#i dont' know which part of my sleep deprived brain thought this up

[sclfmastery]

as an artist, are there any super simple art tips that you know that improve a persons art a lot when they start using it? like, my teacher once told me to always have the corner of the mouth in line with the corner of the eye when drawing faces, and that's stuck with me for years, but i really want to know if theres any other nifty little tricks like that. BUT OBVIOUSLY YOU DONT NEED TO ANSWER im only asking because i really like your art and your lineart is really sharp in a way id like to one day be able to do some much simpler version of

Let me just preface this by saying I squealed with JOY when I realized I'd been sent an ask not about my writing, but about my VISUAL ART. My BFA was in painting and what I teach at university is connected to the creation of visual art. So I just get SO happy to think someone else cares about my stuff enough to ask how I make it! Please don't ever be sorry or shy to reach out! <3

Aside doing an actual video (which I could try, one of these days, if you want, but I'm trad only so it'll be clunky lol), here are some thoughts that pop into my sleep-deprived brain:

--It's FINE to use a reference. In order to master line variation and, especially form and movement, you will want NOT to let tracing be a crutch. But unless you have plans to be a sequential artist who has to have a mental "shorthand" of how-to's with various features and body parts, it is ENTIRELY ok to use a live or photographed model. Whoever started the rumor that this is cheating was being dumb.

--Become fluent in various softnesses (and therefore values) of graphite, Conte crayon, and charcoal. Yes, even if you're a computer artist. Learn the relationship between line thickness, perspective, and depth of form. I can go into this more if need be. Your H pencil is going to be hard and pale, and your B pencil is going to be soft and dark. Both have their uses.

--True to a bigger point: Just like in Doctor Who you don't skip Nine, don't skip trad art design fundamentals. You don't have to stay there forever, but let it be your foundational training. You don't have to go to university for this if you're unable. There are free online courses called MOOCs.

--Don't start stylized. Copying things like anime or comic book styles is a valid way to warm up, but you are filtering your work through someone else's eyes. Try to start with the original subject (be it a still like or a portrait) and develop your own unique mannerisms from that point.

--Don't be afraid to stop and toss it, and start over.

--Hardest one: Don't be afraid to erase and redo the part you love best if it doesn't have a correct relationship to the other parts in the drawing, painting, etc. I guarantee you can make something as good as that passage again. It's not gone forever. Don't be afraid to rework.

--Walk away for at least 3 hours and come back. Is it all still resolved or do you need to work on something?

--When choosing a color palette, it can be helpful to already have a neutral midtone established. Also, don't be me and get too ambitious about your colors. Pick like three tops and just do variations of those.

--Do NOT draw a human subject and think of the parts by their names WHILE rendering them. Reduce them to design principles: not "this is the eye," but "this is the dark round shape surrounded by a lighter space." If you think "this is the eye," you will stop really closely looking at what makes this eye unique and just kind of "plug in" stock eye features. This is the biggest enemy of capturing a likeness.

--You can absolutely rework anything in any medium. There are just different methods for doing so, between say watercolors and oils.

--Work with white noise or music. A playlist that keeps you in the zone, undistracted but also calm, is the playlist that you want.

--Know when to quit. 'I rarely feel like my work is "done" but if I keep going, I over work and ruin it.

I hope this helped as a start! <3 I'd love to see your work!

[boarcide]

Tis I, "Akutagawa is spider coded and needs more spider motifs" truther anon here,

First off, I just want to say. I love you a lot. I love your analysis and how you view akutagawa (your akutagawa takes are the only ever I adore em). Secondly, I was sleep deprived and on monster energy fumes when writing that and also tumblr anon asks dont allow the use of pictures, so I am using the reblog option to be more delusional in my ramblings and perhaps not make any sense in the process. This will also go a bit off topic and have no relativity to my original ask at all because I'm pulling this out of my ass. I just love him and have been waiting for an incentive to project on him. Apologies and love in advance.

