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billxharry · 4 years

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The Day Before You Came should have been Harry’s song, not Donna’s: A Rant

You know, I very much wish they hadn’t included The Day Before You Came on the HWGA soundtrack. Not that Meryl’s version isn’t lovely, it absolutely is, and I listen to it often, savouring the much too minimal amount of Meryl’s Donna we got for this film, but knowing they never wrote any sort of context for her singing it, and never even had a plan to do so, because it was always just going to be on the soundtrack is a let down, especially when there was a certain character who could have benefited from being given the song.

If a song is included on the soundtrack, especially for a musical, where every song tells the story, I like to think it should fit somewhere in the film, but I just don’t think it works contextually for Donna in this film, and even more importantly, I personally don’t feel it fits Donna’s character in general. This movie is focused on young Donna particularly. Exuberant, passionate, bold and living her life with only the occasional and fleeting doubt. This song certainly doesn’t fit her at all at this stage of her life, before Sam. Her heartbreak over him, while justified, is at least somewhat eased in this movie by the arrival of Tanya and Rosie, then by Bill showing up and whisking her away, (I like to believe Harry arrived later as well, as I refuse to believe they were just that lazy as to not get the order from the journal correct, so Harry arrived at the island after Bill, they just didn’t show it, end of story. That would also help bridge where I feel HWGA! went terribly wrong in portraying young Harry and Donna’s encounter, as I have the hardest time believing the fondness shown in the first movie would exist between them based on that singular encounter alone, especially on Donna’s part. Perhaps another ramble about that at another time.) The most impactful of anything though, for Donna, was giving birth to Sophie.

Emotionally, for me, this song would have only have had a chance to fit in the first movie when we actually see the emotional hurt Donna has struggled with the years after Sam left, not in prequel sense, when what we see is Donna moving on as best she can, and knowing in the future her and Sam later wed and were happy. (For much too short of time. I will never stop being mad at this.) Even if they had put this song in the musical/first film, it still wouldn’t have fit, character wise for me, though. The Winner Takes It All was a much more fitting choice to convey those emotions.

What Sam put her through affected her greatly, and continues to do so, we do see that in the first movie, but both movies also make it a point to make it clear Donna pushes on, somewhat because she has no choice when she finds out she’s pregnant, but also because she’s Donna. She’s strong and independent, she doesn’t conform to the things others would think to do, and even when we see how these events have weighed on her as the years progressed, we also see at heart she will always remain Donna Sheridan, life and soul of the party, and how that spirit has always remained. What fight and determination she always had, she devoted use for raising Sophie, to giving her everything she needed in absence of a father, and I would certainly not label that a listless and aimless life of routine. In fact, with raising a child on her own, while also managing the inn by herself, we see the opposite is in fact true. She’s overworked and her life is a crazy rush of every possible job and ever changing responsibilities.

(An aside, I am aware that there’s a long standing thought that in the original ABBA song, the you the song is directed to may actually be Death, and yes Donna (unfortunately) did die (WHY.) So technically, it could be looked at that way as to why Donna would be singing it in the second film. That works even less, though, since the type of life that is sung about is especially not the type of life Donna would be telling Death she was living after the first movie where she got her (much too short lived 😡) happy ending. If Sam wasn’t the you Donna was singing to, and it was indeed a deathly entity, that’s an absurd notion to me. She would literally be saying her life was lonely and dull and without aim before she died? And had been for a very long time? Despite the first film showing us was that was never true? We’d also have to be ignoring the prominence that was placed on Sophie and Donna’s bond, her bond with Tanya and Rosie, the fact that Sam and Donna wed and we can assume were happy during the time before she got ill and passed away... No, be it if the the “you” is referring to Sam or Death, neither scenario works for Donna in my opinion.)

The Day Before You Came describes a life that runs on almost a precise schedule, without anything unexpected happening. Always being able to follow an exact schedule, always being able to have time to watch tv, read, get to bed for a lot of rest... It’s painful in how excruciatingly bland the existence of the life of the singer is. Unchanged, day in, day out. The singer is going through the motions of life, but not living it. They are lonely, alone. As I mentioned, Donna’s work life is anything but on an exact schedule, but even more importantly, emotionally that’s not life for Donna raising her daughter. Sophie means everything to her. While the romance with Sam coming to fruition at the end of the first movie is extremely fulfilling and what you want for Donna, the movie also makes it a point to show the true heart of the movie is the relationship between Donna and her best friends, but even more than that the most pivotal relationship Donna will ever have is the one she has with Sophie. She was not romantically fulfilled, that’s unarguably true, and she was absolutely overworked and overwhelmed, but she had Sophie and that meant everything to her, made everything worth it. The second movie, with My Love, My Life once again hammered that point home. Donna’s life was never what The Day Before You Came describes, and the biggest reason why was Sophie. I mentioned the Winner Takes It All being a much more apt choice, and it is. It’s very easy to see the romantic and emotional context to that song, and it’s definitely a song sung to a lover who you were hurt by. The Day Before You Came is... about a lot more than just the romantic side of things.

Give Donna/Meryl material, absolutely YES, but couldn’t it have been relevant? And seeing as we had to suffer through the terribly unnecessary death story-line, I would have loved had she got some truly joyous material, as we see her at the end of the first film, the type of material she deserved...

Ol Parker talking about this song, saying it was never going to be in the film, just on the album because “It’s so specific and I couldn’t find a way to make it work.” is incredibly disappointing for me, because no, you couldn’t find a way to make it work for Donna because it didn’t fit her, her character, or the life she had lead. However, there absolutely was one character who absolutely could have sung that song and it absolutely would have worked. Hmmmm, who could it be, who could it be, this is such an impossible connection to make apparently... a rather seemingly by the book character, who is living an unfulfilling life, alone, going to dull job, going home to an empty house and repeating it every day... hmmm. HMMM.

Honestly though, go and listen to the song or read the lyrics, and tell me that song would not have absolutely have been perfect for Harry. I can’t understand having a character it fits so incredibly well, but saying “it’s too specific, can’t possibly put it in the film.” Especially when you created two characters for the *sole* purpose of making Cher being able to sing Fernando work, but you can’t make a song work that fits a pre-existing character like a glove. Granted, Ol made it apparent he didn’t actually understand or care all that much about the “older dads” (the older cast in general was treated very poorly in this film as I have said 1000 times.) They absolutely should have had more to do acting wise, but singing wise as well. The first movie was successful because of the cast it had. Yes. Some of the singing was panned by people. A lot of people. But the success of the film was still indisputable, so I see absolutely no reason for including so little of what made it work to begin with. Colin especially could have pulled this song off vocally. They had a chance to really enhance the source material, expand on the characters we loved, and instead we got regressions of the the worst sort.

I obviously would want this song to be about Bill from Harry’s perspective, because Bill absolutely had every means to remedy all of this for Harry. Who better to give him adventures, spontaneity, love, ... and how easy it would have been. (Heck, it could have even have been sung about Sophie changing his life so thoroughly. I would of course prefer it be about Bill, because like Donna, Sophie means the world to Harry, but also like Donna, Harry deserves romantic fulfillment as well. I just want just Harry to have someone who has the ability to help him out of that life... The first film knew where the faults were in Harry’s life, and by the end of the movie they were on the path of trying to remedy that. No, I will never say Petros was the answer, but at least they tried, and more than that he unarguably had Sophie at the end. A daughter he so wanted. Harry’s life should have changed, at least in some way. By no means should we have ended up with him right back where he was, being unhappy and unfulfilled. This song, had it been given to Harry, would have felt like they were acknowledging this character, this life, and I would hope the “you” in the song would be enough to show that his life was able to move beyond that.

In all this, I don’t mean to say this is a happy song, of course not. There’s a sadness in the lyrics, a melancholia, especially with the slowed tempo and beautiful accompaniment by Benny that they gave the song for the HWGA soundtrack. That particular version really amps up that feeling, and that is why, as much as I dislike the fact that Harry is right back to being miserable, this song still could have worked with that story line. Take for example- In Bill, Harry had found someone who really made him evaluate the life he had been living, seeing it for what it really was and just how unhappy he had been, but now he has been given the potential to change that. Traveling with Bill has changed everything. For him. However, perhaps as far as he is aware, that feeling of finding someone who could change your life so thoroughly was one-sided, that this particular love was unrequited, and the things that they did together that meant everything to him, didn’t have the same impact on Bill, at least to his knowledge. Cue The Day Before You Came, a quiet but impactful reveal of the depth of Harry’s feelings, and the push Bill needs to work up his own courage to show Harry has changed his life just as much. Ideally, Bill would sing a short reprise of the song with lyrics written to convey what was missing in his life before Harry came into it, and finally they would both be in total understanding. Is this absolutely cliche and fanfic worthy? Oh, no doubt. It’s not the most deep or profound working of the song, I am aware. However, it is Mamma Mia! and I feel that’s allowed.

Having Harry sing this song would have been acknowledgement of a sort, that yes, this is back where this beloved character is at, and this is why, but there is something, someone, in his life that can help him out of it, and he can have his happy ending. I just feel that is a lot more meaningful than what we got, which is just... nonchalance about the whole thing. “Yep, there was supposed to be an awakening of sorts for Harry at the end of the first movie, but that doesn’t really matter, he’s miserable and unhappy, alone, still, right back in that lifestyle he was so unhappy in, five years later. It’s not actually worth the time to acknowledge any of this or try to remedy it, though, it’s not important. He’s going to end the movie in the same unhappy and lonely fashion, but hey, Fernando!” And we are stuck with a song, though absolutely beautifully sung, by a character it doesn’t fit, as a throw away soundtrack inclusion, nothing more, and a missed and extremely easy to see opportunity to give it to a character who really could have used it...

#Harry Bright #Donna Sheridan #Mamma Mia!#Mamma Mia! Here we go again!#I haven't posted a rambling rant in so long #so this feels good #I have actually been sitting on this one for a little bit though #It's so long #I would say I am sorry but i am not #I have a lot of Mamma Mia! feelings #whoops didn't tag #Bill Anderson/Harry Bright #but of course it is #typos abound I am sure #I am actually sorry about that though

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1soos · 4 years

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tagged by @1of1orbit

i tag: no one. i have no friends on here anymore lkdsjf

rules: bold the aesthetics you relate to and add twenty of your own aesthetic qualities for others to bold

soft

dark academia

edgy

seventies

preppy casual

cinanamon - steph

gold jewelry, slowdancing in the kitchen with a lover, sun on skin, red-tinted lip balm, lazy mornings, getting lost in foreign cities, scent of bakeries, high-waisted jeans, kissing someone’s neck, writing reminders on your wrist, sleeping in braids to have waves in the morning, growing an herb garden, gentle touches, sketches tucked between pages, flushed cheeks, tandem bikes, floating in a pool, vintage gold hand-mirror, deer grazing, softly singing while doing chores

jaesmintea - dia

naptimetea - helena

jeonginks

scxrlettwxtches

listening to a song and remembering the times you used to listen to it on repeat | imagining yourself living in any other life than the one you have now | crop tops and high waisted jeans | forgetting to smile but not actually being upset | nuzzling your face in the crook of their neck | back hugs when you’re stressed | turning in assignments 1 minute before they’re due | wanting a relationship but getting scared the moment you’re in one | pretending that you don’t care when inside you’re burning with doubts and fears | the sound of the evening waves as you lie on the sand | lying in your bed listening to your sad playlist | exhaustion but you can’t sleep | singing loudly when you’re the only one home | feeling safe and comfortable with that person in your life | knee high suede black boots with your black winter coat | comfort over appearance | writing essays at 2 am | creative peak from 1 am to 4 am | the one that always ends up walking in the back of a friend group

hyunsracha - sav!

lveletters

dnceracha - sydni

bamshine - sae

1of1orbit - nes

1soos - kirby

#please if you want to do this let me know and i will tag you #tag games #this really did take me so long #about me

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alwaysahiccupandastrid · 5 years

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I just got home from the HTTYD trilogy marathon at the cinema and I started sobbing again, and I really need to talk about it. Im sorry if I’m bumming anyone out but it’s not necessarily a negative thing, I just need to talk and for someone to maybe just humor me and my emotional day.

