Reflecting On Smoking

Day #1 - Cut Down, Vape instead.

Today i've begun the process of eliminating my smoking habit. I've been smoking for 14 years and i've never really been ashamed of it - I liked smoking but with them costing nearly £8.00 a packet, my constant chest infections and the fact that i stink. I've decided its time to quit. I am compensating with the use of e-cigarettes. Helping me cut down and finally stop altogether.

wow it was 14 Years ago.. The day I started I was a young boy with a proud smile on my face I approached one of the regular school entrepreneurs. You know, one of those kids that are happy to sell you their dinner ticket, sweets and of course a single cigarette for around 25p – 35p (at the time, probably about 75p each now!). With the lunch money my mum worked her ass off to provide me, I purchased one of those single cigarettes and made my way to the local shop near school. This is where the smoking kids hung out, it was just out of sight of the school, through the prison-like iron gates and round to the left. There were some hedges and other obstacles that obscured what us mischievous kids got up too round there and normally that was a good thing; but while my memory serves me right I recall wanting everyone, the teachers, the janitor and all the kids that I wasn’t sure thought enough of me. I wanted them all to see me confidently and arrogantly stroll around the corner for a cigarette. I’m no teacher’s pet, not a geek. I am strong, proud and one of them!

It wasn’t the first time I’d tried a cigarette. As an even younger child I recall picking up a lit cigarette bud with my childhood friend and taking turns at trying it. It wasn’t great to be honest and to make things worse, my dad found out and made me inhale a real cigarette, a Regal. (this is one of those fuzzy memories that may not be 100% true) – This was some kind of attempt to make me ill and never want to try a cigarette again. Probably works for 99% of kids and although I turned a funny colour of green and coughed for the rest of the afternoon. I recall strangely liking it.

As I approached the shop near my school, I remember exuding more confidence than I usually did – a kind of “look at me” swagger in my steps. I walked up, leaned against a wall and placed the cigarette in my mouth and felt around my pockets knowing full well I didn’t have a lighter until eventually approaching one of the other children that I considered to be “cool”, a mirror ball of popular opinion I could bounce my new light off. The kind of kid that created nicknames for other kids that lasted their whole school life. Myself Not included, unfortunately my nickname had been well established in primary school and followed me into high school. That’s another story though. Once I was ready, I swaggered over and asked him for a “light”.

I remember this part well because although I “thought” I was doing something positive and I thought that I impressed someone out there. That wasn’t the case. I was being mocked. It was funny, a surprise. At the time I was quiet, introverted and considered “geeky” and my reputation was literally a joke. So this was out of character for me, unexpected and made the other kids laugh in surprise. Like watching the chuckle brothers get in a fight!

The kid I borrowed the lighter from gasped and shouted out to everyone, “Look, Mathieson’s smoking, ‘ooft’ and it’s a club ”. The club of course referring to the brand of cigarette, it was considered the strongest. A comment from one of the girls followed as she laughed in a belittling tone outlining that I’d be “setting about the teacher and everything after I smoked that”.

The moment I’d been waiting for and even though the attention I got was in humour, I proudly lit the cigarette and inhaled it’s luring poison for what I’d consider to be the beginning of my smoking life and all the while the kids watched expecting me to “whitey” (cough uncontrollably, throw up) – I didn’t. I smoked the whole thing to my head basking in some sort of delusional admiration; such a fool, but what a rush.

I spent many school afternoons around that shop and later became the entrepreneur that began my smoking habits and funded them throughout my school life.

The "Old Hag"

My take on Sleep Paralysis

"Have you ever awoken to find yourself aware of your environment but completely unable to move? if so, what else happened?"

This is a very strange question to ask and I have found this to be an interesting part of my conversation recently. The answers I receive are fascinating! You either get a "yes" in which case the second part of your question can be almost 100% predicted and if the answer is no. You can intrigue and terrify people by describing the events. You can also protect them from the "first time" feeling of dread and panic, maybe.

Interestingly enough, this is a lot more common than you would suspect and people are considerably guarded about the events until they realize other people have experienced them, I've witnessed an almost sigh of relief as people no longer question whether they are insane or not and I wonder whether posting this blog will help anyone that's trying to sift through the internet to find out more about it.