I realized I started a thought process that I didn't quite finish with the idea of Rahsomon and Akutagawa fitting the "inconspicuous at first/monstrous upon closer look" trope. I didn't think inconspicuous was the right word at first, because I meant to use a word that would be the opposite of "monstrous", but then I thought of the horror concept on which monsters disguise themselves as a seemingly normal animal until someone looks closer and goes, "I don't think that's a deer. Or ever was one."

And I thought, "no, i can make that fit. Hold on"

And it makes sense to say he's kind of like that. It's kind of shown in the police station scene.

(Look at his lil bow. He's Just a lil creachur)

And here too:

(Just a tiny boy)

In both scenes, Akutagawa, to others, is seemingly normal or out of the ordinary. Then, upon closer look/realization, he is realized to be something much different, much worse at second glance.

I think the beauty in Akutagawa's character that is not discussed is how stranger's and those who do not know him, perceive him: He is somewhat of a monster in human skin to those who dont know him--quite literally a wolf in sheep's skin in the former examples, because he seems so insignificant at first glance, like a small spider, that its easy to overlook him until your brain catches up to you and you do a double take.

I could say that even to those that know him, it's a similar case (see Atsushi, who sees Akutagawa act all formal and composed when introducing himself until he slaps Higuchi and insults her). However, I'm talking less about him as a person and more so how he is perceived through the eyes of someone who doesn't know him.

(The thing is, Akutagawa is both the inconspicuous being and the monster in the trope. Rashomon is a being attached to him, and although I used her as the "monster" to Akutagawa's "inconspicuous," (the weak, frail, pretty, vs strong, durable, monstrous example) everything about Rashomon is a part of him, and her fearful form symbolizes a part of him too, especially the part that he projects to the world--th part of him that is why Atsushi views him as a monster first and human last. )

What I'm trying to say is that Akutagawa's appeal and the beauty of his character, to me, lies in how he (and rashomon) share this "inconspicuous/monstrous" trope. Basically, Akutagawa is frail and weak and inconspicuous as a person, but his ability is the complete opposite, but that ability is also a part of him, and since he wields her in a horrific manner to cause bloodshed, he is also the monster.

(I constantly think of this specific entrance of his as another example, too. Also, I like this panel, so I'll put it here for it to be admired.)

(Another shot of this little freak at work!! I think Tanizaki falling over and revealing a seemingly normal person in the second panel before the third panel shows a monstrous limb extending from Akutagawa helps play at what I'm trying to describe here.)

Okay too much word vomit here onto the next topic.

I! Love!! Comparing Akutagawa to spiders!!! I hate spiders!!! I can't even look at Wikipedia pictures of Google images of any spiders, no matter how big or small. Just looking at webs makes me break out in hives and scare me shitless! I am terrified of spiders and can only find them alluring and grotesquely pretty when I am not confronted with the reality of their existence. I think Akutagawa is similarly horrifying in reality (both in face and in spirit), but because he's not real, I find him pretty in the way that I find spiders pretty. You said that it's how Atsushi could still love him, and I think of how arachnid lovers exist and willingly love and care for something that has been deemed horrific and grotesque and ugly and scary. I also think about how the most common way to handle your fear of spiders is through exposure therapy. Both of them fit Atsushi's character in a way, me thinks. He gets over his fear of the spider and then has to learn not to be hostile to it, to care for it and find beauty in it when others cannot and will not find one.

(Cue, I show you my favorite panels of him that remind me of spiders because it's on par with the topic, and they just stay in my head rent-free. I wrote a lot in the alt texts, too.)

And to your analysis of the cannibalism panel: yes!! YES!!! I AGREE!!!! You hit the nail on the head and it's about everything you said about it, from how grotesque and terrifying his expression is to how endearing it is when you put it in context to how Akutagawa usually is. That's why I find him so pretty in this scene. Not necessarily just because it's aesthetically pleasing (well, i mean it is to me), but because it's so him.It shows him at his most unhinged, and if you think of it, this is from Kyouka's perspective. This is from her point of view of the man who played a part in horrifically traumatizing her. I can only think of how scared shitless she could've been and how this face alone contributed to her reaction when he expressed that he was happy for her. I talked about Akutagawa and how he is monstrous with or without rashomon. This is him without rashomon. As you said, even something like happiness or joy is twisted into something darker on akutagawa. I don't have the brain cells to put everything together in a coherent manner and I just hope what I'm saying makes sense but,,,part of everything about his character, how creepy he is drawn, and him being a monster to other people ties into why I think it's a pretty-nah fam, fucking beautiful panel, both in appearance and in symbolism.

