REM is actually called REM sleep, I just abreved it 'cause I'm col lik dat. Paradoxical sleep is also a misnomer, since the supposed "paradox" is the fact that while sleeping the brain shows a similar amount of activity to when one is awake, but since this only occurs while dreaming it's not really that much of a surprise. If you're surprised that your brain is active while you're dreaming, it'll really blow your mind to find out peanut butter contains absolutely no butter whatsoever! *gasp!*
Everyone dreams, and most people actually do remember some of their dreams, usually their later ones (you have four dreams a night on average, with the longest ones occurring in later sleep cycles). However, if your dreams leave you exhausted, that is a sign of mental illness. Dream analysis has fallen out of favor, since it's rather unscientific as pointed out by Yare. There is quite a bit of research on dreams, but it's more in the vein of finding out what purpose they might serve, and the field of lucid dreaming.
Yeah, I didn't share my dream to have it analysed but because I felt like it. What I was curious about was the reason why I remember several dreams everyday, which doesn't seem that common (people are always surprised about it) and what happens when I have lucid dreams (I forgot to add that I can also wake up at will, do something that I needed to do, then go back to the same dream. It's pretty neat although I've only done that a couple of times).
I'm also prone to sleepwalking (well, actually haven't done that since I was 15 so maybe not anymore) and sleep-talking, although there is a debate whether I'm doing it in my sleep or I'm actually awake and forget (I've had phone conversations and stuff. I've actually woken up while on the phone before, at least that's the way it felt. According to my parents I was already awake otherwise I couldn't be on the phone.)
And I don't get how it's not paradoxal that your brain acts as though you were moving when you're perfectly still. Doesn't have to be surprising to be a paradox.
I'm not sure if I have a mental illness but that sounds possible. I sometimes have trouble telling apart dreams and reality. Once I had a dream that my mom died and only realised it wasn't the case when I had her on the phone (not sure if that was even the same day).
I also daydream a lot. As in several hours a day every day. I'm not quite sure if that's normal or not. Not that I would want it to change.
Once, my sister when to the bathroom in the night, and I was sitting still in my bed. She asked to me if I was asleep and I answered, yes. She look at me, and, yes, I was sleeping.
I also remember, at least, my last dream, but they are so hiperkinetic I can't make them any sense. Only once I dreamt about have to return a book to the library and been desesperate about this. For some reason.
My dreams usually make enough sense that I can tell them. They have some sort of logic, even if sometimes it's very weak. Sometimes they could be real life.
Sometimes they're actually like real life, but these dreams are stressful. Like, dreaming of work because it's so repetitive that you start dreaming about doing the same thing over and over and over again. Or dreaming you're late 100 times in a row when you're not. Or dreaming you're not late for exams or whatever but instead you do terrible at them.
But these are boring. Some of my dreams I like better than any movie I've ever seen. It's too bad I usually end up forgetting them (even if it takes years). I should probably start writing them down, but I'm so lazy... I never do it.
It's not a paradox because your brain isn't behaving the same way as when you're awake and actually moving, it just shows a similar level of activity. It really acts more like when you're recalling a memory when awake than anything else. And a paradox is technically when something seems to be contradictory. The statement, "This statement is a lie." is a paradox. And when I say mental illness, I don't want to worry you. Mental illness can be something as transient and relatively harmless as mild depression to something as permanent and worrying as schizophrenia. And again, that is only for exhausting dreams, and it's usually not considered serious unless you have them for long periods.
Sleep walking and talking are also a sign of stress, it's hypothesized that dreams are used to process a day's memories by firing of your neurons randomly to "fry" their circuits a bit. Strong memories will have strong neural connections, as will old memories, so only the weaker, and hopefully less important, memories will be lost. Your brain is clearing house. Naturally, under stress your brain has even more to deal with than usual, resulting in more vivid dreams.