Typically, content I've been through has either been (TLDR) "Too Long, Didn't Read" – or has been addressed in an opinionated manor pointing either to or against common beliefs and superstitions. My goal here is to interoperate all of those theories and without forming my own opinion, gain an understanding of how to handle it if it happens again. It's only happened to me twice but it had it's desired effect..

So what is Sleep Paralysis?

You have likely read the Wikipedia article on sleep paralysis already. If not it is definitely worth a read and my blog is neither going to agree or disagree with it. I have no suggestion or conclusion on why it generally happens to people, nor do I intend to feed you assumptions of the medical, philosophical, religious or cultural theories on this matter. What I do intend to write about is my own experience with it, some information on the research I've went through to establish an understanding of SP and my conclusion will hopefully help you deal with it when and if it ever happens to you (again).

Sleep Paralysis; in summary is the answer yes to my opening question, you wake up in the middle of the night, at any time or stage of your sleep cycle (although speculated that you would be in a lucid or not-so deep sleep at the time) – you can most of the time open your eyes and see your environment, you can hear sounds around you however you cannot move at all. Usually sufferers of this experience wake up on their backs and in many cases; they don't feel alone in the room. There is sometimes a feeling of breathlessness and almost always a sense of panic, disorientation and many people think they are about to die. In many cases, these symptoms come with hallucinations which don't help matters much. These hallucinations are the fascinating part of the phenomena to me and as no matter who you are, these hallucinations are similar to anyone else that's experienced SP.

My First Experience

I am on holiday in Turkey, June 2011. My girlfriend and I have a relatively early night being quite exhausted with the activities of the week. I was sleeping like a baby every night and sometimes having naps during the day – which is very out of character for me. On this particular day, we had both slept during the day, went for a nap around 16:00 and woke up at about 23:00. We were confused, hungry so decided to walk into town to find some food.

We found a pizza place open and we got one, we ate it and headed back to our apartment in the "old town" of Icmeler. We got back and pretty much returned to bed. Later on, in the middle of the night I awoke suddenly, thinking I had heard a noise and suspected someone was in our apartment. The door in front of our bed was lit up strangely and I could hear someone moving around beyond it.

I immediately motioned to lunge out of bed and find the nearest available (& swingable) object for which to protect my girlfriend and I but was petrified to realize, I couldn't move. I couldn't wiggle my fingers, I couldn't breathe properly but I could still see this person moving. As panic set in it became even more difficult to breathe. I could hear my partner crying in the bed next to me but I couldn't turn around to see if she was ok. I tried my hardest to lift my head up, to shout and scream but nothing happened, I was just making muffled cries and choking for air. I heard my girl gasping for air too and by this time my heart was pounding so fast I thought I was going to go into cardiac arrest.

The door ahead of my bed slowly started to open, I could hear the old hinges creaking as it slid open, A figure stood behind it but I never saw what it was and as it opened slowly I still kept trying to scream out and move, but couldn't. I lay there thinking, consciously trying to work out what was happening. I pieced a theory together in my head that we had been drugged and followed home. We were going to be murdered and the drugs paralyzed us but left us conscious. What was going to happen to us? I was at this point screaming at the door, shouting at the top of my lungs but making no sound. I was trying to say "HEY" as if my muffled shouting would scare our intruder off.

The next thing you know the room went dark and I LUNGED from the bed like a coiled snake, gasping for air as if I'd been trapped under water. I was shaking, sweating, tears in my eyes and adrenalin pumping like crazy. I checked on my girl and she was sleeping ok, a little restless but fine.

I inspected the entire apartment, the locks – the doors, I walked outside and down to the pool, Nothing. No one was there. I paced back and forth on our balcony and smoked it all to my head when suddenly I heard someone move to the door – I stepped out to see my girl rubbing her eyes.

Strangely, she had been awoken by a nightmare that someone was in our apartment. She was terrified to find me not in bed and was very confused.

Was it a bad dream?

