Real life fear/horror/madness

[Zettaijin]

I hear ya, the last time I used the one at my school, I immediately thought "Damn, this is pretty damn effective waste evacuation."

I also tried one in Tokyo's Yoyogi park which wasn't as pleasant as I had to share it with numerous insects and a large spider hunting them. I was all like "Can a dude get some privacy around here?"

[HuManBing]

I'm fairly dead-set against having any kids, but I wasn't always this way.

One time, my then-gf and I were playing the idle game of "child's body parts". Although different variations exist, the game we were playing was visualizing what a child would look like if he or she were born to us, and which body parts of the child would take after which body parts of which parent.

My then-girlfriend made a list of body parts she hoped our daughter would have.

These included:

Hair - mine
Eyes - mine
Lips - mine
Hips and waist - mine


At about this point, I realized that all these body parts are quite different between men and women, and if my girlfriend was telling me she preferred our hypothetical daughter to take after me, then she was basically telling me I look like a woman.

It's been several years since I last saw this girlfriend in person but she has since become a lesbian.

[Zettaijin]

You're different and strange.

[HuManBing]

For what it's worth, I do not believe any of my body parts look particularly feminine. I suspect my then-gf was making it up.

[Zettaijin]

I already said "You're different and strange."

I'm out of witty replies.

This said, I wouldn't judge you if any parts of your anatomy looked feminine in any way. At times, I can hardly tell some of the younger boys from the girls at this junior high school where I'm teaching.

[HuManBing]

Azalin is well known to be paranoid. Sometimes he has to make a public appearance for his drooling plebs, just to remind them that he isn't dead (as far as they know anyway) and the Royal Eye is still burning brightly.

The most recent visit took place through the streets of Il Aluk on the day after Dead Men Dance holiday. His carriage was following that of Ranherdt, Baron of Il Aluk, whose carriage followed that of Dalthis, the Baron of Neblus. They had all been given strict orders to observe a steady distance between them for security reasons. The order of procession was Dalthis (lowliest) first, Ranherdt second, Azalin (most senior) third.

Each carriage was told to stay twenty paces behind the one in front, except for Dalthis' carriage which had nobody else in front.

Unfortunately, Dalthis' carriage had also been told to stay thirty paces ahead of Ranherdt's carriage.

This meant that on the day of the procession, Ranherdt's carriage tried to stay 20 paces behind, and Dalthis' carriage would shift ahead to try to stay 30 paces ahead. The entire procession started off at a slow walking pace and ended up at a breakneck gallop as all carriages had steadily accelerated to keep to their contradictory distances.


Fortunately Azalin was able to step in and restore peace and order and the mistake has not recurred. This may also explain why Iomar Longshadow is the Baron of Neblus now.

[HuManBing]

On Sisters-in-Law

Property

HDT's wife comes from a diplomatic family. Let's call her AniseedShake.

Through their travels in Europe, Asia, and the Mediterranean, they have a number of ink stamps to mark "PROPERTY OF THE ANISEEDSHAKE FAMILY".

HDT was sitting by her as she was packing. Each time she finished a box, she would seal it and then stamp it to mark her property.

HDT dozed off. When he woke up, his arm had an ink stamp on it, marking him PROPERTY OF THE ANISEEDSHAKE FAMILY.

HDT felt somewhat hard done by.

On Younger Sisters

AniseedShake's younger sister is a good six years younger than her, and maybe a decade younger than me. I first met her when she was a generally grumpy pudgy pre-teen who hated everything.

In the intervening years, she's gotten slimmer and much taller. She also has taken to wearing way too much makeup.

Recently she got into photography and modelling under an assumed name. Let's call her SisterOfShake.

SisterOfShake posted up a photo on a social networking site. The photo was of her, wearing makeup and a halter and not much else, riding a bright red motorcycle.

Most of the comments focused on her costume. Then HDT and I got on the scene. In addition to being her relatives, we remembered her very well from her snotty days as a bratty kid, and no amount of makeup or cleavage could quite dispel that pungent memory.

The conversation took an unexpected detour.

HDT: Is that a Kawasaki Ninja 250r?

HMB: Can't tell. Bits of her are occluding the label.

HDT: Kawaski. I'd put money on it.

HMB: Hmm, I'd say Honda CBR600. The molding and mirrors don't look right.

AniseedShake: You guys are idiots. It's clearly a Yamaha YZ450F.

SisterOfShake: ...Seriously, guys...? :S

[HuManBing]

Dating success (?)