From what you describe, your dreams sound perfectly normal. People exist in a range, not just in height and weight, but in abilities and reactions to stress. Lucid dreaming has a range as well. It's a skill that can be learned, but there are people who have been shown to practice it from a young age without training. For example, both my mother and I are natural lucid dreamers, and I have very rarely ever had a dream where I didn't realize I was dreaming. We also both tend to have long, vivid dreams where we experience not only sights and sounds but smells, tastes and textures. We also have "dream versions" of real world places, and I have dream people I've seen more than once as well. My father, on the other hand, very rarely remembers his dreams, and more often than not they are traditional nightmares. It depends a lot on the person. If you are really interested in sleep and dream studies, I suggest you keep an eye on Science News. They summarize articles in the latest scientific journals for a lay audience. They've had many interesting articles on lucid dreaming and sleep research, and all their articles are available for free on the internet up to a year after they're published.
I'm not scared at all by the idea of mental illness. I know it has as broad a range as physical illness and doesn't necessarily means I'll go in a rampage and kill people randomly.
I'm not a very stable person and I have several phobias, including arachnophobia and agoraphobia (the public place type, not the open space type). So I already know my mental health isn't ideal, although I've been doing much better.
Sleepwalking as a way to cope with stress makes sense since I stopped doing it about the time I started living alone (that is, without my parents. I wasn't actually alone since I had a roommate). I also wonder if making me believe my mother was dead was some kind of self-preservation since she was the most (and possibly only) stressful thing in my life.
I think lucid dreams are awesome. I don't get them that often because as I said in an earlier post, I don't actually appear in most of my dreams. They're more like movies. There are characters, and I guess I "am" one character after the next, and sometimes none of them, but I only have lucid dreams when it's actually me.
I had a friend whose dreams carried on from one night to the next. She'd just continue the same dream. It wasn't always very consistent, but she could keep the same "story" for days. It was pretty interesting.
I've never really had that, although I do have recurring dreams, but that's not quite the same, and they don't usually happen for several days in a row.
I think dreams are fascinating. I'll be honest, if I could choose between living the rest of my life without dreaming or dreaming for the rest of my life without living, I'd choose the latter, no contest. I guess that means I would have chosen the blue pill?
Things that happen in dreams also affect me more. They feel more real because the feelings are stronger. Actually, I feel the same with fiction. I get more involved with it. I know the people better. And that's normal, because I know what they think, why they did what they did, etc. In real life you never know what other people think, and even if they tell you they could be lying. Hell, in life it's rare if you even know why you did something.
I've had whole days when I was basically waiting until I could go to bed and sleep. I'm not quite there anymore but still, I can't imagine a life where I wouldn't remember my dreams.
I should probably let you go back on topic with real scientific stuff. You know, the kind I don't understand.
Having phobias doesn't make you unstable. Everyone has problems; it's how we deal with them that determines whether we are stable or not. If you don't cope with your problems, if they prevent you from enjoying activities you wish to participate in or you feel overwhelmed by them, then you are unstable. If you're aware of your issues and have found ways to deal with them, I consider you a stable person. Like they say, the brave are not those who have never felt fear, the brave are those who have overcome their fear.
You don't have to "appear" in your dream for it to be lucid. Lucid dreaming means being aware of your dreaming state and controlling what you experience. To be honest, nowadays I rarely "take control" of my dreams unless they take a horrific turn, in which case I wake myself up out of them. Then I lie in bed composing myself, and reenter sleep focusing on a new dream, to prevent me from falling into the frightening one again. I'm sure you could train yourself as well, considering you already have some control already.
I disagree with your statement that you can never tell what other people are thinking, though. It's generally not that hard to get to know how someone else thinks, if you really spend the time to get to know them. I said so to a friend of my mother's, whom we were visiting at the time. Every night after dinner, we would retire to his library/lounge to hold conversations on myriad topics, and he posited that you can never know what someone else is thinking. I said it is possible to guess how people will react to different situations so "know what they're thinking" in a way. He laughed it off, and the conversation shifted. About half an hour later we discussed liquor. He said he hardly ever drank, although he would occasionally imbibe brandy in certain situations.
I said, "In winter, curled up in here with a good book?"
He started and stared at me, "Yes, how did you know?"
"I'm psychic."