There’s nothing triggering in this post, but putting it under a read-more just to be safe, and so I don’t bother anyone.

I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t get into HTTYD until very recently - February of this year, actually. So I’m aware that my emotions/feelings surrounding the Dragons franchise are nowhere near as valid or whatever as those who have been fans for years, essentially growing up with it. I know I sound like I’m being overdramatic but I’m really not.

I didn’t see the first or second movies in the cinema - I only ever got to see the third. It was because the third movie was out that I even watched the first two, actually. For months, I’ve felt regret over the fact that I would never get to experience the first two movies in the cinema, and I managed to come to terms with that.

But today I did because an independent cinema was showing the whole trilogy as a marathon. Until a week ago, I had no idea it was happening - it was only by chance that I was on their website looking to see if they were doing another Potter all-nighter-marathon that I saw it.

Seeing the first two movies on the big screen, followed by the third...it’s been a long afternoon. There was perhaps five minutes between each film to get food/drink and go to the bathroom (and that’s including the end of the credits). It wasn’t particularly comfortable because it was in the downstairs screen, which for some reason has the seats sloping down and then up again, so I was doing a bit of musical chairs before the marathon started to try and find a seat where I could see properly and not have my view blocked by someone in front. When you’re sat in the same seat for five and a half hours, you get very sore and uncomfortable.

But it was worth it. Oh so worth it.

I managed to get right to the end of the third movie with minimal tears, despite being aware that people around me were openly crying. It was only when the credits started to roll, “Together From Afar”, that it fully hit me - and then I started to sob. And once I started, I couldn’t stop. There’s so many feelings and emotions and thoughts that I feel overwhelmed, and I feel stupid and silly because I’m a 21 year old woman crying over a trilogy about dragons, but I can’t help it. I didn’t even cry this hard over Fantastic Beasts - there, I said it.

I feel regret for not watching the movies sooner, not watching the first film when it came out and I would have been the right-ish age. I feel upset and emotional because I’m never going to have this experience of watching the three movies again - I’ve requested already that the PCC do the marathon again in the future on their request board, but who knows if they will. I can only request and hope. I feel embarrassment for being a fully grown adult and so obsessive, so dependent, on these films but I can’t help it. These movies have made me so happy that I’ve stopped self-harming for good now (there was one incident a while back but it’s in the past), that I’ve wanted to keep living. I feel regret that my late grandmother never got to watch these movies, at least not with me. I think she would have at least liked them. She’d have understood.

I’m really scared that the HTTYD fandom is going to die out now that the last movie is released - that I’ll be the only one obsessing and loving it.

It’s not all bad; I feel thankful that I got to see these movies in the cinema today as a marathon. I feel happy that I have my collection of dragons and other merchandise. I’m happy that these movies exist at all, that in all the time in the world that I could exist in, I exist in a time where these movies exist too.

I feel very grateful for the cast and crew behind these movies. For Cressida Cowell, for Dean DeBlois, Chris Sanders, Bonnie Arnold, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, Kristen Wiig, TJ Miller, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Kit Harrington, Cate Blanchett, Jonah Hill, for Dreamworks in general. Most especially I feel grateful for America Ferrera - and for Jay Baruchel most of all. God damn it, I’m tearing up again just thinking about how he is well and truly Hiccup, how the character would be different without him, how he’s managed to carry these films and the TV shows as the lead even when he’s had a shit time in his personal life, even when he’s overworked and exhausted. I think about how much he loves the character, just as much - if not more so - then we do, and how he’s always seemed to be so grateful and supportive of the fans.

I feel so much right now that it’s unbearable.

Even though I’m 21, in a sense I feel like I am still growing up. Inside, I feel like I’m far younger than I am sometimes - maybe it’s something that’s happened as a consequence of years of mental health problems, maybe it’s something else, but I feel like while I know I’m 21 and accept that, inside I feel like I haven’t matured beyond a much younger age. Weirdly, I look at 15 year old Hiccup and see myself in him; I look at 21 year old Hiccup too, and I see myself in him. Same goes for Astrid, it feels like I’m still growing and that I’ve grown with them even though I haven’t. I know that makes no sense but that’s how I’m feeling.

Maybe I’m still sobbing because I’m tired - it’s a long way to Leicester Square and back, plus watching the movies - maybe it’s just because I feel lost and distraught. I’ve been looking so forward to this trilogy marathon, and now it’s over...I don’t know what to do. Wait and see if it happens again? Ignore it and go back to being an adult?

I don’t know. I feel like I need to talk to someone who won’t judge how I feel, someone who loves Dragons just as much as I do, someone who can understand what I’m going through maybe. Maybe I just need to try counselling again (which I don’t really want to since all my counselors have been terrible, the last one ended up screaming at me so...), maybe I just need to wait until I get a call from the Aspergers people to see if they’ll diagnose me with it or autism (the waiting list is ridiculously long)

I don’t know, guys. Replies/DMs would be very kind, but I don’t want to force people. Just some thoughts.

#httyd #how to train your dragon #httyd 2 #httyd 3 #how to train your dragon 2 #how to train your dragon 3 #toothless #hiccup horrendous haddock iii #astrid hofferson #hiccup haddock #hiccstrid #dreamworks

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shanedakotamuir · 5 years

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Watchmen wants us to know one thing: We’re all being used by those with power

Looking Glass seems to have a very full life. | HBO

The show delves into Looking Glass’s past — and revisits one of the most memorable moments from the comic.

After playing footsie with the original Watchmen comic for four weeks, the new TV show’s fifth episode — “Little Fear of Lightning” — dumps us straight into one of the comic’s most famous moments: the “interdimensional” squid attack on New York that kills 3 million people and does grave psychic damage to even more.

The event, as those who’ve read the comic know, is a plot cooked up by Ozymandias to avoid nuclear war and maybe bring about world peace. Known to the public as an “attack” by beings from another dimension, it manages to bring the US and USSR closer together, leading to the version of America we see in the series, where the Robert Redford administration is nearing its 30-year anniversary but where the tensions of the Cold War no longer seem relevant to the world at large.

As we learn in “Little Fear of Lightning,” it’s a deep, dark secret, held closely by a very small few, that the squid didn’t come from another dimension but was instead manifested right here on Earth. And among the people who were affected by its arrival are Steven Spielberg (who made a very Schindler’s List-esque movie about the squid) and our own Looking Glass, who narrowly escaped death at the squid’s nasty tentacles as a teen, then saw his life scarred by having been so close to such a devastating occurrence.

Just like Watchmen’s third episode, “Little Fear of Lightning” is a character showcase, following Looking Glass for nearly its entire running time. (We check in on Adrian Veidt briefly, and he does seem to be in space, spelling out a message using all of the corpses he’s been generating. This show!) But “Lightning” tells a darker and sadder story about what it means to live in a world where you survived an experience that’s roughly as rare — and even more likely to kill you — as being struck by lightning. It’s about survivor’s guilt. But it’s also about realizing that the world is built atop a lie.

To dig further into that theme, I (Vox critic at large Emily VanDerWerff) am joined by Vox associate culture editor Allegra Frank and culture writer Constance Grady to break down “Little Fear of Lightning,” from the Seventh Kavalry to James Wolk’s inherent shiftiness to squids galore.

Times Square: Now with 100 percent more squid

HBO

Looking Glass takes off his mask for a bit.

Emily: In the build-up to director Zack Snyder’s 2009 adaptation of Watchmen for the big screen, all involved agreed to change the ending of the original comic. Despite a slavish faithfulness to the comic’s images (if not exactly its themes) in the rest of the film, it was thought that a giant squid landing in Times Square would be too much for people to process. Instead, the movie suggested that Doctor Manhattan had created some sort of energy pulse that leveled much of Manhattan, thus necessitating his move to Mars.

It honestly wasn’t a bad story shift — it gave Doctor Manhattan a more easily understandable motivation to bail on Earth, at least (if you, for some reason, believe a godlike blue man would have understandable motivations, which I might quibble with). But I’m so, so happy the squid (Squidley? Squidward? Squidbert?) exists in the world of HBO’s Watchmen to destroy this fictional version of New York. True to the spirit of this project, “Little Fear of Lightning” writers Damon Lindelof and Carly Wray (another The Leftovers alum) and director Steph Green pull out resonances with the 9/11 attacks but also the ways we use pop culture to process these sorts of horrors.

What’s most notable, however, is how the opening flashback makes viewers feel the sheer gutting horror of that moment and how it would have reverberated in the decades to come. Allegra: I don’t know how spoiled you are on the comic, but how did you feel about the squid? Was it a bridge too far for you, as the movie’s creative team feared it would be for their 2009 audience? Or are you going to share a recipe for delicious calamari with me, so excited are you by the prospects of a giant cephalopod?

Allegra: I’ve become increasingly “spoiled” on the original Watchmen comic in my weeks-long quest to grasp what’s happening on the TV show. So I was aware of the squid attack — but only in the abstract. This week’s episode visualized what I interpreted as a very bizarre method of mass destruction and proved how terrifying that kind of experience could be.

The cold open rendered a young Looking Glass the equivalent of that classic horror movie trope, the Final Girl: He’s a teenage boy thrust into a situation where he could possibly lose his virginity, but the moment never comes to bear. His sexual anxiety, and the virginal purity that, in horror movies at least, establishes him as a rare moralist, ends up saving his life in the end. Looking Glass finds himself alone after a devastating, sudden, inexplicable mass casualty.

This scene helped to ease me, the sensitive viewer, into the idea of the squid attack because we saw only the aftermath and not the act of the killing itself. It’s still a shocking moment and a horrifying image to see hundreds of dead bodies lying on the ground, but I don’t think the scene veered too far into the ostentatious, as HBO has made no effort to hide how disturbed the show’s version of 2019 Tulsa is.

And on a plausibility level, that all those deaths were the effect of a squid that apparently came from another dimension doesn’t quite phase me — five episodes in, a squid attack feels normal enough for Watchmen, despite its inherent absurdity. It’s the impact of the attack that is meaningful, sculpting Looking Glass into the lonely, sexually repressed man we’ve come to know in the episode’s contemporary storyline.

On the inherent shiftiness of James Wolk

HBO

Yes, we’re aware this is technically Jeremy Irons right beneath a subhead about James Wolk.

Constance: I’m coming into this show pretty unspoiled. All of my knowledge of the comic comes from the time a friend who read it 10 years ago summarized it for me, and I came away with a vague understanding of something something giant squid, something something blue penis. But even with minimal knowledge of the comic, the squid attack still lands; it’s a moment of pure Lovecraftian horror, and I absolutely buy that it would traumatize Looking Glass forever. Which only makes it all the more heartbreaking when he realizes that this horrific event that has shaped his life forever was a lie.