It's very easy to write these experiences off as a bad dream and the first time it happened to me, I did exactly that. I bought into the old wives tale that cheese before bed is bad for your dreams and having had a big cheesy pizza before going to sleep; it seemed appropriate to cast blame on the midnight pizza.

Sleep Paralysis is not as reported as it should be, various studies conducted by universities around the world have been inhibited by this lack of reporting. The reason for this is that it typically only happens a couple of times in ones lifetime. If it's happening more often than that, there's a serious problem, if its happening every night then its probably very serious and there are drugs and treatment for that side of SP.

There are a couple of reasons (I suspect) that people don't report it as much we'd like. The first is that no one wants to think they might be mentally ill and describing SP to someone who has never heard of it, there can be a sense that its crazy and wrong to have had this experience and this can be very off-putting.

The other is that, people write the experience off as a dream or a one-off and write it off, like I did the first time.

Culture

This is the most fascinating part of SP I have looked into. Almost every culture in human history has documented sleep paralysis, in-fact the word "Nightmare" came from the definition of sleep paralysis, not bad dreams. "Nightmare" was the term as a "mare" would sit on your chest at night and strangle you.

Heres a brief summary of some cultures beliefs: (very brief)

• In Turkey its a demon or Djinn which holds you down and strangles you.
  
• In Fiji it's a demon that's either eating you or possessing you
  
• Swedish folklore suggests a mare again
  
• Ancient to modern china call it a ghost which presses on you
  
• Japanese refer to it as Kanashibari, which means bound or fastened in metal, tied down
  
• Korea share Japans theory
  
• Mongolians believed it was the "black" pressing on you, the black being evil shamans
  
• Cambodia and Thai cultures thought of it as a ghost
  
• Hmong believed it is a spirit of the night which tries to kill you, and consider SP to be "survival of death in the night"
  
• Vietnamese believe it's a ghost, to be "held down by a shadow"
  
• Philippine culture linked it to Sudden Unexplained Death Syndrome – apparently if you survive SP you 'were' going to die of SUDS
  
• New guinea believe it's a sacred tree holding you down to suck your life force out
  
• Malay believed it's a demon pressing
  
• In Pakistan it is jinns or demons, this is the same in Iran except they describe a Ghoul
  
• In Sri Lankan Tamil culture its considered "the ghost that forces one down"
  
• Nepal Believe it's a ghost like figure from the darkness, particularly focused on a dark ghost that lives under the staircase
  
• Many African cultures believe it's a witch or a demon, a couple like the Ethiopians believe it to be a an evil spirit
  
• Hungry it's a wraith, witch or a demon
  
• Iceland interpreted it as a goblin or a succubus (or a mare)
  
• Malta believed it's a ghost or a poltergeist
  
• Greece and Cyprus considered it a ghost or demon
  
• America at the time of witch burning considered it a witch
  
• Mexico believed it to be a ghost
  
• Other parts of the US called it a "hag"
  
• Newfoundland call it "Old Hag" and is the basis of which the book "The terror that comes in the night" by David J. Hufford wrote. I read this weekend
  

  
  

In western culture, there's a solid medical explanation and its also been tied to most Alien abductions reported and so forth but I am not going to get into that.

The thing that really fascinates me about this phenomena is the consistency of it. Everyone that experiences this generally experiences the same thing. The hallucinations are always similar, there's an evil or dark presence in the room and it intends to hurt you. In many cases, Hufford states that a lot of the reports contain the same information or sounds. Like shuffling feet across the floor.

Dealing with Sleep Paralysis

This is really the point of my blog, firstly I wanted to explain what it was and quote some references. I read "The Terror that comes in the night" this weekend, watched a couple of documentaries and read some other content before deciding to sit down and write this post.

Writing this stuff out helps me, more than anyone else process it and if someone stumbles apon this post and is able to handle an experience like this, then it was worth it anyway.

I refer back to the first time this happened to me. I was absolutely and uncontrollably petrified by what had occurred to me. I displayed short term symptoms of PTSD "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" following that. I was reluctant to go to sleep, I thought about it before bed etc etc and some of that may be familiar to you.

