
safety (security) and it is controlled by the Government in power and
the President himself is in charge.
Process
is similar to water and electricity bills but more expensive and the
cleaning plants for air are connected to the same tube that suck out
all excreta but with a different and safe viaduct for (breathing)
air.
Free
air is polluted and one cannot breath it.
I
do not think you should worry about these little things you will be
gone many moons before this happens.
Where
to?
I
am not suppose to tell you when you are still a human.
OK;
See
you soon.
He disappeared in a flash.
Do
Dogs Dream=D.D.D?
The next
question is, if they do, can you detect when your dog dreams?
I am
convinced that my dog dreams as well as me when on holidays.
In my
case I dream on working days not on holidays.
If I
dream on a holiday I consider myself sick or going to be sick.
So make
sure that you do not dream on holidays; otherwise it will make the
next day of YOUR holiday a misery.
In
actual fact, on holidays we sleep less, do more things (as far as I
am concerned) and enjoy life more.
We do
not have to dream like when we are working, on holidays.
When on
holidays do not dream BUT make better use of the holiday.
In any
case holiday is dream come true so act on your instinct.
I have
cut and pasted the probable answer/s to above but let me tell my
story.
Our
prolong strike (please note, I made a resolution not to write
anything to amuse the readers, during the srike period) made me to
observe my dog and it was a welcome change.
I was
bored to death.
To begin
with we synchronized our sleep.
My
dreams became less and less.
I was
sleeping a lot and started getting up at bizarre times when my dog
was fast sleep.
Fearing
I disturb his sleep, I stealthily get out of my bed and do something
mundane, like sorting out my books or files or photographs.
Then I
quickly lost interested in them and one day, started watching my dog
who was well into its sleep.
This
became a habit.
He gets
into postures which were its puppy days’ habits and happy days
reproductions
The dog
was in complete meditative relaxation.
He does
not get up at these times and enjoy them.
I am
convinced he dreams well when I am on holiday without any E.E.G.
records.
So if
you are bored try watching your dog and try to identify the times he
or she dreams.
I
believe dogs need a good dose of happy dreams.
Well
there is another question to wind up.
What is
the single most common dream in Ceylon?
According
to my survey results, every Ceylonese dreams of becoming the
president of this country.
Then he
gets up happy but when he realises that it was a dream he is
frightened to death.
He knows
only one can become the president and that is also indefinitely and
he does not have a fighting chance even in a dream state.
He/She
does not tell the dream even to the respective spouse.
Please
do not tell this to the president.
If you
do so, I am sure it will be gazetted soon “dreaming is prohibited”.
Read
the article below if you have time.
Do
Dogs Dream?
Dogs
dream like humans and about similar things.
Published
on October 28, 2010 by Stanley Coren, Ph.D., F.R.S.C. in Canine
Corner
Many
people believe that dogs do dream.
Most
dog owners have noticed that at various times during their sleep,
some dogs may quiver, make leg twitches or may even growl or snap at
some sleep-created phantom, giving the impression that they are
dreaming about something.
At
the structural level, the brains of dogs are similar to those of
humans. Also, during sleep the brain wave patterns of dogs are
similar that of people, and go through the same stages of electrical
activity observed in humans, all of which is consistent with the idea
that dogs are dreaming.
Actually
if dogs didn't dream this would be a much greater surprise given that
recent evidence suggests that animals that are simpler and less
intelligent than dogs seem to dream.
Matthew
Wilson and Kenway Louie of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
have evidence that the brains of sleeping rats are functioning in a
way that irresistibly suggests dreaming.
Much
of the dreaming that you do at night is associated with the
activities that you engaged in that day. The same seems to be the
case in rats. Thus if a rat ran a complex maze during the day he
might be expected to dream about it at night. While a rat was awake
and learning the maze, electrical recordings were taken from its
hippocampus (an area of the brain associated with memory formation
and storage).
Researchers
found that some of these electrical patterns were quite specific and
identifiable depending upon what the rat was doing. Later, when the
rats were asleep and their brain waves indicated that they had
entered the stage where humans normally dream, these same patterns of
brain waves appeared. In fact the patterns were so clear and specific
that the researchers were able to tell where in the maze the rat
would be if it were awake, and whether it would be moving or standing
still. Wilson cautiously described the results, saying, "The
animal is certainly recalling memories of those events as they
occurred during the awake state, and it is doing so during dream
sleep and that's just what people do when they dream."
Find
a Therapist
Since
a dog's brain is more complex and shows the same electrical
sequences, it is reasonable to assume that dogs are dreaming, as
well. There is also evidence that they dream about common dog
activities. This kind of research takes advantage of the fact that
there is a special structure in the brain-stem (the pons) that keeps
all of us from acting out our dreams. When scientists removed or
inactivated the part of the brain that suppresses acting out of
dreams in dogs, they observed that they began to move around, despite
the fact that electrical recordings of their brains indicated that
the dogs were still fast asleep. The dogs only started to move when
the brain entered that stage of sleep associated with dreaming.
During the course of a dream episode these dogs actually began to
execute the actions that they were performing in their dreams. Thus
researchers found that a dreaming pointer may immediately start
searching for game and may even go on point, a sleeping Springer
Spaniel may flush an imaginary bird in his dreams, while a dreaming
Doberman pincher may pick a fight with a dream burglar.
It is
really quite easy to determine when your dog is dreaming without
resorting to brain surgery or electrical recordings. All that you
have to do is to watch him from the time he starts to doze off. As
the dog's sleep becomes deeper his breathing will become more
regular. After a period of about 20 minutes for an average-sized dog
his first dream should start. You will recognize the change because
his breathing will become shallow and irregular. There may be odd
muscle twitches, and you can even see the dog's eyes moving behind
its closed lids if you look closely enough. The eyes are moving
because the dog is actually looking at the dream images as if they
were real images of the world. These eye movements are most
characteristic of dreaming sleep. When human beings are awakened
during this rapid eye movement or REM sleep phase, they virtually
always report that they were dreaming.
I
recently received a letter from Joseph Baker, which seems to confirm
the idea of dogs having dreams about their everyday activities. I
have taken the liberty of reproducing part of it here.
"I
have an anecdote that you may find interesting, however it requires
some back story. About three years ago I heard a story on the radio
about a cognitive scientist who was trying to understand sleep and
dreams. He had a hypothesis describing how sensory memories replay
themselves during early REM sleep. The study he published had
subjects play Tetris [a computer game where you try to line up
falling blocks of various colors] and then report whether or not they
saw the little Tetris bricks in their dreams. This stuck with me
because the previous night I had very vivid dreams involving a hike I
had been on earlier. I could feel the snow and smell the air as
though it were real.
"This
brings me to my dog. Goober is a basenji, and like many basenjis he
hates water and being bathed. As soon as my wife finishes bathing him
he bolts out of the bathroom door, finds me, and tries to hide behind
me or under me. So one day Goober was forced to be cleaned and
underwent his ritual of hiding behind me. Later that night he was
sleep running. He awoke with a start, and then bolted to my location
to hide under my legs. This was very awkward as I was sitting on the
toilet at the time. I believe that he was dreaming, and I believe
that he was dreaming about having a bath. I believe this because he
only engages in this behavior when a bath is involved."
Well
Joe, I believe that there are at least two psychologists at MIT who
would agree with you.