The other big reveal this episode comes when we find out that James Wolk’s affable gentleman senator Joe Keane is the leader of the Seventh Kavalry, and that he apparently saw his leadership as half of a partnership with the now-dead Judd as the chief of the police. For me, that twist wasn’t exactly surprising, but it was immensely satisfying, because it’s such a good use of Wolk’s inherent shiftiness.

Maybe it’s because I’m most familiar with Wolk from his role as Mad Men’s Bob “NOT GREAT” Benson, but anytime I see him onscreen, I feel incapable of trusting him. (Well, I trust him to inspire some truly iconic gifs, but that’s it.) Or maybe it’s because he’s so handsome: it only stands to reason that anyone with a face that symmetrical has to be hiding something. (Incidentally, this is why I think Armie Hammer is going to be great as Maxim De Winter in the forthcoming Rebecca. Obviously he has something to hide, because why else would he be so tall?) Regardless, I’ve been slowly going insane watching him slither around the sidelines of every Watchmen scene with his good ol’ boy accent and his Kennedy-lite posture, so the reveal that he is the man behind the curtains of the Seventh Kavalry is fantastically gratifying.

But the reveal is also thematically compelling, because it gets at an idea that seems fundamental to the Watchmen universe: The state and the terrorists are in on everything together. They are run by the same self-interested billionaires who think of the rest of us as their pawns and turn us against each other for their own purposes. All of the systems are corrupt, and escaping them is nearly impossible. All we’re left with is individuals trying to do their best to survive in a broken world.

Allegra, how did the Seventh Kavalry reveal work for you? Do you think there’s any possibility for hope left in the Watchmen world?

Allegra: Before I answer your question, I have to say your read on James Wolk (and Armie Hammer!) has deeply wounded me. But maybe that’s because you’re right about him — I can’t help but trust a beautiful man like Wolk’s Senator Keene when he wants me to believe he’s on the side of justice. That smile! That perfectly combed hair! Those bright, twinkling eyes! I’m a superficial goon, is what I’m saying, easily manipulated by pretty boys.

As such, Keene’s connection to the Seventh Kavalry gutted me. I yelled at my screen as he and other men and women we’d thought were good guys pulled off their Rorschach masks. How is it that so many of the people we’ve gotten to know in Tulsa deceived Angela, Laurie, and Looking Glass so easily and so totally? Their involvement is evidence that Adrian Veidt’s giant squid attack was not an end-all, be-all, but instead the impetus for decades of selfish behavior on the part of uncaring rich men looking to gain control over an unsuspecting public with dwindling resources.

But I don’t think that necessarily dictates a hopeless situation going forward. For starters, tying the Seventh Kavalry reveal to Looking Glass’s storyline — he being a survivor of this sort of selfish behavior in the truest sense — offers the kind of motivation that should undoubtedly empower those who do remain on the side of good.

This mass destruction via cephalopod, whether or not it was justified in the service of preventing a nuclear war, has all kinds of ramifications — from Looking Glass walking out of that carnival hall of mirrors to find hundreds of dead bodies, to Angela learning that her closest friend and mentor was never supporting her cause in the first place. These are devastating truths, but they’re also ones that I very much expect to embolden our heroes in this otherwise nihilistic world.

What about you, Emily? Do you think Looking Glass will find he power within him to share Veidt’s secret about the squid attack with Angela and company?

Will Looking Glass even survive, tho?

HBO

Laurie and Looking Glass have a chat.

Emily: Before this episode, I wasn’t sure if Looking Glass was one of my favorite characters because he was so inherently compelling, or because Tim Blake Nelson is such a terrific actor. After this episode, I feel comfortable saying: It’s both.

The shattered quality that young Looking Glass carries out of that hall of mirrors moves forward with him into the current Tulsa timeline, and it’s the same shattered quality that is a major part of why he betrays Angela at episode’s end. To be sure, the Seventh Kavalry has revealed to him that much of his life has been based on a lie. But instead of telling his friend about this lie, he betrays her.

Before this episode aired, one of our colleagues was talking about how they didn’t want to see Looking Glass revealed as a secret racist. But what “Little Fear of Lightning” does with the character is almost sadder. Looking Glass isn’t an overt racist. He knows enough to say “woke” things like “He was a white man in Oklahoma” when Angela finds that KKK hood in Judd’s closet. But he’s also bound to something terrible by dint of who he is. In the complicated logistics of Watchmen’s plot, that terrible something is a conspiracy to keep the wool pulled over the world’s eyes.

But on a metaphorical level, the story plays as a muted horror movie about trying to do the right thing and still being roped in with the worst kinds of people because of how structural power works. Which is to say: Watchmen remains a show about whiteness, and Looking Glass is perhaps the most potent example of how you can be a truly kind and compassionate human being and still have a lot to answer for, including stuff that you maybe weren’t even aware of.

That’s what’s so provocative about the Seventh Kavalry being rooted in a truth. One of the details of the original Watchmen that makes me so uncomfortable is that Rorschach — the violent sadist and borderline fascist — is ultimately right about a lot of what he’s saying. It’s just that his methods (secrecy and paranoia) distort the narrative so much that he ceases to be someone worth emulating. He even ceases to be a reliable narrator, despite the fact that he’s often telling the truth.

But this season has revolved around twin secrets buried and kept away from those who most need to know them. The Seventh Kavalry revelation has the most immediate bearing on the plot — in that yes, other characters should probably know who was responsible for that squid attack — but the Tulsa massacre has the most immediate bearing on us in the audience, where words like “massacre” have only recently been applied to what history has often dubbed as a “race riot.” Buried secrets fester and become infected. But we can’t help but bury secrets.

At any rate, maybe Looking Glass won’t have to worry about any of the above much longer. As “Little Fear of Lightning” ends, a whole host of Seventh Kavalry gunmen are entering his house, seemingly to kill him. I hope he makes it through. After all: He’s played by Tim Blake Nelson, and it’s a delight to see him on our screens every week.

Constance: Looking Glass really is a fantastic character because he’s such a good example of how you can be both complicit in oppressive systems, and also the pawn of people with a lot more power than you have.

Looking Glass is obviously being used, and he knows it. He’s been used his whole life, arguably first by the church that sent him out into the world as a teen missionary, then by Adrian Veidt and his squid, then by Judd and the Tulsa police force, and now by Keane and the Seventh Kavalry. He’s a man whose superpower is being able to tell when someone is lying to him, but he has still spent his life being lied to and manipulated by all the people and all the systems that he trusted in.

And by extension, so have most of the other people in the Watchmen universe, including Angela and Laurie. And by further extension, so have we. So the question then becomes: What do we do when we learn that we are being used?

Looking Glass responds by deciding to let Keane and the Seventh Kavalry use him. He doubles down on his complicity. What we have yet to see is how the rest of the characters in this world will react to the idea that the people they trust are using them as pawns — and whether this world allows for the possibility of breaking free of your complicity all together.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Ol79dB

#Vox - All

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corneliusreignallen · 5 years

Text

Watchmen wants us to know one thing: We’re all being used by those with power

Looking Glass seems to have a very full life. | HBO

The show delves into Looking Glass’s past — and revisits one of the most memorable moments from the comic.

Times Square: Now with 100 percent more squid

HBO

Looking Glass takes off his mask for a bit.

On the inherent shiftiness of James Wolk

HBO

Yes, we’re aware this is technically Jeremy Irons right beneath a subhead about James Wolk.

Allegra, how did the Seventh Kavalry reveal work for you? Do you think there’s any possibility for hope left in the Watchmen world?

What about you, Emily? Do you think Looking Glass will find he power within him to share Veidt’s secret about the squid attack with Angela and company?

Will Looking Glass even survive, tho?

HBO

Laurie and Looking Glass have a chat.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Ol79dB

#Vox - All

0 notes

timalexanderdollery · 5 years

Text

Watchmen wants us to know one thing: We’re all being used by those with power

Looking Glass seems to have a very full life. | HBO

The show delves into Looking Glass’s past — and revisits one of the most memorable moments from the comic.

Times Square: Now with 100 percent more squid

HBO

Looking Glass takes off his mask for a bit.

On the inherent shiftiness of James Wolk

HBO

Yes, we’re aware this is technically Jeremy Irons right beneath a subhead about James Wolk.

Allegra, how did the Seventh Kavalry reveal work for you? Do you think there’s any possibility for hope left in the Watchmen world?

What about you, Emily? Do you think Looking Glass will find he power within him to share Veidt’s secret about the squid attack with Angela and company?

Will Looking Glass even survive, tho?

HBO

Laurie and Looking Glass have a chat.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Ol79dB

#Vox - All

0 notes

gracieyvonnehunter · 5 years

Text

Watchmen wants us to know one thing: We’re all being used by those with power

Looking Glass seems to have a very full life. | HBO

The show delves into Looking Glass’s past — and revisits one of the most memorable moments from the comic.

Times Square: Now with 100 percent more squid

HBO

Looking Glass takes off his mask for a bit.

On the inherent shiftiness of James Wolk

HBO

Yes, we’re aware this is technically Jeremy Irons right beneath a subhead about James Wolk.

Allegra, how did the Seventh Kavalry reveal work for you? Do you think there’s any possibility for hope left in the Watchmen world?

What about you, Emily? Do you think Looking Glass will find he power within him to share Veidt’s secret about the squid attack with Angela and company?

Will Looking Glass even survive, tho?

HBO

Laurie and Looking Glass have a chat.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2Ol79dB

#Vox - All

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papaculture · 7 years

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Superheroes

I loved Wonder Woman. Sitting through Man of Steel and Batman V Superman was kind of like being made to endure a dark episode of Scooby Doo, where Shaggy’s implied drugs habit gets out of control and he reverses over Scooby in the Mystery Van. Or to put it another way, it was like going back to your favourite childhood comics and colouring them in with a black crayon.

I loved comics as a kid. I wish I still had my collection. Superman and Batman were early favourites, before I grew into the more complex dynamic of X-Men and ultimately moved on to 2000AD (I recently reread Nemesis the Warlock from the latter and heartily recommend it to anyone who likes Monty Python, Michael Moorcock, Douglas Adams and anti-hero demons with heads the same shape as their spacecraft).

I get the adolescent imperative to transform childhood pleasures into adult pursuits, which seems to inform much of the current vogue for superhero blockbusters. But there’s no question that the DC films (pretty much post-Batman Returns) have been missing the sense of wonder and imagination that made those three-colour strips so appealing to me as a kid. The basic premise that you could have a secret life — that you could be ordinary, even unpopular, but don a disguise and go off to have fantastical adventures of world-shaking importance was a source of great comfort to this kid.

Wonder

As you’d hope, Wonder Woman goes some way to restoring that sense of wonder. She is a hero whose greatest weapon (apart from her shield and lasso) is compassion. She understands that being a hero isn’t a chore, an affliction or a way to get revenge on the world, but a duty you perform because you care about your world, your society or humanity at large.