People behave consistently. They may not behave as you would to a situation, but that doesn't mean you can't understand why they behave the way they do either. My brother is a shy and gentle person; I am stubborn and short-tempered. When we encounter aggressive behavior, my brother's reaction is to back-down, mine to be aggressive back. My brother and I have totally different reactions to the same situation, but they are both reasonable reactions. They're different because we employ different reasoning, that's all.
Yes, I guess you can know how someones would act, more or less. But as far as I'm concerned you need to really know them. I can kinda do that with my husband (and even then, he still surprises me sometimes) and maybe a couple of friends. In a book, you know what everyone is thinking. Unless it's a plot point that it needs to be hidden from you.
Phobias are perfectly natural, but having too many shows there is a problem. I guess I should have said I used to be unstable, as I'm much better. At some point I started having panic attacks due to my parents, and then I developed agoraphobia, both for fear of meeting them if I went outside and for fear of having a panic attack in public, since I had them unpredictably.
At that point I became worse and worse until I barely even left my bedroom. I don't think that's very stable. That's also the time period when I wasn't looking forward to sleeping as I only had nightmares, so I started developing insomnia too. All in all, a pretty terrible situation only due to my parents not leaving me alone (when I told them I needed breathing room, they starting emailing and calling constantly and then they even showed up at my place without warning. That's when I left the country: they were obviously not going to give me the opportunity to get better.)
Honestly, I don't get people most of the time. They don't act logically, nor do they act like I would act. And since I don't know their past and secrets and stuff like I would if I was reading a book, I have no idea why they do things. That's what I meant.
For instance, I don't know how I was supposed to deal with the situation. Why didn't my parents understand that I needed to be away from them to get better? Did they think they knew better, or were they hoping I'd eventually turn completely crazy and/or die? I have absolutely no idea. They've always been so controlling and manipulative, my best guess is that they didn't want me to get away from their clutches. They probably would rather have me in an institution than happy without them.
In the past they have done other things like that. For instance I recently realised that the allergy medication they'd been making me take every day is only supposed to be taken very rarely, and that in effect it was causing me to be constantly sedated. Probably so that I'd do whatever they wanted me to.
They also tried to get me against my husband, accused him of taking money from them, a thousand dollars cheque a month. Not only is it stupid, trying to set me against someone I chose (as opposed to them, who I didn't choose in any way, like there is any reason why I would chose my parents over my husband >.>) but it wasn't even possible, as when we tried to set up an account for him at the bank we couldn't do anything other than add him to my account.
And I think I would have noticed money deposited in my accountg since I'm the one in charge of our finances.
Anyways, how am I supposed to understand these people? I've lived with them for 19 years of my life, and I have no clue. They're totally unpredictable. Even as a kid, I never knew if I was going to get punished or praised for something, it never seemed to make sense.
If I can't understand people I've spent most of my life with, how am I supposed to understand complete strangers?
This being said, I realised what I said yesterday wasn't true. I mean, it's not the dreams themselves I like, it's when I wake up and think about them, and often finish them. So I wouldn't get that if I was constantly asleep, I need both.
Going back to science: my husband was bored at work last time so he calculated how many rolls of toilet paper it would take to make a giant triangular wall without having any roll left (using 24-roll packs) and how much it would cost, and what the dimensions would be.
See, he was bored and did that to entertain himself. For fun. I couldn't even do something like that if I was paid a million dollars.
I asked him if he also figured out why he'd ever want to do that (build a giant TP triangle-thingie) and he said that there are questions maths can't answer.
He's so weird.
So, to bring this back to science. (Q: Is this about science news or just cool science facts? I keep wanting to post stuff and then stopping.)
It seems that an asteroid - not a volcano - killed the dinosaurs. I haven't been keeping with scientific news long enough to know if the general opinion is changed every few years, but that's the latest.
I think this thread is about whatever sciency stuff you want to post.
In regards to the asteroid theory, I hadn't heard that people were thinking anything else. Seemed to me like there was a pretty indisputable amount of evidence in it's favor.
I think this thread is about whatever sciency stuff you want to post.
In regards to the asteroid theory, I hadn't heard that people were thinking anything else. Seemed to me like there was a pretty indisputable amount of evidence in it's favor.
