regidor’s blog

This moment.  A moment of truth.  A moment of stillness.

Where am I?  I ask.  I ask, where do I want to be?
Here I present myself.  Sitting on my bed in a low-lit room.  The faint sound of the tv and the sound of music coursing through my ears, my veins.  My soul.  I can clearly hear.  I'm listening.  I lose track for a moment of the thoughts I have, constantly battling with other thoughts.  One by one, fighting their way out of a prison cell.  Filling up.  Overflowing.  Held together by steel bars ready to burst.  But instead it won't.  Get it together.  Together.

I begin to feel tired.  My eyes on the verge of shutting down.  Tired from staring at screens.  Starting off into scenes.  Driving down the freeway, 90mph where everything gets passed by.  A blur.  And at that moment everything seemed clearer.  Calm as a cloud in the sky.  Floating and I almost forget I'm driving.  Cheers to being free.  And in a moments notice reality sets in.  Looking for something.  Searching within.  Creating creations for something to begin.  Where and when does the fun start? I look for the reasons.  Reasons within why I fight.  And maybe I should do the opposite.  I hope and I pray.  And I'm not even religious.  But I confess, I'm addicted. 

This one inspires me to be.  Makes me nervous and shaky.  But not entirely.
The warmth I feel.  Indescribable, words are not enough.

Let Go

40 FACTS ABOUT SLEEP YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW…
(OR WERE TOO TIRED TO THINK ABOUT)

-The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes during a rocking chair marathon. The record holder reported hallucinations, paranoia, blurred vision, slurred speech and memory and concentration lapses.

- It’s impossible to tell if someone is really awake without close medical supervision. People can take cat naps with their eyes open without even being aware of it.

- Anything less than five minutes to fall asleep at night means you’re sleep deprived. The ideal is between 10 and 15 minutes, meaning you’re still tired enough to sleep deeply, but not so exhausted you feel sleepy by day.

- A new baby typically results in 400-750 hours lost sleep for parents in the first year

- One of the best predictors of insomnia later in life is the development of bad habits from having sleep disturbed by young children.

- The continuous brain recordings that led to the discovery of REM (rapid eye-movement) sleep were not done until 1953, partly because the scientists involved were concerned about wasting paper.

- REM sleep occurs in bursts totalling about 2 hours a night, usually beginning about 90 minutes after falling asleep.

- Dreams, once thought to occur only during REM sleep, also occur (but to a lesser extent) in non-REM sleep phases. It’s possible there may not be a single moment of our sleep when we are actually dreamless.

- REM dreams are characterised by bizarre plots, but non-REM dreams are repetitive and thought-like, with little imagery - obsessively returning to a suspicion you left your mobile phone somewhere, for example.

- Certain types of eye movements during REM sleep correspond to specific movements in dreams, suggesting at least part of the dreaming process is analagous to watching a film

- No-one knows for sure if other species dream but some do have sleep cycles similar to humans.

- Elephants sleep standing up during non-REM sleep, but lie down for REM sleep.

- Some scientists believe we dream to fix experiences in long-term memory, that is, we dream about things worth remembering. Others reckon we dream about things worth forgetting - to eliminate overlapping memories that would otherwise clog up our brains.

- Dreams may not serve any purpose at all but be merely a meaningless byproduct of two evolutionary adaptations - sleep and consciousness.

- REM sleep may help developing brains mature. Premature babies have 75 per cent REM sleep, 10 per cent more than full-term bubs. Similarly, a newborn kitten puppy rat or hampster experiences only REM sleep, while a newborn guinea pig (which is much more developed at birth) has almost no REM sleep at all.

- Scientists have not been able to explain a 1998 study showing a bright light shone on the backs of human knees can reset the brain’s sleep-wake clock.

- British Ministry of Defence researchers have been able to reset soldiers’ body clocks so they can go without sleep for up to 36 hrs. Tiny optical fibres embedded in special spectacles project a ring of bright white light (with a spectrum identical to a sunrise) around the edge of soldiers’ retinas, fooling them into thinking they have just woken up. The system was first used on US pilots during the bombing of Kosovo.

- Seventeen hours of sustained wakefulness leads to a decrease in performance equivalent to a blood alcohol-level of 0.05%.

- The 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill off Alaska, the Challenger space shuttle disaster and the Chernobyl nuclear accident have all been attributed to human errors in which sleep-deprivation played a role.

- The NRMA estimates fatigue is involved in one in 6 fatal road accidents.

- Exposure to noise at night can suppress immune function even if the sleeper doesn’t wake. Unfamiliar noise, and noise during the first and last two hours of sleep, has the greatest disruptive effect on the sleep cycle.

- The “natural alarm clock” which enables some people to wake up more or less when they want to is caused by a burst of the stress hormone adrenocorticotropin. Researchers say this reflects an unconscious anticipation of the stress of waking up.

- Some sleeping tablets, such as barbiturates suppress REM sleep, which can be harmful over a long period.