As a father of two young girls, I wish I could take them to see the new film. They’ve certainly enjoyed the Pop! figurines I brought back from the premiere. But, for all its heart, the film retains the grubby sheen of recent DC films and a focus on extended punch-ups that mean the intended market remains pubescents and above. There are also scenes of mass murder and warfare that might be confronting for younger children. Our four-year-old still hasn’t had to face up to the idea that humans kill other humans. (She’s very interested in death, particularly the deaths of rock stars such as Bowie, Eddie Cochran and half the Beatles, but I’ve so far had to put down Lennon’s death to an “accident”.) In our household, monsters either eat you or “zap” you.

So where does a superhero-loving dad go if he wants to share these stories with his offspring? There’s the recent The Lego Batman Movie, but I found that a bit too frenetic. I wanted simplicity. I thought back to my own childhood and the Christopher Reeve Superman films of the 70s and 80s. There’s an appealing innocence and brightness to them, but Christ they’re long. I’ll admit I struggled to get through the first and am yet to plough on.

Batman ‘66

For me, the Batman TV series (1966-68) was far more influential. Movies were a special treat, but television was daily fare. You could spend twenty-five minutes a day with Batman and Robin. Of course, I didn’t realise these stories weren’t straight-faced drama. Their outrageous antics felt very real to me. Returning to them now, it’s the humour that appeals.

I’m not sure what kids raised on the Nolan films will make of it, but to this adult the show’s self-aware comedy is a refreshing reminder of how much fun superheroes used to be. Batman 1966 knows exactly how silly it is and there lies its appeal. To a child, it looks like drama, because kids’ rules are different to those of us oldies. The nonsensical stories, the high stakes cliffhangers and balletic fight scenes are perfect springboards for children to dress up in a sheet and improvise their own escapades. For me, only the Burton Batmans have come close to embracing this show’s great sense of imagination and wonder.

We first watched Batman with Child One in an attempt to find some more proactive female role-models. I’d remembered Batgirl being in the show for the entire run, but she actually doesn’t appear until the third and final series. While there are undoubtedly outdated attitudes displayed by the characters around her (and the omnipresent narrator), Batgirl herself is pretty great. By day, she’s a brainy librarian (she’s shown to be at least as clever as Batman, if not more so) who seems to turn to crime-fighting for larks. She plays a pretty active role, usually investigating in parallel to Batman and Robin, and often riding to the rescue on her rather girly motorbike.

Unlike the dynamic duo, she doesn’t actually punch anyone, but isn’t above a few balletic kicks or thumping a henchman with a handy prop. The violence here is largely playful. Nobody ever gets hurt and the infamous pop-up slugs (KAPOW! etc) give the sense of the fight scenes being a game, rather than acts of anger. That said, we did have some discussion about why it was never okay to thump anyone.

Child One loves this show, although the occasional moments of peril for Batgirl have proved a little unsettling (she’s growing to enjoy feeling safely scared). A great place to start is with a 7 minute film included on the DVD and Blu-Ray set that works as an introduction to Batgirl. It was never broadcast, but is basically a pilot for a show based around her. Series Three follows on from there.

Batman: The TV Series is available on Blu-Ray, DVD, Netflix and is soon to be broadcast on SBS.

Age and stage: 3+

Gender stuff: The female characters are few and far between, but pretty appealing when they arrive. Three Catwomen, less glamorous women villains and, of course, Batgirl offer a few different roleplay options.

Drama: largely comic, with moments of tension outrageously signposted (and usually quickly resolved).

Outdated bits: The sexual politics is seriously off, whether it’s the narrator talking about “all manner of girls in Gotham City” being nurses, secretaries or librarians… or Barbara Gordon (AKA Batgirl) flirting uncomfortably with her own father.

Themes: adventure, heroism, responsibility, bravery and the importance of good grammar.

Danger Mouse and Bananaman

For younger children, there are two other superhero series we’ve enjoyed. The first is Danger Mouse. David Jason (also the voice of Toad of Toad Hall) voices the rodent superspy, who zaps around in a flying car with cowardly sidekick Penfold, foiling the plans of villainous Baron Greenback. The show has recently been remade with a new cast, at a more frenetic pace, but I was surprised how fast the early shows were. As with Batman, there are plenty of jokes (good, flat and deliberately awful) to entertain parents. In fact, it’s hard to think of a contemporaneous kiddie cartoon where the focus is so much on comedy. Compared to the staid Hanna-Barbera shows, Danger Mouse feels positively anarchic. Unlike Scooby Doo, which would generally end on an embarrassingly lame one-liner resulting in baffling laughter from its characters, this is a show genuinely packed with jokes. Every kind of joke. Danger Mouse owes as much to the knockabout humour of the Carry On films as it does to the surreal intelligence of Monty Python, with a good dose of Looney Tunes and The Goodies thrown in. There’s slapstick, wordplay, satire, pastiche, surrealism, wit and Edward Lear–esque nonsense.

Even more beloved for Child One is Bananaman. I had only vague memories of this show and watched it primarily out of loyalty to The Goodies (who voice all the characters). But it’s fantastically silly, has a suburban cosiness and is likely to encourage kids to eat more fruit. The villains are never particularly threatening, while the real hero is Bananaman’s less credulous raven sidekick. The joke ratio isn’t quite as high as with Danger Mouse, but it can work as a double gateway — opening the door not only to the world of superheroes, but that of The Goodies (which we are yet to share with the kids).

Danger Mouse and Bananaman are available on DVD. Bananaman is also available (officially) on YouTube.

Age and stage: 2+

Gender stuff: Non-existent. There is not a single recurring female character in Danger Mouse, while female roles in Bananaman are minimal (to put it politely). The recent DM reboot has gone some very slight way to addressing this.

Drama: slapstick, fantastical adventure. Some cliffhangers, but no real sense of peril.

Outdated bits: A distinct lack of diversity, with some racial stereotyping.

Themes: humour, adventure, decency, honour and the importance of fresh fruit.

#superheroes #wonder woman #batman #batgirl #danger mouse #bananaman #parenting

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dwestfieldblog · 6 years

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DELUSIVE ENLIGHTENMENT MEGLOMANIA

2019...and a true two minutes to midnight on the doomsday clock. Now there's a king hell lead entrance eh? Annihilation and dystopia, coming soon to a planet near you...'One total catastrophe like this, is just the beginning' What did I learn last week? The name of the Egyptian god who created the universe by masturbating was Atum. Worth mentioning eh? Seeds of creation in atoms, his chosen warrior must have been Onan the Barbarian. And...Ethyl formate is in the centre of the galaxy, tastes like rum and smells of raspberries. Close your eyes and you are there. 'Meta programming the human bio computer' Dr John Lilly. 'Art and science have their meeting in method'. Bulwer Lytton. A long collage from the magician's hat......

Back in late January, the dubious blue shaded Bono of U2 was railing loud and hard against the evils of capitalism...surely I am not the only one to see the deep level of irony in this...A multi millionaire from writing songs with a number of offshore investments and minimal tax payments (well, only a few humans actually want to pay the tax demanded, but some of them can afford to pay it)...Without capitalism it is a touch unlikely he could have made so much money and kept it... only the corrupt in various regimes get to be so rich - and precious few musicians get this much moolah...Some messianic front men should never be allowed to do anything other than sing and dance. Still haven't found what you are looking for?

Anyway, Jesus said 'When you give arms,do not let your left hand know what your right is doing, so that your arms may be given in secret'. Or maybe it was alms. Arf. Don't show your hand too early:-) Ace of spades high. Speaking of which...

White House Spokesperson Sarah Sanders mentioned on a religious TV network that God 'wanted' (Useful Idiot) Trump the gurning Golden Reptile 'to be the American President.' Perhaps that is true...maybe he will be the last moron leader that will make people truly aware and take more care over who they choose to elect in a democracy. Fnord. 'Well ah trust him cuz he aint a politician and he speaks his mind'. Duhh.What does he actually say when he speaks his mind? He has certainly been a gift (in more mysterious ways than one) to Presidents and populists in other dubious countries as proof of how useless free elections can be and how simple it is to affect them from afar and within. A standard bearer who carries his nation's flag so low he should be arrested under the U.S law for defamation. Germaphobes like walls, but a touch pointless when you have such filthy hands. A new world disorder....Love the title of the book 'Crippled America' by D. Trump with a scowling picture of the blonde psychopath on the cover. Says everything about the USA today. And love even more the idea of his Space Farce/Force... Flash Gordon meets Star Trek. Trump as Captain Kirk and Pence as Spock. Tired of being the policeman of the world, time to be the Warriors of the Universe and have laser space fights with China. (Wonder how their president chooses to interpret the I Ching? May he live in interesting times.)

'Sovereign' internet for Russia...(or 'the World Wide Web without the world', as the BBC World Service put it) a new law being prepared to control exactly what internet goes in to the Motherland and protect their people from freedom. Arf. Wouldn't want any false news or manipulated election results going on there eh? Or access to non Kremlin approved news. We shall see if this actually passes into legislation. What do the majority of Russian people actually think about this? Goddess bless Pussy Riot, Tatu and Vladimir Vysocki. Mr. Putin, remember Dostoevsky. ( A week after writing that, 15,000 demonstrated in Moscow against the proposed new laws. There is already a law making it illegal to insult a member of government. Not much room for satire or polite criticism, but Russia has never pretended to be a democracy.)

World leaders in more and more countries following the old western lead in starting a war on the basis of an outright lie and receiving no punishment for it. (Perhaps at the gates of Saint Peter. ) Well, if the ones in 'Christian' democracies can get away with war crime atrocities under the pretence of righteousness and liberation, why not them? And let's not forget the ever useful catch all word 'terrorist', carte blanche to get away with murder and invasion on false pretexts. Terrorists are not shopkeepers, students, quiet religious folk or disaffected individuals without guns who disagree with their government and march/write songs in demonstration to protest apparent/ obvious wrongness. Terrorists use fear, manipulation and extreme violence to maintain, assert and spread their power. (and how many governments fit that description?) They don't make pop videos, they make snuff movies.

Step by incremental naughty step Hungary and Poland becoming ever more damaged, Britain, Europe and America being gleefully and carefully encouraged to pull themselves apart. I have never (well, from the age of about seven, so that is almost never) been a believer of what America and Britain did to dominate the world in olden times Whatsoever. BUT, life under a Sino-Russian world government?? FECK that. All those wannabe socialists from western universities are going to have a screaming bloodily rude awakening in a red dawn. Or perhaps they have such a well built narrow reality tunnel that all will seem just fine and dandy when 'their' system wins and will thrill to the new accepted literature. Slightly depressing how this current apparent time stream appears to be developing.

(Maybe a temporary control in the chaos is all most generations can wish for. Perhaps only a sidestep into the actual flow of the river which seems to be chaos is all that is needed to evolve into a deeper awareness. 'Sink or swim' appears to be false option perpetuated by alpha types. Flow, surrender control, and in the Being so, a (deep breath) an open hearted universal view...Makes astral sense to some of us.)

Totalitarianism is a foul bastard swine whatever side or form it takes, political or religious. Read interviews with those who survived life under the Nazis AND the Communists. Or those who escaped extremes of the main religions, those in new age mind warp sects, having their souls drained via manipulation and enforced delusion. Cowed into kowtowing, despising the manipulations but knowing how much it hurts to think and feel...and so choosing the easier path of submission. Some people are proud of endlessly suffering pain, but only very rarely does their endurance create a stronger person. Survive yourself. As the song says, 'The final conflict is within'. Stand, kneel, adopt the lotus, just don't bend over and expect anything positive to come your way. (Unless...yes you can guess the rest...)