Same, but, based on the two or three articles I read about it this afternoon, I've garnered the impression that the volcano theory was making a bit of a comeback. For example, to quote the USAToday story I linked to:
In the Science magazine assessment, the 41-scientist team led by geoscientist Peter Schulte of Germany's Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, looked at hundreds of land and sea-floor clay layers to examine microscopic fossils and chemistry dating to the event. They counter recent suggestions that massive volcanoes might better explain the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.
Although any T. Rex–enthralled kid will tell you that a gigantic asteroid wiped the dinosaurs off the planet, scientists have always regarded this impact theory as a hypothesis subject to revision based on further evidence gathered from around the globe. Other possible causes, such as volcanism and smaller, multiple asteroid strikes, never actually went away, and over the years researchers raised important points that did not fully jibe with a history-changing celestial impact near the Yucatan peninsula one awful day some 65.5 million years ago.
Anyways, yeah. Ahem.
So, anyone have any interesting scientific facts to post about? I swear I had some earlier, but am drawing a blank right now.
Speaking about dinosaurs, I remember something about scientists thinking they might have had feathers actually. Anyone knows what I'm talking about?
There's a theory about a line of dinosaurs become what we know as birds. There's some dinosaurs and other relatives with feathers and there's birds, but nothing in the middle.
Now, the last time I read about it was like 15 years ago, so probably is already obsolete. But I think is that of what are you talking about.
Speaking about dinosaurs, I remember something about scientists thinking they might have had feathers actually. Anyone knows what I'm talking about?
Yep. I read an article a year or two ago about some interesting feather fossil imprints found around some type of raptor (I can't remember which). So, it seems likely that at least raptors-type dinosaurs had feathers.
It's pretty accepted now that a lot of raptors had feathers, and that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Birds evolved in the Jurassic, though, so most feathered dinosaurs weren't the ancestors of birds.
I remember seeing the thing about the extinction of the dinosaurs on the news and wondering how it was news, because I already knew all those details. But I see now.
A volcano probably did help in killing the dinosaurs. They were declining for a while before the asteroid hit.
I'm more interested in the Permian-Triassic extinction 251 million years ago. Much more of life died than in the dinosaur extinction, but less people care about the Palaeozoic because it doesn't have dinosaurs. It had giant bugs. That's pretty cool and horrifying. They died out before the Permian, though.
It had giant bugs. That's pretty cool and horrifying.
Ack!
I realise if they hadn't disappeared we most likely wouldn't be here today, but I have to say I'm glad they don't exist anymore. That's such a scary thought.
There were around during the Carboniferous, the period from 359 to 299 million years ago. Carboniferous means "coal-bearing", and it's called that because Carboniferous rocks have a lot of coal in them. And that's because trees became widespread during this time. Since there were more plants around, they produced more oxygen, and the reason bugs are so small is that they wouldn't be able to breathe if they got much larger.
And that's the reason for the 2.6 metre (8.5 feet) centipedes and the dragonflies with wingspans of 75 centimetres (2.5 feet).
I'm more interested in the Permian-Triassic extinction 251 million years ago. Much more of life died than in the dinosaur extinction, but less people care about the Palaeozoic because it doesn't have dinosaurs. It had giant bugs. That's pretty cool and horrifying. They died out before the Permian, though.
Ah, The Great Dying - a truly horrifying event (or series of events) when you think about it. More than 95% of marine species were killed and around 70% of vertebrates on land died. The giant bug thing is significant because this is the ONLY known mass extinction of insects. Considering a lot of biologist concede that, in many ways, this planet belongs to the insects, this is a very significant event. It's also only in the last 10 years that we've been able to date the extinction somewhat reliably (and found a simultaneous shift in the global carbon isotope ratios).
It's pretty accepted now that a lot of raptors had feathers, and that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Birds evolved in the Jurassic, though, so most feathered dinosaurs weren't the ancestors of birds.
Sorry to nitpick, but wasn't the idea more that dinosaurs and birds had a common ancestor, with the Archeopteryx being one suggestion for such an ancestor? Or has that idea been superseded now?
Sorry to nitpick, but wasn't the idea more that dinosaurs and birds had a common ancestor, with the Archeopteryx being one suggestion for such an ancestor? Or has that idea been superseded now?