I went to a speed dating event. You got four minutes per person, and you rotated across people of the opposite gender. At the end of the day, you write down the assigned number of the women you want to meet again, and the organizers help pass on the contact details - assuming you can be bothered to wait that long.

I think I spoke with about two dozen women, I can't remember any names, and it's a good thing I wrote stuff down dutifully in a journalist notepad. Most of the notes were actually about networking and their jobs and who I might know who could help them out. A few knew people who could help me.

The evening wasn't completely superfluous though. In the subsequent free mixer, I talked to some of the other men at the event. It turns out three of them were lawyers, and all of them were in the field of law I'm part of. We cut a good hearty corner party on our own, chatting about bar exams, industry job openings, networking contacts, and the current state of the renminbi valuation.

I happily handed out my business cards and clinked glasses and shook hands.

At the end of the night, back home in front of my laptop, I sent out thank-you emails to the three lawyers, asking them if I could chat with them about working at their firms over coffee or lunch. They all responded saying they'd be happy to.

...

I don't think you'd see this happen in any other profession apart from law - that four straight males walk into a speed dating event and emerge with lunch dates with each other, to talk about business.

The career climber mentality works in subtle but fairly profound ways.

[HuManBing]

Coffee, broken sleep, and inappropriate dreams

On Wednesday I had a coffee for lunch. This turned out to be a mistake. Wednesday night I could not sleep at all. Thursday came and I was a wreck - blinking, mildly hallucinating, and very very tired. I waited until bedtime and then went to sleep, after being awake for 36 hours.

At 2 a.m. my housemate came back to the house, hit his head on the doorframe, and shouted very loudly. I woke up and then spent the next hour trying to get back to sleep while very angry. When I finally did get to sleep, I had an intensely inappropriate dream about a female colleague (for whom I have no romantic feelings in real life) and woke up very confused. I went online and she was online too, and I had to put her on "Ignore" because it was too awkward.

I also told my housemate that I did not appreciate being awoken. He apologized.

Friday I was sleepy, and I went to bed ready for a full night's sleep. At 2 a.m. my housemate brought somebody to the house and I heard him say very softly "this is my housemate's bedroom" outside my door. I got extremely angry and went to the bathroom and urinated as loudly as I could to let my housemate know I was furious with him for waking me again. I stomped back to my bedroom, and ignored my housemate who was trying to whisper something by way of apology or explanation. I slammed the door in his face and went back to bed. When I finally did get to sleep, I had yet another intensely inappropriate dream about my female supervisory attorney (for whom I have no romantic feelings in real life) and woke up very confused. I went online and she was online too, and I had to put her on "Ignore" because it was too awkward.

I confronted my housemate and it turned out there was actually a good explanation for it. A mutual friend had been kicked out of his home by his estranged spouse, and needed a place to stay - my housemate had been showing him to the spare room. This is a good guy and so I understood that this was another freak occurrence. However, I had gone for one night of no sleep, and two consecutive nights of broken sleep, and if anything bad happened a third night running I was liable to break something.

I told my housemate about the intensely inappropriate dreams I'd been having. "Each time you disturb my sleep, I have an inappropriate dream about a friend. Also, I don't have a very large circle of friends to begin with, so your odds are not very good to begin with. The more you do this, the worse your odds get. Until one day disaster is going to strike and I'm going to have to put you on 'Ignore' in real life. Do you understand?"

His eyes had grown wide like saucers.

"Yes I understand," he said.

I haven't had a problem sleeping since.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Speaking of staying up late:

I don't believe in ghosts. But I have had the sort of tired-brain-misfiring experience that makes people believe in ghosts.

I'm prone to insomnia, and sometimes find myself unable to do more than doze for a few minutes at a stretch. If I miss a whole night's sleep this way, and can't just stay in bed that morning, I try to catch a looong nap the following afternoon and evening, then stay up all night and into the next day, re-setting my sleep schedule. Yes, I know it's not good for me, but mild sleeping pills don't help, and if I take something stronger, I worry so much that I'll sleep through my alarm clock and miss work that any benefit is cancelled by stress.

Unfortunately, the last time this happened was on a Tuesday night. Tuesday, the night before Wednesday. Wednesday, the busiest day on my teaching schedule: 8 am lab, early afternoon lectures, late afternoon office hours. I don't even get time for a proper lunch, let alone a nap, on Wednesdays.

And then I got caught up in some stupid TV program when I should have been napping. And then I tried to nap, and couldn't fall asleep. And then some jackass prankster figured Wednesday night was a good night to pull the fire alarm in my apartment building, maybe an hour after I'd finally dozed off.