And as for all the student snowflakes no-platforming dissimilar voices to harm their delicate ears and cluttering up the channels tweeting meaningless self righteous rubbish, shouting so loud there is no actual debate...where do you imagine your place will be in the new world scheme? Outsiders will be enslaved or executed by 'popular' demand. You are not Chinese dissidents in prison, however you might feel. You have the right to be heard, (even as you deny that to others) but not the right to deafen and attack. Did you ever wonder about the past mentality and spirituality of those who could stand and watch a heretic/ witch' being burned to death at the stake or these days, those who can sit in a small invited audience to watch a man be fried alive in a chair? Those men who could watch and take part in a gang rape? To coin an old comedic phrase; 'That's you, that is.' Dig into the dirt and get to the molten core of morality. Find yourself there, then choose the height of your evil, the depth of your Love without ego. Ethics. Arf. Thus spoke Westfieldthruster.

'The black man motivates, the other man imitates'...Damn straight.

'But I'm confused between sexual, murder, magical and medical, is the difference metrical or imperial, septic, fertile, feral or sterile?' Health and deficiency. (J>B)

(Diary...There is no one in my life in any way for whom I do not have respect. Empathy and compassion I have, long term patience too but after my respect is gone then so are they. Deleted. This will very highly likely apply to myself. But I have never done anything with a woman that I wouldn't allow her to do to me, if she wished to. (So I am still a gentleman eh? ) Remember lonely boys, She might be a goddess but she's still human. Meanwhile again...Situation Normal, All Fecked Up...

After a certain age, recklessness ceases to be quite as attractive as once it did in youth, as 'Death becomes real'. (Dylan Moran) Illnesses and disabilities, permanent or otherwise increase in number with the procession of years and the long journey through suffering can make a human paranoid and fearful. Imagining the worst of declines can seem very logical. The 'unpleasant preliminaries' as Cohen said. Most of us have made up our minds (in a very literal sense) about what comes next or what doesn't and it is fairly easy, given how we adjust reasoning to fit with the least unpalatable truth to find a comfortable justification for our various behaviours. Self destructive types (which most of us seem to be in one way or another) use rationality to declare that if everyone dies including the thinker, then why not do what you enjoy the most for as long as you can. I do this and know of many others after the age of thirty who reached the same conclusion and followed through past sixty and beyond. Smoking, drinking, drugging, fighting can lead to some of the worst types of deaths. But even those who never did any of these things suffer strokes, dementia, heart attacks and chronic end of life pain. Just consistently negative thinking can make people ill, just in less obvious ways than smokers etc. So we/I seek to 'justify'.

Reactions to stress matter. A lot, But how many working people with families have the time to sit under a Bo tree or read Eckhart Tolle etc? Most of us appear to attract some mental/physical cataclysm as a way of taking stock and making a 'brutal re-appraisal of the situation'. (HST) Very often this is the only way a human stops what they are doing and starts thinking about Being. We all do what we do to keep various feelings and thoughts at bay, but the brain (and thus the body. 'Where a thought goes, a chemical goes with it'; Deepak Chopra) are not fooled and store it all up until overload occurs. Getting old is not for cowards. Shame I seem to be one, such die many times before their deaths. Endless physical pain and mental fear can do that and it is very hard to see that as an Initiation sometimes. And these days, most of the time. Glad I have a gun. How many of us can hope to die 'peacefully in our sleep'? Tranquillisers? Not quite the Portal of Daath, more like the gateway to the abyss. Which as uncle Frederick said, stares right back into you when you look long.

For those with patience, it is easy to say that meditation might well be the best way to re-programme the mind into letting go the poisons. To un-wire and react to stress in a more positive way. Discipline. Old habits die hard. Older habits die very badly. Alpha theta delta waves and LSD therapy? Chinese Auryvedic Reki Tantric massage, more sex for the endorphins and oxytocins? Some people will read this as a very dull and obvious piece of writing. Others will know all about the idea of suicide as a 'problem focused strategy'. Get on with dealing with and solving the attacks from within and without...Want the truth? A truth. There have been thousands of days when the only thing that kept me going was the thought of unwinding my useless tension with whisky for a few hours every night. And it is that lazy thought which has been killing me for the last 22 years. A liver is a remarkable organ unless you flood it with alcohol, the power of her regeneration is astounding until the tipping point is reached. Milk thistle isn't going to solve this. Can you tell how I feel today?

What causes that 'tension' Dave? The usual. Overthinking, self hatred, anger, desperation, guilt, regret, doubt, all the classics. Most of us seem to have these in various combinations during our lives. A generalisation but seems to be a fair one eh? Some people deal with the negatives in highly positive and/or immoral ways... regular holidays, saunas, horse tranquillisers, painting, flagellation, righteous causes, deviant behaviour, local politics, role playing (well, we all do that one way or another), virtual reality games (also), teaching things we should know better before we set ourselves up as such, conning the gullible with vague promises of better things, healers as politicians and vice versa seeking money and power/sex, lying to ourselves on an hourly basis, doing anything to be 'happy' and sustain the illusion that we are somehow promoting our immune system and to bring meaning to our existence. Burning through the days, raging with light because it seems sexier than being peaceful, Attempting immortality (in physical form) through health supplements, work, sport and having offspring. Faking our 'realities' until they temporarily become real. Working on massive ideas because we are captivated by the energy within them and the possibilities of a better life, curing dis-ease via mental, physical, chemical and spiritual research, using ourselves as a laboratory, exploring exactly what Will-Power truly means. Further and deeper into realms of the without which is truly inner, the macrocosm which is the microcosm. '100 books you must read before you die', the first of which is your own. Your very own Book of the Dead. A lifetime preparing before the next step.

Been there, done that. Next. (How arrogant.)

So, survive, evolve and move on...He writes with dead eyes and in daily pain. Normal is very overrated, whatever my foul mental weaknesses, I regret very little. Could always Do more. But Being is key. There is only a time limit on the flesh. 'Who will deliver me from this body of death?' What seems important to you? Really, truly? Define 'important' and instinctive reasons why. Or not...to hell with me, in hell I seem to be and to hell I go. Pathos and hubris simultaneously. Woo-hoo. Etc.

One more final 'time' for the universe...'God' is/was/probably possibly a telepathic scientist, architect of infinity, quantum physicist, astral engineer and a psychic musician. ALL. WE are tiny sparks and mirrors of 'God', parallel possibilities, all serving the purpose of existence, which is (so I seem to choose to believe) to Evolve and experience all that matter can. We do not all need to be Einstein, Da Vinci or Beethoven but we all are on various levels, perhaps less 'grand' (depending on perspective) but the Poet/ Creator is within us all every time we appreciate Nature, enjoy humour or a story well told, think of some connection for ourselves...Small things Matter:-) As the bishop said to the actress. Smaller things are Quarks. Arf.

Stanislav Grof... COEX...(Condensed experience montage. ) Eg, 'You are re-experiencing the birth process, remembering pre birth inter uterine events, reliving ancestral or archaeological crises of people/animals from whom you are descended, seeing the sub-atomic energy whorl from which Form appears, previsioning the Superhumanity of the future...all at once!' (That was, apart from the LIGHT that smashed into me for five seconds in a garden in 2008, exactly what I experienced in the Reconnection. It went far higher the next time. I do regret I didn't practice.

1.Amniotic universe – the womb. The only world that life knows at this point. Blissful feeling of peace and joy in a healthy womb. 2. Cosmic engulfment – no exit – Equilibrium disturbed, contractions begin- unbearable feeling of being stuck in hell with no way of escaping. 3. Death verses rebirth struggle – second clinical stage of childbirth, intense struggle for survival.4. Death versus rebirth experience – the child is born. Intense ecstatic feelings of liberation and love. New world begins. ...

I found this scrawled by me on an old A4 scrap of paper, not sure who actually wrote it, perhaps E. Tolle. Along with 'Conscious Ego...Self Image/Persona/... Subconscious memories...Shadow/Denied psychic material... Anima/Animus/ Opposite sex qualities...Collective Unconscious/Universal+archetypal processes. In a cycle learning and relaying...'Information received, decoded and transmitted by a structure'. (Definition of intelligence by R.A.W.).

An infinite number of reality tunnels threading in a spiral of a labyrinth between matter and the non physical. The 'Akashic Record' to tap into and imprint our own levels of experience, the Eye recording Itself. Individually/collectively. Why do we think? Why remember? Why care? Why create? What is the chemical programme which sparks curiosity and fascination? The survival trip is a journey to.....

.....................................................................................................................

Back in Middle School...I knew before I started the run/essay etc, that it was mine. No pride or ego, just knew I had already won. A calmness descended, not grit and determination, just KNEW it. And so it was, every time. Another example from life of no planning, just Being, THEN doing it. My entire life was full of these. Thinking never worked out for me. Everything good which has happened has been spur of the moment choices, instinct, following what (or who) I Love. TRYING (or trying too much) usually ends in tears. Parallel to this is the absolute negativity of my/the mind. Agree to be optimistic as a behaviourally rewarding hobby...he almost giggles.

Reprogramming takes effort and how many of us can say we are not lazy? The most regular homework I give to students is to just to write diary type paragraphs about things they notice or feel on various random days. I have been given some wonderfully honest expressive stuff. What would we reach across/back and tell ourselves at younger ages? What would we attempt to avoid or undo? This exercise is pointless if we feel negative or sadness over it. So don't. Arf. Self forgiveness is a beautiful thing, valuable and worthy. So are we. Stay warm and in flow:-) Last famous words unknown. Happy rebirthing Easter day again. And again.

'Today I broke a personal best, successive days alive':-)

LOVE.

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lauriecgarcia · 6 years

Text

The Low Down On Breakfast Cereal

Wendyl Nissen’s book Supermarket Companion, how to bring home good food, is a wealth of knowledge for those looking to avoid foods laden with dangerous chemicals, there’s a comprehensive list of food colourings and additives so you can shop smarter and be more aware of what’s in processed supermarket food.

This entertaining and enlightening exert looks at breakfast foods, in particular, Nestlé Milo Oats and Kellogg’s Froot Loops (no fruit there!) and the importance of eating a nutritious breakfast that is not laden with sugar and additives.

Make sure you check out Wendyl’s findings at the end of the chapter.

Just for starters!

“Look at what?” I say, as we both gaze at the bags of shopping.Can I look at that, Grandma?” says our four-year-old grand-daughter, Lila, as I’m putting the shopping in the back of the Prius. We have just made our way around the supermarket and Lila has been a great help.

“That one there,” she says pointing at a brightly coloured box.

“Oh, that’s not for you,” I say reaching in and covering the offending piece of garish marketing with a bag of potatoes.

“Why not?” she says, disappointed.

“That’s for Grandma’s work.” I reply and hastily strap her into her car seat. “When Grandma has done her work on it, maybe you can have one next time you visit.”

Most visits to the supermarket require that I look for products that I can review in my column. This box was for some brightly coloured biscuits called Oki Doki Disco Bits. They looked frightening in terms of artificial colours and so I threw them in the trolley. Lila never said a word when I took them off the shelf, nor to my knowledge even noticed they were in the trolley. But when it comes to kid marketing Lila is a perfect target. She has an innate ability to seek and find any brightly coloured foods within a 10-meter radius.