Idk man, end of my delusional rant. I don't know if it makes sense whatsoever. I just really like the grotesqueness of characters and the Gothic symbolism in him. I want to grind him him into paste and put him in my mouth like chewing tobacco. I am madly in love with him.

I've always encapsulated Akutagawa's character and his beauty as being something along "pretty/inconspicuous at first, monstrous upon closer look," trope. Something something about him being the complete opposite of Rashomon (weak, frail, pretty vs strong, powerful and durable and mostly, terrifying to look at) which add onto that pretty/monstrous dynamic, because rashomon is everything he is not but wants to be. He's pretty the way a spider is pretty--all strange and long limbed, scary, and creepy to everyone else except the few people that can tolerate them longer than a few seconds. Sometimes, people are uncessarily cruel to spiders that way, too, whether or not they've done something wrong or not. He is often the spider crushed under someone's foot until it explodes, me thinks.

I don't know what I'm trying to get at here. This isn't disagreeing with you cause I think ugly describes a lot of aspects of akutagawa from his personality, insecurities, and his life (maybe not his appearance, tho, but that might just be me staring at his tiny waist and not his redflags). I also just think that man is pretty especially in the panels where he is at his most unhinged (like the where he smiles at Kyouka during the cannibalism arc). him looking like a corpse is also why I would willingly court him (thanks nagito for helping me discover my taste in men) I just may have bad taste. Banger analysis tho.

... This is terrifying, I adore it

I REALLY can see the simile with spiders– it's brilliant!!! It's such a fitting comparison. That's exactly why Atsushi can still love him. The observation on Rashomon being everything Akutagawa isn't is so incredibly spot on too!!! I have barely anything to add, this makes such an extraordinary and suitable description of Akutagawa. Thank you so much for sharing!!!

I really can't understand thinking of Akutagawa as pretty– but like, in the fun “it's amusing how peoples' brains all work differently” way!! I am baffled at the concept of that cannibalism panel being taken as example for Akutagawa being pretty: that panel is so so many things to me, but pretty is certainly not one of them. I feel that panel strongly!! After all, it's one of the very rare Akutagawa smiling panels, it's a panel I've studied up close in the past. And I, too, love it in a way: that panel is so many things. It's terrifying, at first look. It's creepy, unsettling, distressing. Then it honestly and unexpectedly starts feeling kind of endearing. His eyes are big and sparkling, he almost looks like a child who just arrived to the playground– a very creepy and unsettling child, but still. It makes Akutagawa look very young. It is a very scary, unsettling expression, but after looking at it for a while, one grows to understand that it's a moment of Akutagawa experiencing pure, sheer and honest happiness. which you come to realize is something he doesn't get to have very often. And his very happiness is dark and twisted, just like he is; but isn't it somehow still endearing to see him display such a genuine and honest emotion, for once? The fact that the only way for him to express it results deeply horrifying is only all the more emblematic of Akutagawa's character, of how even something as pure and uncorrupted as happiness will result terrifying on him. It ultimately makes him kind of pitiful, too, which I guess is another strong component of Akutagawa's character. (Note, I'm leaving aside considerations on Harukawa's art style, which honestly ends up resulting elegant and enjoyable to look at no matter who they're portraying.)

Like, if I had to choose one panel of Akutagawa being pretty it'd be... Well‚ the only chapter 88 panel that matters, c'mon– at the price of coming off as lame, but how else could I. Is there anything more pretty, more pure‚ more sacred than sacrifice itself? But really, that still stands in support of my case of Akutagawa not being pretty, because chapter 88 Akutagawa is the least Akutagawa he's ever been in the whole manga, if you know what I mean.