The second time it occurred, more recently – I knew exactly what was happening. I still panicked, but not nearly as much. The experience was still as scary (during it) but afterwards I was calm and collected and that's all that matters.

Sleep Paralysis is a transition period that shouldn't hurt. It's like your computer getting stuck on a loading screen for a while. You don't know if it's crashed or just halted.

When you sleep, you're body produces hormones that paralyze you. (in simple terms) – These hormones stop your body from acting out your dreams. There are many cases of people who have deficiencies with these hormones and they'll kick and punch and go crazy in a dream. Sleep Paralysis happens when you're mind partially wakes up but your body remains in a REM Sleep cycle.

The hallucinations as strange as they are spawn from your dream and carry on into this transition. It's actually speculated that this bad dream is the cause that woke you early in the first place.

The breathlessness is caused by your body breathing for you involuntarily – you don't have the muscle control to take over and while you're actually breathing fine, it feels like you can't breathe because you're not in control of it.

The panic is mostly caused by the confusion of whets happening and not the event it's self. Because you're partially still in a dream, you think it's real

However

Your partially conscious. This means you can take over. You can't unfortunately control when the Sleep Paralysis will stop but you can control the effect it has on you.

Next time you wake up and feel like you can't move immediately say in your head "sleep paralysis" – or if easier to remember "old hag".

This, for me allowed me to realize it was a dream and while I still choked for air and tried to shout at the top of my lungs, when I did snap out of it.. I looked around the room, lay back down on my side and relaxed a few minutes later.

Understanding what your body is going through during something like this means you can limit the confusion and panic that ensues when it occurs.

I'd love to hear your comments and own experience with this.

References

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis

BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A6092471
Sleep Paralysis Info Service: www.spis.org.uk
The terror that comes in the night on Amazon

photography - Where Am I?

It has been a hobby of mines for years, usually expressed through point & click digital cameras or the camera attached to a phone but in the last year, photography as a hobby has wedged it’s self into being a bigger part of my life than expected.

Since I invested in my DSLR and have been really getting into this skill, I find myself obsessively searching every day life for photogenic scenes, looking at sunsets, skylines and light in new ways, finding myself inspired by the simplest compilation of colours and depth. I have bought 4 lenses now, a grip for my camera, tripods, a flash and every photography magazine or e-book and I get my hands on.

I haven’t yet found my “thing” though. There are so many “genres” of photography I need to figure out which one suits me, So many conflicting personalities in the photography community side track and intimidate me at times, from the educators to the elitists who’s opening thoughts exude from there personality to tell you whole-heartedly how better their attempt at your picture would have been.

While I try to figure this out I reflect on my own experience and in contrast, I am a musician; I am used to the community of musicians. You get the 3 main types of Musicians, particularly in online & social communities.

· Musicians With talent
· Musicians who think they have talent
· Musicians who Wish they had talent

Might be subject to debate if those who “think” and those who “wish” are the same people but there are distinct differences, usually manifested in how malevolent their comments or criticisms are.

I find that no matter what sub-category the personalities seem to be they can be summed in one the 3, wish, think and have.

My point is, with drums I’d be inclined to categorise myself in the “think I have talent” box, as I can look at another drummers work – break it down and see both the successful parts and the areas that could use improvement. I could identify parts of a fill where I’d wonder if “x-stroke roll would have sounded more consistent than y-stroke roll” but I rarely ever question it in such a way.

Judgement Vs Inspiration
The art of music is to be inspired by someone else while developing your own style, your own feeling and most importantly, your own sound. So when I look at other drummers work and find myself inspired to try their lick but to change y-roll to x-roll and see how it sounds. If I find that my approach sounds better I know that this doesn’t make me any better than them, it certainly doesn’t make my fill any better or worse than the other drummers.


Another distinction I’ve noticed with the photography community is their strict enforcement of practices. Composition, lighting, arrangement etc etc.. In drums, there are similar “rules” so to speak about creating beats, solos or arrangements in general but no one ever enforces them. I am a sucker for Linear Drumming so I’ll use that as an example.