I’m not sure what she thinks Grandma does when she “works” on these foods but she knows that they generally live on a shelf in my office, lined up and waiting for my magnifying glass to hover critically over their ingredients panel.

I know Lila knows this because it’s her first stop at every visit, once we have all been all been greeted with a cuddle, she’s patted our dog, Shirl, and gone out to check that her white hen, who she has named “Mummy”, is still around.

I had an extremely colourful and enticing box of Kellogg’s Fruit Loops sitting in my office when Lila came to visit recently. She regards my office as our “second” kitchen because on any occasion she might find all sorts of wonderful foods lined up on my shelf ready to be analysed for the column. I was in the “first” kitchen, when she appeared clutching the box of Froot Loops with a look of wonderment on her face.

“Grandma, can I please have these in a bowl with some milk?”

Something about the packaging had managed to (tell her that a) she desperately needed to eat these and b) it was a food you had in a bowl with milk.

“Why do you want them?” I asked.

“They look nice,” was all she said.

I gently pried them off her with promises of other treats and hid them in the pantry.

When I went back to get them to write about, I found that my 26-year-old son, Daniel, had succumbed to the same marketing message, but didn’t need to ask first, and ate them.

I am always astonished at the power of packaging and its ability to transfix a small child or her uncle. Lila lives in a household where her parents are very aware of food additives and eat a very healthy, real-food diet. (Not because I pressured them –they are just intelligent consumers, honestly.)

So Lila’s exposure to junk food and the bright packaging is minimal and she would have had no conditioning to tell her that inside these packets are sweet tasting, moreish foods. She just wouldn’t know. Yet something about the design of the boxes sets off a reaction in her brain which gives her the drive to search for it in bags of shopping or reach up onto a shelf and carry it all the way down the hall to me in the kitchen.

It is no secret that kids as young as Lila are directly targeted by advertising, not just on TV but also techniques such as free gifts, competitions, games and puzzles, website games and movie promotions.

And that marketing is why breakfast becomes a minefield for well meaning parents to negotiate.

Next time you are at the supermarket, wander down the breakfast aisle and take note of the packaging. It all looks fantastic. Aside from the relentless use of every bright colour in the rainbow, you will see three elements competing for your attention: chocolate, punchy bright berries and fruit and fibre.

In my house over the years, we have been through most of the cereal crazes as each of our five children has begged to be allowed a new brand and their busy working mum (former) bought them.

Have you ever noticed Jerry Seinfeld’s cereal shelf in the kitchen on Seinfeld? Next time you watch the show have a look. One internet source sets the number at nine, mostly cornflakes and shredded wheat. His cereal shelf looks exactly how ours looked for years, as every child claimed a new brand as theirs.

While you’re in the breakfast cereal aisle, see if you can find one box which lists the sugar content per 100g at less than 15g, which is what we should aim for when buying our kids cereal.

Consumer magazine conducted a survey of our breakfast cereals in 2008 and found that seven products had more than 40 per cent sugar – over three teaspoons in a 30g serve. I’ve listed them at the end of the chapter for you, in case they’re sitting on your Seinfeld cereal shelf. One of them is the aforementioned Kellogg’s Froot Loops which I prevented Lila from eating.

My focus when first studying this cereal was primarily on the three artificial colours used in it (see my findings below) but then I worked out that, if Lila had been allowed her Froot Loops with milk, she would have consumed 4.3 teaspoons of sugar in her bowl.

I can guarantee you will not find a box of cereal in the supermarket with low sugar until you come to Weet-Bix. Plain old Weet-Bix is the star of the cereal aisle, at just 2.8g per 100g. Admittedly, a lot of people add sugar, but at least you can control that and most kids enjoy eating them.

Lila eats two “bix” for breakfast every morning and won’t be swayed from them even when her grandpa is offering to make her sausages and eggs.

My mother, Elis, however, can’t stand them. Something to do with trying to avoid eating them when she was a child by sneezing into them, thinking her patents would deem that a reasonable enough excuse not to have to eat them. But no. She had to eat every last bit and has never touched them since.

As a guide, when you are out shopping, if sugar appears in the ingredients list directly under the name of the cereal, such as rice, corn or wheat, that means that the second biggest ingredient in there is sugar, and you should put it straight back on the shelf.

The other thing you need to think about is salt levels (fewer than 400mg sodium per 100g of cereal) and fibre.

We all know that we don’t get enough fibre in our diets. It’s good for bowel health and digestion and the things that give you fibre – fresh fruit, veges and wholegrains – tend to be really nutritious and good for you. Unfortunately, I’ve noticed a trend for food manufacturers to add what I call “faux fibre” to their processed foods, using vegetable gums and inulin, which is a substance that occurs naturally in root vegetables, particularly chicory. Other additions include polydextrose, which is created out of dextrose (glucose), sorbitol, a low-calorie carbohydrate, and citric acid to add to processed foods, usually to provide fibre. It is called a functional fibre because no one knows if it has the same health benefits as fibre found in real foods.

A good guide for children’s fibre requirements is 5g to 15g per 100g, so look out for that on the label, and if you see inulin or vegetable gum in the ingredients panel, reject it in favour of something which uses wholegrains and fruit to provide fibre.

Another problem with most breakfast cereals is the fact that they are extruded. This means perfectly good wholegrains are ground up, made into a slurry with liquid, heated to high temperatures, then pressurised through small holes to create shapes such as rings, flakes or puffs. You have to wonder just how much nutrition gets killed off in the process with those high heats and pressures.

OFTEN WHEN I’M out and about, people like to talk about the food column and what it has taught them.

“Thank goodness Krispies are okay,” said my aunt. “They’re my favourite biscuit.”

“I haven’t touched a raspberry jam slice since the day I read your column,” said a woman I met at a knitting bee.

And, of course, many people have suggestions for foods I should look at. By far the most disturbing conversation along these lines with a woman I was doing some work with.

“I have this friend who basically throws those cartons of Up&Go at her kids from dawn until dusk,” she said. “That’s all they eat. For breakfast they sit there in the car sucking on them on their way to school, they have another one with their lunch and sometimes dinner too. I’ve tried to tell her they need some real food but she believes they are good for them. Are they?”

Then I got the emails about UP&Go: “My kids have one every day and I’m wondering how healthy they are,” said one mother.

“I really don’t like this product because it has so much sugar and it’s like this giving your child a milkshake for breakfast,” said another.

I was well acquainted with Up&Go. My son Daniel has never been a great breakfast eater, and so for a while he took one of these with him but in the end he didn’t even eat those, claiming the texture was weird.

Up&Go, for those who are not familiar with it, is a drink which is endorsed by the All Blacks in its advertising campaign and claims on the box to have “the protein, energy and dietary fibre of 2 Weet-Bix and milk”.

It is reasonable that parents like myself would read that and presume that in the little box we are handing over to our kids is simply two Weet-Bix and some milk all mashed up. And presumably it would have the same nutritional benefits.

Wrong.

The label should also state that it has 11.7g more sugar and 13 more ingredients than a simple bowl of Weet-Bix and milk. By the time I’d finished writing the column I was quite angry with Sanitarium for the misconception and wrote: “Is it really that hard to get a kid to sit down at the kitchen table and eat solid food these days? Are we raising a nation of astronauts in training who need to develop a taste for liquid food?”

I think if you’ve got a kid who needs something quick to eat in the car you can throw them a banana. And if you’ve got a kid who only likes to drink their meals, whip up a smoothie, put it in a bottle and let them drink that. On the Sanitarium website they even recommend that you throw a Weet-Bix into the smoothies.

I also took a look at Nestlé Milo Oats, mainly because Pearl had picked them up in the super-market and loved them. I’m a big fan of oats, as not only are they a good source of fibre but they also do wonderful soothing things to your digestive system.

Nestlé have a range of breakfast cereals marketed under the Milo name and some are better than others. Milo Oats is a better one.

I found that they weren’t too high in sugar and were a good source of fibre. I saw them as a great food to get kids interested in porridge for breakfast. I also found a study which showed that children who had oats for breakfast had better spatial memory (which means being able to remember geographical details like the interior of your house), better short-term memory and better listening attention than children who ate ready-to-eat cereal or no breakfast at all. Pearl was very relieved.

PUTTING THE CHOICE of cereal for your kids aside, there is a bigger problem emerging on the horizon for families, and that’s the kid who just won’t eat breakfast. This is cause for concern because every study you read emphasises the importance of breakfast for kids to kickstart their brains and give them the energy to see them through a day of learning school.

One University of Sydney study, conveniently commissioned by Kellogg’s, looked at the type of breakfast eaten by 800 New South Wales children aged eight to 16, across 19 different schools. The students who ate breakfast before their tests performed better, and those who ate the most nutritious breakfasts, such as cereal and milk, or eggs on toast, got the highest scores. They also scored higher on literacy and numeracy tests than their classmates who ate only toast.

It is easy to see why many parents faced with a non breakfast-child will be less fussy about the food they consume, reasoning that at least they’re eating something. We let two of our children, Daniel and his step-sister Alex, go to school on a diet of Pop-Tarts (basically jam-filled pastries you heat up in the toaster) for months because we were just so glad they were eating something.

In the end we settled on toasted sandwiches, smoothies and, if all else failed, a banana. I have yet to meet a child who doesn’t like the taste and as a food they have a lot going for them. They have lots of carbohydrates for energy, are low in fat, and are potassium-rich, which is great for muscles. They also have some protein and iron.

Instead of throwing an Up&Go at your child on the way to school, swap it for a banana a carton of milk, which will give protein, calcium, zinc, vitamins A and B, and iodine.

I’m very much a toast and a cup of tea girl at breakfast, and it gives me enough energy, even with a gym work out to see me through to lunch. Which is when I go outside to raid the chicken coop and find some delicious, bright yellow-yolked eggs.

MY FINDINGS

Nestlé Milo Oats

I see this as a great transition product to get children who may be used to the a diet of high sugar processed breakfast cereal used to the taste and texture of oats which are a very healthy option for the reasons above. By the time they’ve gone through a packet of these, they might just like a bowl of real porridge with some fresh banana and honey mixed in which is less sweet option than this product and better for them. It also means that your child sets off on a cold winter’s morning with a warm breakfast in their stomach, which is a nice old-fashioned thing to do, and the effect of the oats on their memory and listening skills might be good too.

Summary:

Three teaspoons of sugar in every serving if made with milk, but with water only one and half teaspoons.

20g of oats in every serve which is a great option for good nutrition, and oats have proven benefits for your child’s memory and listening skills.

A great transition food to get your child interested in eating porridge on a winter’s morning.

**Nestle still use palm oil so be sure to read your labels**

Kellogg’s Froot Loops

There is just something irresistible to children about food which comes in fun colours and Froot Loops certainly fulfils that expectation. It even has the sell line “a fun fuel for adventurous kids.”

There is no doubting your kids will love this cereal and hoover it down. But why not teach your children that real food doesn’t come in six fun, mostly artificial colours? Most children are quite happy to eat Weet-Bix which by comparison has only 0.8g of sugar per serve or 6.8g per serve with milk. It also uses wholegrains and has more fibre. Top it with some fresh fruit, like strawberries and peaches, and you have a great breakfast with plenty of natural colour.

And perhaps follow a rule for eating by the author of Food Rules, Michael Pollan, who says “Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the colour of the milk.’’

Summary:

Contains 38 per cent sugar.

Has three artificial colours which are banned in other countries.