[readingrobin]

I’ve finally figured out which character @fox-guardian‘s Hyde reminds me of and the result is so so cursed and I’m sorry.

[hamburgerhelpersotherhand]

Infatuation P8

Joe Goldberg x Reader x Love Quinn

Warnings: a lying bitch and a writer who hates writing warnings because they spoil what’s to come

Notes: James Elkins, a fairly well known art historian, once wrote “Love would be the state in which I hunt a hunter or fall prey to prey” (The Object Stares Back, 1996). This is a quote I reflected on a lot while writing this series, though I’d still say they dont feel connected. I had to read the book for class so y’all have to deal with my bs

I barely managed to sleep last night.

I’m so incredibly tired. My eyes are heavy and I’m having trouble keeping my focus.

Snap.

Love is in front of me, snapping her fingers. I’ll give her my attention soon, but I’m caught in a thought.

That car from last night. I wonder who it was... I think I’ve seen that specific car before. That or the lack of sleep is getting to me and I’m seeing things.

Snap.

I blink repeatedly and then set my sights straight onto Love’s face.

“We open soon. Are you alright? You’re really out of it.” Love asks.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” I smile reassuringly. ”I’ve just been having trouble sleeping.”

Love runs a finger across my forehead. It tingles. She searches my sleep deprived eyes for a moment.

“I understand.” Love smiles back, her worry still woven in there. “How about you come sleep at my place tonight?”

That sounds like a great idea. How long has it been since we slept together? Far too long.

“Sounds like a plan.” I lean forward and place a gentle kiss onto her lips. She shares the same sentiment and we reluctantly part ways a moment later.

Love is still on my mind as I pack up last week’s display. Ah, how I yearn to entangle myself with her. I’m... beginning to fantasize while noting down the amount of unsold copies of the display we have left. I feel weird. Like, a little bothered, maybe. Not because fantasizing about your girlfriend in the open while at work is inappropriate but... I mean, it’s not professional, but that’s not the point. What I’m trying to say is... you’re there. You’re on my mind too— somehow.

In my deepest thoughts, you’re there... sandwiched between us. She loves you so much, you know that? You’re good for her too— you can be good for us.

The familiar jingle I’ve heard oh so many times takes me out of my thoughts. The world around me clears up and I eagerly look around.

You’re not here. I think I’m starting to hear things.

I finally shake you from my mind and store the boxes in storage.

~

Love prepared a delicious meal, as no surprise to anyone. We spent most of the evening talking. Mostly about useless things, like the next colour for the bathroom. Personally, I favour a blue tone. Love seems to want something black and white.

“Zebra print?” I say.

“No! That would actually look awful!” She laughs and almost spills her drink in the process.

“Hey, watch it! I like this shirt.”

“Can I tell you something?” She asks.

“Yeah, whatever you’d like.” I answer, sitting up to listen carefully.

She points to my chest and speaks. “I really don’t like that shirt.”

“I’m hurt.” I feign sadness and she sips her drink.

“—No no, I mean-“ Love gulps before continuing with a softer tone. “-maybe you should take it off?” She raises her eyebrows and I catch on.

“Ooh. Yeah- yeah, sure.” I smile widely and she sets down her drink. Love leans in and kisses me gently, something sweet still on her lips. I can feel my brain already melting as I lean forward as well.

rrRRING.

It’s her phone. Love seems reluctant in her next kiss. I pull her in more, my hands snake themselves around her back.

rrrRRRING.

Now she completely pulls away from me, pushing me aside as she grabs for her phone.

“I’m sorry��� it might be Forty.” She pleas as she accepts the incoming call. Again with Forty, huh? He’s starting to seem like more trouble than he’s worth.

“Hey, Y/N.”

I perk up at the name, but I pretend my attention is elsewhere. I pick up our empty plates. I can’t hear what you’re saying, but I see that Love is listening intently.

As I make my way to the kitchen, Love speaks.

“But why? You just came back.”

I quickly and quietly set the plates down and walk back to the living room. I stand by the archway and continue to listen. It doesn’t sound good.

“You can’t. Y/N-“ She’s desperate and I can only imagine what you’re saying on the other end.