After the fuss of going outside in my bathrobe, and standing around waiting for the fire department, and standing around waiting for confirmation that it was a false alarm, and going back inside, and calming down my pet rats (who hate the fire alarm), and getting a drink of water, and getting back into bed, and turning off the light...

...I got the feeling I wasn't alone.

I don't mean my rats, whose cage is in the living room. Something was in the bedroom with me. Looking at the foot of my bed, the darkness seemed to from a shape, a figure, a fluctuating outline of someone. Something. I saw it. I felt it. It wasn't there -- nothing was -- but my brain, worn ragged by sleeplessness and too many hours' stress, wouldn't believe it.

Lights on. Nothing. Lights off. It was still there.

Creepy.

I couldn't sleep with that nothing-something in the room. So I took my alarm clock to the living room, and slept on the couch that night.

My rats were a bit noisy, running on their wheel and climbing around on the cage walls. But their company, I didn't mind. And the nothing-something -- the faux-presence that others might mistake for a ghost -- didn't follow. I slept in Thursday evening, and didn't see/feel/hallucinate the whatever-it-was again.

But if my insomnia keeps me up for more than 48 hours again, I'll probably sleep on the couch then, too. Noisy though my rats can be at night, I know their presence is for real, and supposed to be there.


This is 100% true.

[ScS of the Fraternity]

That kind of reminds me of sleep paralysis - it is often coupled with the feeling of a mysterious presence.
I've never suffered from it myself, but my brother once had a case of it. He said it was awful being unable to move, knowing that some thing was just at his feet, looking at him.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

It takes a true horror fan to be calmed to sleep by the presence of rats in the room.

I suppose Richemulot is your answer to the old, "where would you live if you found yourself in Ravenloft?" question, eh?


I used to get that "presence in the room" thing all the time, as part of Night Terrors. And it always came with the certainty that the "presence" was going to hurt me and my family. (that's what put the Terror part in Night Terror). Occasionally, it came along with sleep paralysis, but usually not, which was worse because I would flail around shouting "get away", sometimes falling out of bed, sometimes smacking my wife.

Thankfully, I went to a sleep doctor who diagnosed me with mild sleep apnea. (The theory being that the temporary lack of oxygen would trigger the terror and the mind would fill in the blanks.) Lost some weight, apnea went away, night terrors became much more rare.

And now that I've bored everyone with my medical history, I'll provoke a horror check:
http://www.thisman.org/dreams.htm

Good luck sleeping tonight, folks!

[Nerit]

It takes a true horror fan to be calmed to sleep by the presence of rats in the room.

I am way more comfortable with rats than cats. The cats either stare at you or rearrange your desk/hair/papers/FACE. <.< At least you know the rats are just looking for treats (but who lets them out when one's sleeping?)

Sleep paralysis bad. Computer told me it was set on world domination once. Don't leave your computer on.

Re: THIS MAN -- bollocks to that. Anecdotal evidence without citing any sources is passé, and they ruin any legitimacy by plastering the face everywhere (subliminal imagery).
 

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

Re: THIS MAN -- bollocks to that. Anecdotal evidence without citing any sources is passé, and they ruin any legitimacy by plastering the face everywhere (subliminal imagery). 

Oh, absolutely. But even knowing that I would be dreaming him because I saw the site, I was still terrified to dream him the night I first saw it. Something about the picture is so benign yet sinister. And of course I knew the more I tried not to dream him, the more likely I'd be to do so. I never actually did dream him, but I lay awake most of that night trying not to think about him.

Though to play devil's advocate for a moment, when it comes to dream imagery, is there anything but anecdotal evidence? But for me, it's not about legitimacy. The idea alone scares the willies out of me, fake though it may be.

ETA: and yes, of course, cats are evil. That's why you need a dog in the bed to scare them away.

[HuManBing]

I've never had sleep paralysis myself, but an old girlfriend did once or twice. (This is the same girlfriend who, earlier in this thread, I have established does not understand the concept of a flight yoke or joystick.)

She said it was intensely terrifying - she was awake but could not move at all, and it felt like she was trapped in her own body. There was the wrenching feeling of waking up from a dream, but being trapped in another dream... and then suddenly discovering that it's not a dream at all and that you have literally lost control of your body and have become trapped in the most intimate and debilitating way possible.

The fact that your boyfriend is lying there next to you sleeping contentedly probably only adds to the aggravation.

I told her I sympathized with her: if I woke up and found myself trapped in her body, I'd be pretty upset too.

She threw a brush at me. Who throws a brush? Seriously. I swear I will never understand women.