Uses natural flavourings.

Wendyl Nissen

Photos by Fischer Twins Etienne Girardet rawpixel Peter Lewicki

The post The Low Down On Breakfast Cereal appeared first on Wendyls Green Goddess.

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ellymackay · 6 years

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7 Proven Techniques To Help You Treat Tinnitus and Sleep Better!

7 Proven Techniques To Help You Treat Tinnitus and Sleep Better! is courtesy of EllyMackay.com

You’ve heard me talk about the impact of noise—for better and worse—on sleep. But recently I received several questions during my FaceBook Live Wake up Wednesdays (7:30 am PST if you have not seen it yet) about tinnitus and sleep. Looking back, I have never written about it, so I decided to dive in and learn more.

What is tinnitus?

Tinnitus involves the perception of “phantom” sounds that aren’t coming from an external source. Often described as “ringing in the ears,” people with tinnitus can actually experience a wide variety of sounds, including:

Buzzing

Humming

Pulsing

“White noise” sounds, akin to static

Booming

Drilling

Whistling

Whirring

Hissing

Snippets of music

Whatever the specific sounds, these noises are only perceptible to the individual. Tinnitus noise can vary widely in volume. About 1 in every 4 people with tinnitus describe their sounds as loud.

Many of us experience tinnitus every once in a while. If you’re exposed to extremely loud noise, or leave a noisy environment for a quiet one, you may notice a temporary buzzing or ringing in your ear. Maybe you’ve been near loud construction—like a jackhammer, or stepped out of a loud action movie or music concert to a quiet lobby or street. (Be aware: even a single exposure to very loud noise can do damage to your hearing, and increase your risk for tinnitus.)

About 25-30 million Americans have tinnitus as a condition, and they experience these noises on a regular, most often daily, basis. About 40 percent of people with tinnitus hear tinnitus noise through 80 percent of their day. And for a smaller group of people—about 1 in 5, tinnitus is disruptive enough to significantly interfere with daily functioning, becoming disabling or nearly disabling.

Tinnitus becomes more common with age, in part because of age-related hearing loss. Among adults ages 65-84 years old, it’s estimated that about 27 percent have tinnitus.

What causes tinnitus?

There are several potential causes of tinnitus, including:

Hearing loss (though not everyone with tinnitus has a hearing issue)

Exposure to loud noise

Ear disease

Ear or sinus infections

Ear, neck and head injuries

TMJ disorders

Earwax build up

Hormonal imbalances in women

Cardiovascular disease

Thyroid disorders

Some medications, including (but not limited to) antibiotics, antidepressants, diuretics, cancer medications, and very high doses of aspirin

Hyperacusis is a different, but related condition to tinnitus. People with hyperacusis have a high sensitivity to common, everyday environmental noise. In particular, sharp and high-pitched sounds are very difficult for people with hyperacusis to tolerate—sounds like the screeching of brakes, a baby crying or a dog barking, a sink full of dishes and silverware clanging. Many people with tinnitus also experience hyperacusis—but the two conditions don’t always go together.

Research shows that sleep disorders, tinnitus, and hyperacusis often occur together. In one study, 30 percent of people with tinnitus also had both a sleep disorder and hyperacusis.

How tinnitus affects sleep

People with tinnitus often have difficulty sleeping, and feel tired and fatigued during the day. They also appear to be significantly more likely to have sleep disorders than the general population. A study that examined the relationship between sleep problems and tinnitus found that 54 percent of people with tinnitus also had a sleep disorder.

According to research, people with tinnitus report several sleep problems, including:

Having trouble falling asleep

Not getting enough sleep

Experiencing poor quality sleep

Feeling less refreshed in the morning

There seems to be a two-way-street relationship between tinnitus and sleep problems. The symptoms of tinnitus can interfere with sleeping well—and poor sleep can make tinnitus more aggravating and difficult to manage effectively. In the same study that found a majority of people with tinnitus had a sleep disorder, the scientists also found that the presence of sleep disorders made tinnitus more disruptive.

Why is tinnitus so disruptive to sleep? Often, it’s because tinnitus sounds become more apparent at night, in a quiet bedroom. The noises of daily life can help minimize the aggravation and disruptiveness of tinnitus sounds. But if your bedroom is too quiet, you may perceive those sounds more strongly when you try to fall asleep—and not be able to drift off easily.

In addition to the tinnitus noises themselves, there are also other symptoms of tinnitus that may interfere with sleep, making it more difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep throughout the night. They include:

Stiffness, pain, and tension in the head, neck and jaw. Physical pain or discomfort can be a major obstacle to sleep, affecting both sleep quality and sleep quantity.

Daytime fatigue. Daytime fatigue is one sign of a lack of high-quality sleep. Being tired during the day also can contribute to even worse sleep, by creating irregular sleep schedules and sleep-wake times.

Depression, anxiety and irritability. Tinnitus can cause frustration and anxiety, and lead people to struggle with low mood. Stress and mood disorders are among the most common causes for insomnia and other sleep problems.

Anxiety can be a major factor

Both depression and anxiety occur frequently in people with tinnitus. A 2016 study found that among people with tinnitus, 45 percent will develop an anxiety disorder at some point in their lifetime.

Often, people with tinnitus can develop anxiety specifically about sleep, and their ability to fall asleep. This is a vicious cycle that frequently occurs in people who have trouble sleeping, regardless of the initial cause of their sleeplessness.

Imagine you’re settling in for a night’s rest. In your quiet bedroom, you’re tune right into those tinnitus noises—and you can’t shake your focus on them. You start to wonder about how you’ll ever fall asleep with these sounds in your ears. You think about the rest you’re missing out on because you’re not already asleep, and you wonder how you’ll have the energy to make it through your day.

Before long, you’re both mentally and physically stimulated in ways that make it even harder to relax and fall asleep. Like any other form of anxiety, stress about falling asleep creates mental arousal, bringing your brain to alertness. And it also creates physical arousal, raising heart rate and body temperature. This kind of anxiety can lead to behaviors that further undermine sleep, including:

Sleeping late or at odd times during the day, leading you to an irregular sleep schedule

Relying on alcohol as a sleep aid

Scrolling through your smartphone or watching TV when you can’t sleep in the middle of the night

Pretty soon, you’re getting even less sleep—and you’re even more worried about it. Mindfulness is one of the best, most effective strategies for breaking this cycle. I’ve written before about the power of mindfulness in boosting sleep.

Emotional stress and anxiety also can interfere with how well people manage their tinnitus. Staying relaxed is one important way to minimize the disruptiveness of tinnitus.

Sleep apnea, hearing loss, and tinnitus are linked

There’s some pretty interesting science indicating that obstructive sleep apnea may be a cause of hearing loss, making the sleep disorder an indirect contributor to tinnitus.

A large, 2014 study of almost 14,000 people found obstructive sleep apnea was linked to significantly higher rates of hearing impairment and hearing loss. Scientists think one reason for this is changes to blood flow to the ear that result in inflammation. (We know that sleep apnea causes changes to circulation and weakens blood flow to some areas of the body, including the brain.) A related factor? People with sleep apnea are at greater risk for high blood pressure, and high blood pressure can exacerbate hearing loss, according to research.

It’s also possible that very loud snoring—a hallmark symptom of sleep apnea—can be loud enough to damage a sleeper’s hearing.

Research shows higher risks for sleep apnea and other sleep disturbances in people with tinnitus.

Ways to treat tinnitus and improve your sleep

There is not yet a cure for tinnitus, but scientists are studying the underlying causes of the condition, and exploring potential avenues for treatment, including:

Electrical and magnetic stimulation of the brain’s hearing centers

Deep brain stimulation to calm neural activity associated with tinnitus

Many of the common treatments for tinnitus involve addressing anxiety and managing your response to the internal noise you hear. These treatment strategies can make tinnitus less frustrating and disruptive to live with—and also help you sleep better.

Avoid a too-quiet bedroom. People with tinnitus may find it easier to sleep in a less quiet bedroom, and may benefit from white noise or other sleep-friendly sounds that help mask and minimize their tinnitus. To my patients who are looking to introduce soothing sounds to their sleep environment, I recommend the iHome Zenergy Sleep System, which combines relaxing sounds with aromatherapy and sleep-promoting light therapy.

Practice mindfulness meditation. I’ve written about the power of mindfulness mediation to reduce stress and improve sleep. A 2017 study found mindfulness meditation is also effective in helping people better manage tinnitus. Mindfulness meditation involves sitting comfortably, putting your attention on your natural breathing. When your mind wanders—to irritating tinnitus sounds, to worry about sleep, or wherever else it goes, gently return your attention to your breath. Start with a 5-minute session, and as you grow more comfortable with the practice, you can increase the time. You can practice mindfulness meditation anywhere, at any time of day—including in the shower!

Use other relaxation techniques. Tinnitus is understandably anxiety provoking, often a source of frustration and stress throughout the day and night. Reducing anxiety, and finding ways to relax, have benefits for both tinnitus and sleep. Relaxation exercises can reduce the aggravation of tinnitus, and make you more able to fall asleep. A few of the relaxation techniques my patients find most effective and easy to use are:

Deep breathing. Deliberate, relaxed breathing can help move the body into the slower breathing patterns that are associated with sleep.

I like the 4-7-8 breathing exercise:

Inhale for 4 seconds

Hold your breath for 7 seconds

Exhale for 8 seconds

Repeat several times

Progressive relaxation. An exercise of tensing and relaxing specific areas of the body can relieve physical tension and mental stress, and may help take the focus away from tinnitus noise. Start with your feet and work upward through the lower and upper body, to the shoulders, neck and head.

Guided imagery. Engaging the senses in a soothing, comforting scene or journey can relax the body and the mind, and pull focus away from the irritating sounds of tinnitus. Whether you’re imagining yourself walking along the beach or along a peaceful wooded trail, be sure to include sound as part of your imagery.

Aromatherapy. Engaging your sense of smell with soothing, sleep-friendly scents may help reduce the stress and irritation of tinnitus and help you unwind to fall asleep with less difficulty. Lavender, jasmine, and vanilla are among the scents that promoting sleep.

Seek out cognitive-behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, involves working with a clinician (or independently, with a clinically-developed self-treatment program) to re-frame negative thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. CBT is effective with a wide range of physical and mental health conditions, including stress, anxiety, and depression. CBT is also highly effective in treating insomnia and other sleep problems. And research shows CBT can help improve the management of tinnitus.

Limit use of earplugs. Earplugs are important to use to protect your hearing when you’re likely to be exposed to loud noises. (Remember, exposure to loud sounds, and noise-induced hearing loss, are common causes of tinnitus, and may make tinnitus worse if you already have the condition.) But otherwise, people with tinnitus are advised not to wear earplugs, including for sleep. Earplugs reduce your ability to hear external noise and can make tinnitus more noticeable.

Using earplugs too frequently can lead to earwax buildup, another potential cause of tinnitus. When you do use earplugs, be sure they are clean (or new, if you’re using the disposable kind) with each and every use, to avoid exposing the ear canal to dirt and bacteria.

Don’t ignore ear pain. Pain or discomfort in your ear can be a sign of conditions associated with tinnitus, including ear infections and earwax buildup. These conditions, and the discomfort they cause, can also interfere with sleep. Whether your ear pain is sharp or dull, constant or intermittent, accompanied by itching or not, take these symptoms to your doctor.