Take the 6 stroke roll – RLLRRL with the Accents on the first R and last L the sound you get is delicious (and probably one of my favourite fills around the kit). I’ve seen other drummers pull this fill off JUST as well with RLRLRL – best practice would be RLLRRL, yes but doing the same effect with RLRLRL requires more practice, you need serious speed and control to do it right. Neither way is “wrong” though (in my opinion, that is).

With photography, submitting to sites like Flikr and so forth you get two main types of comments “wow that’s gr8!!”, not very helpful but always lovely and “composition is off here, stick to drums monkey boy and learn the rule of thirds!”

Now personally, I like criticism. Although until my first time in a recording studio I’d never had any decent criticism from a fellow drummer other than a pat on the head and “keep at it, you’ll be awesome when your older” – (I was a kid) – until I met this percussionist of which I can’t remember his name and while I repressed his name and replaced it with a derogatory alias of the nether-regions of human anatomy I respect that guy more than most drummers I’ve met.

Felt like a fraud
He took my ego, my self belief and he tore it apart. By the time I left the studio I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t deserve to be holding drumsticks or even looking at a drum kit. I suddenly became the “I wish I had talent” drummer, and once I got over the trauma of discovering I was rubbish I begun addressing the areas he criticised most.

Photo-Snobs
Photography seems to be similar however and I feel I am getting off on the wrong foot with “elite” photographers from the moment I introduce my work. There appears to be a mindset of qualification. To qualify as a “photographer” you really must have had some formal education on it. Without a representative qualification in photography the academic community will barely humour your work if not just disregard it and write you off as a “trendy” –

A “trendy” being someone following photography as the “in” thing, associating a DSLR camera with Ipods, Ipads, Apple mac computers, Café-lattés and respected about as much.

I am, however not a “trendy” – Photography doesn’t seem “cool” or “in” to me. I couldn’t care if I was shooting on a 1D or a 500D (which is what Im shooting on) – I don’t “need” an expensive L lens, or lowepro bag to cary my camera in. I don’t need an Imac attached to my camera via HDMI to show how cool my photos look as I take them. I love photography for a whole other reason.

I love being in the moment, a part of an event or notable instance of life worth capturing and that’s what photography is for me. I have no interest in glamour shots, actresses posing in perfectly lit studios in front of a £10,000 cameras operated by a 6-figure paid photographers that have their assistants take the shots for them, all so that a photoshop wiz can completely alter the final image anyway.

I’m not a painter, taking a picture doesn’t have to be perfectly posed, lit and balanced in a confirmative fashion that blends in perfectly with the seven million other shots uploaded per minute on these web sites. I don’t have to define my photographs as fine art or manipulate a caption to invoke “interpretation”.
I am not into birds, not keen on getting models and doing portraits for a website no one will ever look at. I am not an artist or interested in getting up at 05:00 in the morning to capture a misty landscape picture which again, will be much like the thousands of other misty landscape images around there.

Perhaps the lack of formal education, a mentor or some peers from which to beg approval is inhibiting my progress. Maybe it’s the lack of physical evidence that bothers me. My pictures sit in a virtual archive spread across my laptop computer and desktop computer.

So where am I going with photography?
To find this out I have decided to spread my wings a little bit and explore some horizons. Like any time-invested skill, I know I’ll get better at photography the more I do it.

To achieve this, I have volunteered my time and equipment to some charities, I will be the official (volunteer) photographer at some up-coming charity events in Aberdeen and surrounding areas for 2 very large charities.

I don’t get to keep any of the photos, I am supplied a memory card and at the end of the event, I hand it in and will probably never even see my pictures so I wonder how rewarding that is going to feel.

I know it’s going to be a challenge for me, as I can’t post-process, select my “best” and theres a good chance I’ll be given a 1gb – 2gb card so the “shoot 1000 pics and pick 2 good ones” philosophy that’s working for me now, won’t be available.

I hope that this kind of environment gives me some direction in my photography, challenges me to improve and gives me a rewarding reason for doing it. I won’t get paid and to be honest, I don’t want paid for it. I want to see my photography Improve, I want to feel the fun and energy I did when I first begun.

Hopefully, one day when my skills are as good. I won’t evolve into the snob that so many people on these social image sharing websites seem to transform into.