Thats what he said. I think. Birds and dinosaurs of the same age were more like cousins than descendants.
And no, that's not a pun, it's a correction. Really.
I vaguely remember reading recently that new evidence says that feathers came before the hollowing of bones and such, making the change largely an aesthetic one rather than a biological advantage. But something about that doesn't sit right with me.
Unfortunately I'm too busy today to look up the link though.
Sorry to nitpick, but wasn't the idea more that dinosaurs and birds had a common ancestor, with the Archeopteryx being one suggestion for such an ancestor? Or has that idea been superseded now?
According to Wikipedia, most scientists now think that birds evolved directly from dinosaurs. I was trying to say that feathered dinosaurs like velociraptors weren't the ancestors of birds.
I did my my NaNo (National Novel Writing Month entry) about dinosaurs, actually. It was a rewrite of a horrible cartoon and prominently involved magical, talking velociraptors, but I made sure that the velociraptors were small and had feathers.
I did my my NaNo (National Novel Writing Month entry) about dinosaurs, actually. It was a rewrite of a horrible cartoon and prominently involved magical, talking velociraptors, but I made sure that the velociraptors were small and had feathers.
Mine was about superheroes! Let's be best friends!
There's a theory about a line of dinosaurs become what we know as birds. There's some dinosaurs and other relatives with feathers and there's birds, but nothing in the middle.
Now, the last time I read about it was like 15 years ago, so probably is already obsolete. But I think is that of what are you talking about.
Well, it's not exactly false, but it's not exactly false either, it's beleive that raptorids such as Velociraptor Mongolenius and Deinonychus Antirrhopus were belive to have feathers, I think it's highly unlikely that larger raptorids had feathers such as Utahraptor. It hasn't really been proven, but scientist do beleive since they have the most similarites with birds, that they have had some feathers. Now Archeoptryx on the other hand has been proven to have feathers, by the imprint on fossil made with feathers.
wow..I totaly made myself sound like a huge nerd, but Paleontology is one of my passions, and I do like to talk about dino's with an interested party.
In honor of Albie's birthday, let us all sit around and acknowledge this latest Einstein-related discovery: the Theory of Relativity works outside of our solar system, at least 3.5 billion light years from earth.
CBS News has a decent write-up; Science Daily has a good one too.
PS: when you're bored enough, check this photo out.
In honor of Albie's birthday, let us all sit around and acknowledge this latest Einstein-related discovery: the Theory of Relativity works outside of our solar system, at least 3.5 billion light years from earth.
CBS News has a decent write-up; Science Daily has a good one too.
PS: when you're bored enough, check this photo out.
Ah yes. It's also Pi-day in the states today (date=3.14.10=Pi to 3dp)
Comments
Oh, I can do that, too: it means I want to have sex, preferably with my father. Also, I wish I had a penis.
....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud#Psychosexual_development
None of that is science, though.
Awww, again?! I keep doing that!
Everyone dreams, and most people actually do remember some of their dreams, usually their later ones (you have four dreams a night on average, with the longest ones occurring in later sleep cycles). However, if your dreams leave you exhausted, that is a sign of mental illness. Dream analysis has fallen out of favor, since it's rather unscientific as pointed out by Yare. There is quite a bit of research on dreams, but it's more in the vein of finding out what purpose they might serve, and the field of lucid dreaming.
I'm also prone to sleepwalking (well, actually haven't done that since I was 15 so maybe not anymore) and sleep-talking, although there is a debate whether I'm doing it in my sleep or I'm actually awake and forget (I've had phone conversations and stuff. I've actually woken up while on the phone before, at least that's the way it felt. According to my parents I was already awake otherwise I couldn't be on the phone.)
And I don't get how it's not paradoxal that your brain acts as though you were moving when you're perfectly still. Doesn't have to be surprising to be a paradox.
I'm not sure if I have a mental illness but that sounds possible. I sometimes have trouble telling apart dreams and reality. Once I had a dream that my mom died and only realised it wasn't the case when I had her on the phone (not sure if that was even the same day).