Seek treatment for hearing problems. If you’re experiencing difficulty hearing, talk to your physician and seek help from an otolaryngologist (an ear, nose throat specialist) or an audiologist. In addition to addressing any underlying health issue and improving your quality of life, improving your hearing can make tinnitus less noticeable and less bothersome, during the day and at night when you’re trying to sleep.

Another thing that tinnitus and sleep problems share? A tendency among people to brush them off, and try to “tough it out,” rather than addressing their conditions. It’s not worth it, to your health or your quality of life. If you’re having trouble sleeping and you have symptoms that sound like tinnitus, talk with your doctor about both, so you can sleep better—and feel better— soon.

Sweet Dreams,

Michael J. Breus, PhD, DABSM The Sleep Doctor www.thesleepdoctor.com

The post 7 Proven Techniques To Help You Treat Tinnitus and Sleep Better! appeared first on Your Guide to Better Sleep.

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thesleepstudies · 7 years

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Sleep Dread aka. Fear Of Going To or Dying in Sleep – We Asked Experts About It

Sleep dread is real and nothing to be shrugged of. Over the past few years, we interviewed a few dozen of of sleep therapists and one of the questions was always regarding sleep dread - its causes, whether it's a phobia or not, the forms it can take and finally, what you can do if you can relate to what you'll read you'll see below.

Having a good night’s sleep is vital for our overall health and daily functioning. During the 7, 8 or 9 hours, our brain process information gathered during the day and helps our body heal and re-energize.

Disturbance of this process night after night, leads to chronic discomfort, panic attacks, sleep disorders and it can develop into a sleep phobia known as "sleep dread."

What’s causing the fear of going to sleep?

Sleep dread can be caused by number of reasons, including come conditions like PTSD, depression, anxiety disorders or fear of sleep paralysis - https://thesleepstudies.com/sleep-paralysis/ (if you already experienced episodes).

Most commonly, however, it’s a side effect of insomnia.

However, in most cases the main trigger is one simple, everyday thing- fear, irrational and exaggerated fear, to be precise.

How our body reacts to this

When we are scared, our body’s natural reaction is to activate the “flight or fight” mode. This is normal and necessary human reaction, and when it’s reasonable we can benefit from it.

But our sleep is time when we need to go completely opposite from it. Having this mode on when you need to rest is counterproductive. And that’s an understatement. When your mind is telling that you need to be prepared to run from a threat, you can’t rest.

If you do manage to fall asleep at some point, the brain will stay highly alerted during whole time, making the quality of sleep low. Because of the hyper arousal of your nervous system, you will feel more aware of your surroundings, and will probably have nightmares. In this case it’s common to wake up few times during the night, which breaks sleep cycle, so don’t be surprise when you get up in the morning feeling like you worked the graveyard shift.

When mornings feel everything but good

After sleeping in this state you wake up feeling less rested and refreshed. The brain not only didn’t get the chance to store all the data from previous day, but was infused with new information throughout the night.

This leaves you feeling tired, forgetful, and with weakened state of awareness, prone to injuries and accidents during the day. It’s easier to break a glass or cut yourself feeling this way, not to mention more serious stuff.

Bad quality of sleep is often a main reason for the poor performance at job or school, and it also affects our emotional state.

In the long term, disturbance of sleep can play a significant role in causing the variety of health problems, from mood disorders to heart diseases and stroke.

What causes sleep dread

Think about the quality of your life. If you are often isolated and your social life is close to non-existing, this can make you more subjective to influence of bad news. We are social beings; we need to be in touch with each others and share our thoughts and experiences. When a lot of ordinary good things are happening to you on a daily basis, you feel happier and calmer.

If you watch TV and read newspapers, you are probably up to date with all sorts of bad and disturbing news out there. It’s hard to avoid them, to be honest. The world is definitely not a rosy place these days.

This is not something that can be tossed aside. Remember, our brain process information, and the source of information is everywhere. If you think that doesn’t have any effect on you, think again.

Beside that, try to remember all of the movies and TV shows with violent and aggressive scenes in them. Personally, I’ve lost count. And if you are highly sensitive person, or have a wild imagination that likes to visit dark places, even worse. It can take you further and the dread can turn into fear of dying in sleep.

So, even if you’re not suffering from anxiety, or any other mental disorder per se, if you are scared to fall asleep for no real reason, that’s a problem that needs to be taken care of.

The fear of sleeping alone

If you are scared of sleeping because you have bad dreams, that’s one thing, but in most cases, sleep dread gets triggered when sleeping alone.

It’s proven that women are battling this problem more often than man. They usually don’t have trouble sleeping when their family members or partner are in the house. My friend once told me that she feels safer sleeping when “man is in the house”, and I am talking here about the girl that trained martial arts for years.

This irrational fear comes from the idea that we might get attacked during the night, and staying awake will keep us safe. When there are no men to protect us, we must rely on ourselves. This feeling of vulnerability makes our primal fears alive.

We can talk about the century’s old roll of women being a “weaker sex” embedded in our minds, but it’s not just that. For this we can also thank a huge number of movies with highly aggressive scenes that include women getting attacked in the middle of the night in their beds. We are not accusing anyone, this is a simple fact.

How to threat sleep dread and stop it from happening again

Bear in mind that even if you get rid of your fear for a night, or week, the feeling itself casts a very long shadow that can affect you for months or even years, and can make sleep dread episodes reoccur at any time.

This problem needs to be approached directly and systematically. You really need to work on this, by yourself or with doctor’s help.

It takes time, but it’s worth it.

Let’s start simple, small steps

Minimize the flow of violent images and stories that comes to your mind. If you watch a lot of horror movies or crime shows, stop doing that, or at least don’t watch them right before you go to bed. You don’t need to have a sleep phobia to feel frightened to fall asleep after watching some of those, so think logically. Good idea is to move the TV from your bedroom, if you have one there. If you really can’t stop watching movies at night, switch to something relaxing and funny.

Restrain yourself from short-term solutions, like sleeping with your TV on, or lights on, or asking your friend to stay the night. It may help you once, but not in the long run. You can’t erase the fear this way, it will keep coming back.

If you don’t exercise, this is something you really need to consider doing. Not just because of obvious health benefits, but as they say “make your body tired and the brain will follow”. When we exercise, our bodies release serotonin and dopamine, hormones that are responsible for feeling of happiness. With tired body and happy mind it’s a lot easier to hit the bed.

Meditation, positive affirmations and mindfulness have a strong positive influence on our mind. If you think that’s a bit silly, let’s talk about how silly it is to deprive yourself from sleep due to irrational thoughts.

Fight the bad thoughts with positive ones. You already know that the sleep dread is caused by fears that are not justified, that negative state of mind didn’t come from nowhere. Change the way you talk to yourself, and you will change the way you see the world. Practicing yoga, keeping a journal in which you can write down things you are grateful for every day, or just saying positive phrases few times a day like “I am safe in my home”, can be really helpful.

You should also work on your bedtime routine. Your sleep time should be sacred, literally. In general, your bedroom should be dark, well aired and peaceful, so that vibe can be transferred to you. Make your bedroom as cozy as possible, and avoid using computer or telephone before going to bed. Take a bath, or read a nice, relaxing book, or play some of your favorite music. There is even music for sleeping; tracks with calming sounds that help you fall asleep. If you like to sleep with radio on, you should do it, but because you are enjoying it, not because you are terrified of sleeping in silent room.

A more serious approach to sleep dread

In cases of anxiety disorders that affect sleeping and cause insomnia, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has proven to have great results. In sessions with the therapist the focus is on indentifying the fear and getting over it. Your doctor will lead you to confront the actual cause of the problem and together you will work on establishing a healthy sleeping routine. The key thing is to stick to the therapy even if it’s hard to handle in the beginning.

In some cases, medications like alpha-blockers are prescribed to keep the sympathetic nervous system under control.

We believe that consulting with your doctor is the way to go, and that with a right treatment you can overcome sleep dread. This is something it should be discussed with psychologist, especially if you are already battling some type of mental disorder. It can be solved and there is no need to panic.

If the situation is less serious, natural ways we talked about are proven to be effective (even doctors agree on this), and you should try at least one of them.

One step at a time...

We understand how troubling sleep dread can be, and that’s why we worked very carefully on this guide. We hope you will find it useful and follow the advices.

If you are experiencing the fear of sleep, or have a story related to it, please share it with us in the section below.

Don’t be scared to go to bed. Good night

The article Sleep Dread aka. Fear Of Going To or Dying in Sleep – We Asked Experts About It was originally published to www.thesleepstudies.com

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Why Hypnotherapy Will Modify Your Lifestyle

NLP Training Auckland Hypnosis. The quite word brings to head, pictures of peculiar bearded guys, swinging watches, generating people ‘cluck’ like chickens and eat onions like an apple. I initial became intrigued in hypnosis when I was ten many years previous and I read through a e-book on the matter. I told every person who would listen that when I grew up, I was going to be a hypnotherapist. I surely got some odd looks. I would even hypnotize my close friends to do foolish factors at sleepovers, I was so obsessed, but as time went on, I dismissed hypnosis as a silly childhood fixation. It wasn’t until finally I had a head-on vehicle crash in my twenties and visualized myself therapeutic from my horrible injuries – and it working way over and above what I and the physicians thought possible, did I contemplate it a job possibility yet again. I went on to examine hypnotherapy, even although absolutely everyone told me it was a bad thought, that hypnotherapists never make any cash and it was unusual to want to hypnotize folks... And you know what? Studying hypnotherapy is honestly the very best factor I have ever done and has been my enthusiasm at any time considering that! I am so passionate about the art and science of hypnotherapy that I now prepare individuals to turn out to be Medical Hypnotherapists at the Integrative Hypnotherapy Education Institute as effectively educate courses in NLP, Daily life Coaching, as nicely as Romantic relationship and Sexual intercourse Remedy in Auckland, New Zealand and shortly on the internet. Making use of hypnosis methods transformed my daily life. I quit cigarette smoking, misplaced weight, overcame my dependancy to sugar and harmful foodstuff, grew to become moderate with alcoholic beverages, overcame procrastination and self-sabotage, conquered minimal self-esteem, grew to become self-assured inside myself, learned to take pleasure in public speaking, realized to control and be free of charge of anxiety. These are just a couple of troubles I have defeat with the aid of hypnotherapy. Unfortunately, hypnosis and hypnotists have lengthy been portrayed in a negative gentle by tv, movies and other types of media. As a hypnotherapist, I individually can not stand stage hypnosis. I feel it tends to make a mockery of an remarkable instrument. I truly feel hypnosis, or guided visualization as I like to phone it, will adjust your existence and is the most powerful tool you can use to make positive adjustments. Many individuals have been led to think that hypnosis is anything freaky, weird or requires a person making an attempt to management you. You also may have been led to think that you aren’t in control of by yourself in the course of the approach - that whilst below hypnosis, you are unconscious and unaware of your surroundings. These and other misconceptions could not be even more from the real truth. Folks can only be hypnotized if they are willing to be. Your unconscious will reject any recommendation that is towards your morals so you are always in management. The other working day while listening to the radio, I read the radio hosts asking “What mystery would you tell underneath hypnosis, that you would not inform normally?” I was stunned to hear that this belief is nevertheless a widespread false impression. Men and women can lie below hypnosis and will not do something that they are not comfortable with. 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