Love takes her phone away from her ear and looks at it. “Are you kidding me?” She mumbles before tossing it onto the floor.

“What happened?” I ask, walking into the room and standing by her side.

She reluctantly answers, a pained expression crossing her face. “Y/N. She’s leaving again.”

“Did she tell you why?” I ask quickly, sounding a little too interested.

“No, she didn’t tell me why.” Love leans forward so I can’t see her face, but I can tell in her voice that she’s holding back tears.

“Love,” I sit next to her and place my hand on her back. “It’s alright.”

“No, Will. It’s not alright.” She squeezes her stomach. “I worked so hard to make her comfortable. I’m gonna sound crazy but I thought I finally had her back.” Love quickly places her hand over her mouth in a worrying motion.

“Let me get you some water, okay?” I say, noticing her trembling state. She looks like she’s either going to be sick or start crying.

“I’m going to her apartment.” Love states before attempting to get up. I latch onto her arm and pull her back down onto the sofa.

I speak quickly, grabbing her half empty drink and standing up. “I’ll go. You look like you might throw up. How many drinks have you had?”

“I don’t know... ugh, fine.” She replies meekly and I leave for the kitchen.

Y/N, I thought you were better than this. This is like breaking up over a text, it’s feral. You even hung up on her when she wanted answers. What has you so scared?

Well... You’re not allowed to run from your problems anymore.

~

After bringing Love a glass of water and making sure she made it to her bed, I let her know I’d take care of it.

Love told me to talk you down from this. Apparently, you sounded very frantic in the call.

I’m parked in my car, across the street from where you’re packing up. I can see it in your lit window. You’re moving quickly.

I fix my cap on my head and continue to watch as you disappear from view.

Soon, your light gets turned off. My queue. I step out of the car and wait for you to exit the building.

When I see you open the door, step out with your luggage, and turn to lock up again, I jog across the street.

“Y/N-“

“AH!” You turn around quickly, knees glued together and almost causing you to topple down the steps. “Oh, gosh. You s-scared me.” You fumble with your keys and quickly turn to lock the door.

“Sorry, uhh... what’s the luggage for?” I hum casually.

“I-I’m going on a-a trip. A s-small one.” You feign a smile and scoot passed me. You’re still a liar. A horrible one too.

“Thats not what you told Love.” I say, following behind you.

You’re not saying anything anymore, just rolling your stupid luggage. It doesn’t even have a bell on it.

You’re being childish right now.

“Why would you lie?” I say.

You spin yourself around quickly. “Why would YOU lie?”

Oh.

Oooh. I get it.

We stare into each other’s eyes for a bit. I’m not moving, but you’re shaking like a leaf. You know, and I can tell you regret saying anything.

You turn around again to continue walking at your ridiculously fast pace but— I’m not sure what came over me... I grabbed your forearm and yanked you back. You let out a squeak and throw your luggage into my knee, knocking me off balance for a moment.

I hear an engine start and quickly spot two red lights. It’s a car. A black car, to be more exact.

Fucking perfect.

You try to bolt away, but I don’t let go and instead, pull you into me. I... I don’t know why I’m not letting go. I’m making this worse.

You’re already fully sobbing, it’s actually pretty loud, and you’re trying to hit me. I grab hold of your nose and cover your mouth, pulling you closer into my chest the more you struggled and kicked the air. Your dainty hands are trying to pry my arms away, but you’re growing weak. My focus, however... is on the car.

It pulls out of its parking spot and doesn’t waste any time driving off. Who the hell is that? Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, FUCK.

The lack of oxygen is finally getting to you. You’re letting out muffled screams now, further wasting whatever energy you have left.

I rest my head into the crook of your neck and you finally begin to settle down. I’m tense, angry. I’d like to think it isn’t your fault, but I have a feeling you know who was in that car.

I’m now realizing, as you start to go limp in my hold, I’ve probably made better choices in the past.