I also daydream a lot. As in several hours a day every day. I'm not quite sure if that's normal or not. Not that I would want it to change.
I also remember, at least, my last dream, but they are so hiperkinetic I can't make them any sense. Only once I dreamt about have to return a book to the library and been desesperate about this. For some reason.
Sometimes they're actually like real life, but these dreams are stressful. Like, dreaming of work because it's so repetitive that you start dreaming about doing the same thing over and over and over again. Or dreaming you're late 100 times in a row when you're not. Or dreaming you're not late for exams or whatever but instead you do terrible at them.
But these are boring. Some of my dreams I like better than any movie I've ever seen. It's too bad I usually end up forgetting them (even if it takes years). I should probably start writing them down, but I'm so lazy... I never do it.
Sleep walking and talking are also a sign of stress, it's hypothesized that dreams are used to process a day's memories by firing of your neurons randomly to "fry" their circuits a bit. Strong memories will have strong neural connections, as will old memories, so only the weaker, and hopefully less important, memories will be lost. Your brain is clearing house. Naturally, under stress your brain has even more to deal with than usual, resulting in more vivid dreams.
From what you describe, your dreams sound perfectly normal. People exist in a range, not just in height and weight, but in abilities and reactions to stress. Lucid dreaming has a range as well. It's a skill that can be learned, but there are people who have been shown to practice it from a young age without training. For example, both my mother and I are natural lucid dreamers, and I have very rarely ever had a dream where I didn't realize I was dreaming. We also both tend to have long, vivid dreams where we experience not only sights and sounds but smells, tastes and textures. We also have "dream versions" of real world places, and I have dream people I've seen more than once as well. My father, on the other hand, very rarely remembers his dreams, and more often than not they are traditional nightmares. It depends a lot on the person. If you are really interested in sleep and dream studies, I suggest you keep an eye on Science News. They summarize articles in the latest scientific journals for a lay audience. They've had many interesting articles on lucid dreaming and sleep research, and all their articles are available for free on the internet up to a year after they're published.
I'm not a very stable person and I have several phobias, including arachnophobia and agoraphobia (the public place type, not the open space type). So I already know my mental health isn't ideal, although I've been doing much better.
Sleepwalking as a way to cope with stress makes sense since I stopped doing it about the time I started living alone (that is, without my parents. I wasn't actually alone since I had a roommate). I also wonder if making me believe my mother was dead was some kind of self-preservation since she was the most (and possibly only) stressful thing in my life.
I think lucid dreams are awesome. I don't get them that often because as I said in an earlier post, I don't actually appear in most of my dreams. They're more like movies. There are characters, and I guess I "am" one character after the next, and sometimes none of them, but I only have lucid dreams when it's actually me.
I had a friend whose dreams carried on from one night to the next. She'd just continue the same dream. It wasn't always very consistent, but she could keep the same "story" for days. It was pretty interesting.
I've never really had that, although I do have recurring dreams, but that's not quite the same, and they don't usually happen for several days in a row.
I think dreams are fascinating. I'll be honest, if I could choose between living the rest of my life without dreaming or dreaming for the rest of my life without living, I'd choose the latter, no contest. I guess that means I would have chosen the blue pill?
Things that happen in dreams also affect me more. They feel more real because the feelings are stronger. Actually, I feel the same with fiction. I get more involved with it. I know the people better. And that's normal, because I know what they think, why they did what they did, etc. In real life you never know what other people think, and even if they tell you they could be lying. Hell, in life it's rare if you even know why you did something.
I've had whole days when I was basically waiting until I could go to bed and sleep. I'm not quite there anymore but still, I can't imagine a life where I wouldn't remember my dreams.
I should probably let you go back on topic with real scientific stuff. You know, the kind I don't understand.
You don't have to "appear" in your dream for it to be lucid. Lucid dreaming means being aware of your dreaming state and controlling what you experience. To be honest, nowadays I rarely "take control" of my dreams unless they take a horrific turn, in which case I wake myself up out of them. Then I lie in bed composing myself, and reenter sleep focusing on a new dream, to prevent me from falling into the frightening one again. I'm sure you could train yourself as well, considering you already have some control already.