- In insomnia following bereavement, sleeping pills can disrupt grieving.

- Tiny luminous rays from a digital alarm clock can be enough to disrupt the sleep cycle even if you do not fully wake. The light turns off a “neural switch” in the brain, causing levels of a key sleep chemical to decline within minutes.

- To drop off we must cool off; body temperature and the brain’s sleep-wake cycle are closely linked. That’s why hot summer nights can cause a restless sleep. The blood flow mechanism that transfers core body heat to the skin works best between 18 and 30 degrees. But later in life, the comfort zone shrinks to between 23 and 25 degrees - one reason why older people have more sleep disorders.

- A night on the grog will help you get to sleep but it will be a light slumber and you won’t dream much.

- After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would when you’ve slept enough.

- Humans sleep on average around three hours less than other primates like chimps, rhesus monkeys, squirrel monkeys and baboons, all of whom sleep for 10 hours.

- Ducks at risk of attack by predators are able to balance the need for sleep and survival, keeping one half of the brain awake while the other slips into sleep mode.

- Ten per cent of snorers have sleep apnoea, a disorder which causes sufferers to stop breathing up to 300 times a night and significantly increases the risk of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

- Snoring occurs only in non-REM sleep

- Teenagers need as much sleep as small children (about 10 hrs) while those over 65 need the least of all (about six hours). For the average adult aged 25-55, eight hours is considered optimal

- Some studies suggest women need up to an hour’s extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men.

- Feeling tired can feel normal after a short time. Those deliberately deprived of sleep for research initially noticed greatly the effects on their alertness, mood and physical performance, but the awareness dropped off after the first few days.

- Diaries from the pre-electric-light-globe Victorian era show adults slept nine to 10 hours a night with periods of rest changing with the seasons in line with sunrise and sunsets.

- Most of what we know about sleep we’ve learned in the past 25 years.

- As a group, 18 to 24 year-olds deprived of sleep suffer more from impaired performance than older adults.

- Experts say one of the most alluring sleep distractions is the 24-hour accessibility of the internet.

- The extra-hour of sleep received when clocks are put back at the start of daylight in Canada has been found to coincide with a fall in the number of road accidents.

source: http://www.godsthumb.com/secrets/40-amazing-facts-about-sleep

I wanna keep moving forward with you
I wanna keep building a strong foundation with you
To hold you close
Feel your heart beat
I just wanna be, with you
Be with you
I want this to be reality
Not fantasy
I'm here to listen to you
Listening when you speak
Listening when you don't speak
Listening to the silence in between
When time stops
When that moment becomes an eternity
I respect you
And I care about you
Doing what you do
And I'm there for you
And when things get tough
You hold your own
So strong
Because of you I've grown
I'm not perfect
But I'm better
Better than before
What's in the past I no longer hold on
And i'm stronger because of you
I've learned my lesson
And You matter most
The time spend with you
Every minute, right down to every second
In my mind
So divine
You shine
So fine
Beautiful within
Beauty defined
Never confined
A creative force
I wanna see all sides
Can't explain it at times
But I know there's more to know
That's inside
Tap into your soul
Create a deeper connection
Deeper than the deepest ocean
An understanding
Never standing
Still
Aiming for the next level
To it I am committed
And I just wanna be with
Yo

"Simplicity is about living life with more enjoyment and less pain."

"The two key questions of the Upanishads are, What is the true nature of ultimate reality? and Who am I in the deepest level of my existence? These questions presuppose that there is a difference between shallower manifestations and more fundamental essence and between what appears to be real and what is actually real; appearances are understood to depend on a deeper reality."

-Koller, Asian Philosophies 5th Edition

I haven't posted here in a while and didn't really think of posting something until someone added me.  Anyway, school had just started and I already like my Anthropology, Product Photo, and PE classes.  A lot of writing in this semester, for sure.  Maybe these classes will help me write more meaningful content in my blog.

Summer vacation was great, but I wish I went out of town more.  Wish I could've visited LA one more time.  But there was a lot of activities that went on.  Most recent was the Big Sur adventure I had with some friends.. took a lot of photos and also watched the sun set--which was awesome, by the way.  I visited a couple of aquariums/zoos with Ai and Naya such as:  SF Zoo,  Embarcadero Aquarium, Steinhart Aquarium, and Discovery Kingdom.
I would say the best trips were to the temporary location of the Steinhart Aquairum and Discovery Kingdom.. just because they offered more and the animals/fishes they had were actually exciting.  I have some photos on my flickr (check the link to the left.)

Hmm.. well what else can I mention here..?
It's been more than a month since I last smoked herb.  My external hard drive got messed up although I was luckily able to recover some of my important stuff (i.e. music, photos, etc. thank goodness for recovery software).  I need a new book to read.  I made lists on listography. I got really drunk on my birthday and spent hours laying down.  Umm..
there's more. haha.

In any case, I'm gonna try to update more..