I disagree with your statement that you can never tell what other people are thinking, though. It's generally not that hard to get to know how someone else thinks, if you really spend the time to get to know them. I said so to a friend of my mother's, whom we were visiting at the time. Every night after dinner, we would retire to his library/lounge to hold conversations on myriad topics, and he posited that you can never know what someone else is thinking. I said it is possible to guess how people will react to different situations so "know what they're thinking" in a way. He laughed it off, and the conversation shifted. About half an hour later we discussed liquor. He said he hardly ever drank, although he would occasionally imbibe brandy in certain situations.
I said, "In winter, curled up in here with a good book?"
He started and stared at me, "Yes, how did you know?"
"I'm psychic."
People behave consistently. They may not behave as you would to a situation, but that doesn't mean you can't understand why they behave the way they do either. My brother is a shy and gentle person; I am stubborn and short-tempered. When we encounter aggressive behavior, my brother's reaction is to back-down, mine to be aggressive back. My brother and I have totally different reactions to the same situation, but they are both reasonable reactions. They're different because we employ different reasoning, that's all.
Phobias are perfectly natural, but having too many shows there is a problem. I guess I should have said I used to be unstable, as I'm much better. At some point I started having panic attacks due to my parents, and then I developed agoraphobia, both for fear of meeting them if I went outside and for fear of having a panic attack in public, since I had them unpredictably.
At that point I became worse and worse until I barely even left my bedroom. I don't think that's very stable. That's also the time period when I wasn't looking forward to sleeping as I only had nightmares, so I started developing insomnia too. All in all, a pretty terrible situation only due to my parents not leaving me alone (when I told them I needed breathing room, they starting emailing and calling constantly and then they even showed up at my place without warning. That's when I left the country: they were obviously not going to give me the opportunity to get better.)
Honestly, I don't get people most of the time. They don't act logically, nor do they act like I would act. And since I don't know their past and secrets and stuff like I would if I was reading a book, I have no idea why they do things. That's what I meant.
For instance, I don't know how I was supposed to deal with the situation. Why didn't my parents understand that I needed to be away from them to get better? Did they think they knew better, or were they hoping I'd eventually turn completely crazy and/or die? I have absolutely no idea. They've always been so controlling and manipulative, my best guess is that they didn't want me to get away from their clutches. They probably would rather have me in an institution than happy without them.
In the past they have done other things like that. For instance I recently realised that the allergy medication they'd been making me take every day is only supposed to be taken very rarely, and that in effect it was causing me to be constantly sedated. Probably so that I'd do whatever they wanted me to.
They also tried to get me against my husband, accused him of taking money from them, a thousand dollars cheque a month. Not only is it stupid, trying to set me against someone I chose (as opposed to them, who I didn't choose in any way, like there is any reason why I would chose my parents over my husband >.>) but it wasn't even possible, as when we tried to set up an account for him at the bank we couldn't do anything other than add him to my account.
And I think I would have noticed money deposited in my accountg since I'm the one in charge of our finances.
Anyways, how am I supposed to understand these people? I've lived with them for 19 years of my life, and I have no clue. They're totally unpredictable. Even as a kid, I never knew if I was going to get punished or praised for something, it never seemed to make sense.
If I can't understand people I've spent most of my life with, how am I supposed to understand complete strangers?
This being said, I realised what I said yesterday wasn't true. I mean, it's not the dreams themselves I like, it's when I wake up and think about them, and often finish them. So I wouldn't get that if I was constantly asleep, I need both.
Going back to science: my husband was bored at work last time so he calculated how many rolls of toilet paper it would take to make a giant triangular wall without having any roll left (using 24-roll packs) and how much it would cost, and what the dimensions would be.
See, he was bored and did that to entertain himself. For fun. I couldn't even do something like that if I was paid a million dollars.
I asked him if he also figured out why he'd ever want to do that (build a giant TP triangle-thingie) and he said that there are questions maths can't answer.
He's so weird.
EDIT: wow, that was a long post! Sorry guys.
It seems that an asteroid - not a volcano - killed the dinosaurs. I haven't been keeping with scientific news long enough to know if the general opinion is changed every few years, but that's the latest.
In regards to the asteroid theory, I hadn't heard that people were thinking anything else. Seemed to me like there was a pretty indisputable amount of evidence in it's favor.
Same, but, based on the two or three articles I read about it this afternoon, I've garnered the impression that the volcano theory was making a bit of a comeback. For example, to quote the USAToday story I linked to:
Scientific American cleared it up a bit for me, though:
Anyways, yeah. Ahem.
So, anyone have any interesting scientific facts to post about? I swear I had some earlier, but am drawing a blank right now.
Far I know, the asteroids was the most plausible hypothesis but the only one. But helps I liked Dinosaurs as a kid, too.
There's a theory about a line of dinosaurs become what we know as birds. There's some dinosaurs and other relatives with feathers and there's birds, but nothing in the middle.
Now, the last time I read about it was like 15 years ago, so probably is already obsolete. But I think is that of what are you talking about.
Yep. I read an article a year or two ago about some interesting feather fossil imprints found around some type of raptor (I can't remember which). So, it seems likely that at least raptors-type dinosaurs had feathers.
It's pretty accepted now that a lot of raptors had feathers, and that birds evolved from dinosaurs. Birds evolved in the Jurassic, though, so most feathered dinosaurs weren't the ancestors of birds.
I remember seeing the thing about the extinction of the dinosaurs on the news and wondering how it was news, because I already knew all those details. But I see now.
A volcano probably did help in killing the dinosaurs. They were declining for a while before the asteroid hit.
I'm more interested in the Permian-Triassic extinction 251 million years ago. Much more of life died than in the dinosaur extinction, but less people care about the Palaeozoic because it doesn't have dinosaurs. It had giant bugs. That's pretty cool and horrifying. They died out before the Permian, though.
In other dinosaur news, this is pretty awesome.
Seriously best word on that page.
Ack!
I realise if they hadn't disappeared we most likely wouldn't be here today, but I have to say I'm glad they don't exist anymore. That's such a scary thought.
And that's the reason for the 2.6 metre (8.5 feet) centipedes and the dragonflies with wingspans of 75 centimetres (2.5 feet).
Ah, The Great Dying - a truly horrifying event (or series of events) when you think about it. More than 95% of marine species were killed and around 70% of vertebrates on land died. The giant bug thing is significant because this is the ONLY known mass extinction of insects. Considering a lot of biologist concede that, in many ways, this planet belongs to the insects, this is a very significant event. It's also only in the last 10 years that we've been able to date the extinction somewhat reliably (and found a simultaneous shift in the global carbon isotope ratios).
And no, that's not a pun, it's a correction. Really.
I vaguely remember reading recently that new evidence says that feathers came before the hollowing of bones and such, making the change largely an aesthetic one rather than a biological advantage. But something about that doesn't sit right with me.
Unfortunately I'm too busy today to look up the link though.
I did my my NaNo (National Novel Writing Month entry) about dinosaurs, actually. It was a rewrite of a horrible cartoon and prominently involved magical, talking velociraptors, but I made sure that the velociraptors were small and had feathers.
Mine was about superheroes! Let's be best friends!
Well, it's not exactly false, but it's not exactly false either, it's beleive that raptorids such as Velociraptor Mongolenius and Deinonychus Antirrhopus were belive to have feathers, I think it's highly unlikely that larger raptorids had feathers such as Utahraptor. It hasn't really been proven, but scientist do beleive since they have the most similarites with birds, that they have had some feathers. Now Archeoptryx on the other hand has been proven to have feathers, by the imprint on fossil made with feathers.
wow..I totaly made myself sound like a huge nerd, but Paleontology is one of my passions, and I do like to talk about dino's with an interested party.
The first rule of Tautology Club is the first rule of Tautology Club!
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Welcome to the future, ladies and gentlemen. The jetpack lives. See it in action with a 15-year-old at the helm.
In honor of Albie's birthday, let us all sit around and acknowledge this latest Einstein-related discovery: the Theory of Relativity works outside of our solar system, at least 3.5 billion light years from earth.
CBS News has a decent write-up; Science Daily has a good one too.
PS: when you're bored enough, check this photo out.