[catboy-lover-archive]

Obey Me Romanian MC

idea inspired by @/harunayuuka2060 (too shy to tag them)

Nu ştiu ce inspirație supraomenească m-a lovit dar am început asta la 2 dimineața și am terminat-o la 6.30

Im sleep deprived bc I stayed up all night doing this, enjoy gagicile mele

[added translations]

(under the cut bc this bitch is long af)

Lucifer: Are you not enjoying your meal?

MC: This food isn't even good. Next time I'm bringing my bunica to make you guys sarmale best thing you ever tried 👩‍🍳👌😘 mwah

-

MC: I'm not gonna go out with Satan, Beel, Asmo or Belphie.

Asmo: Awww

Beel: :(

Belphie: What?!

Satan: Why?

MC: Why date a guy who's favorite color is not in romanian flag? 🤔🇷🇴

-

Asmo: But I thought you could-

MC: For the last time IM NOT A VAMPIRE I CAN'T HYPNOTIZE PEOPLE OR MAKE THEM FALL IN LOVE WITH ME

-

Levi: Ohhh!!!! So are you like familiar with Castlevania-

MC: We don't talk about that *cries in disappointed*

-

Solomon: What is this weird potion.

MC: *puts bottle of țuică (plum brandy) on the table*

MC: This is not a potion, but a solution to all of your problems gagica 💖

-

MC: *talking to Lucifer* Oh iubire (love), stop crying over Diavolo again. Why cry over guy who would wear vagabond everyday in my country?

MC: Tsch tsch tsch

Lucifer: What the fuck is Vagabond

MC: Only the worst of streetwear existent. Only f-boys use it

Lucifer: Fair enough

-

Beel: Why do you want to try out for the sports team?

MC: Because Steaua, my country's team, disappointed me 😔

-

MC: Mammon! Asmo! Let me show you guys a thing called ✨manele✨

-

(after the Belphie incident)

MC: Does anybody have a belt.... a belt so I can...no reason...papuci de casă (slippers) works too

-

MC: Hey Belphie! Did you enjoy your punishment? 😜

Belphie: My butt still hurts...

MC: Next time it's the lingură de lemn ♡ (wooden spoon)

-

*MC dancing to Braşoveanca*

Mammon: W-what's that???

Satan: Some sort of ritual I suppose

Asmo: *joining in* It's fun!

MC: Doi✌paşi🦵înainte➡️şi😱doi😩înapoi⬅️ (two steps forward two steps back)

-

MC: Who has summoned me?

Satan: Belphie isn't feeling well and the medicine didn't really do it's job.

MC: Everyone watch closely because I'm going to teach you guys a sacred ritual called ✨Frecție cu Oțet✨

Satan: You're just pouring vinegar on his wrist.

MC: Now here comes the fun part. *maggages his wrists*

Belphie: Someone please kill me this is unbearable

MC: Am I allowed to say Tatăl Nostru (Lord's prayer) or is that too....uhhh weird since yall are demons and stuff-

-

Barbatos: MC...

MC: I'm sorry but crossing myself after I finish a meal is implemented in my brain. It's in the default settings.

Barbatos: What happens if you don't cross yourself?

MC: Lingura de lemn (wooden spoon) *shivers*

-

Diavolo: Do you like my castle?

MC: Baby, Peleş puts you to shame.

MC: Also, too much current (swift). Close the damn windows

-

Lucifer, giving up on life: Oh not again...

MC: DA PĂ CIMPOI DA PĂ CIMPOI JOACĂ FETELE LA NOI 👉👈😳

MC: Real music here 😌

-

MC: There, there gacica (girlfriend). Don't cry. *pats him on the back*

Lucifer: Do you got any more țuică...

MC: That's the spirit!

-

MC: I know I technically didn't die, but can we please have a funeral??? There is this really tasty cake just for this special occasion called colivă. Beel is okay with it so- hey don't ignore me! wait guys this is important- wAIT!

-

Satan: I hate Lucifer because he is my father.

Belphie: I hate Lucifer because he sucks in general.

MC: I hate Lucifer because Favorite color is red which is COMMUNISM COLOUR 😡‼

-

Solomon: See?? MC likes my cooking!

MC: Piftie...Caltaboş...

MC: Solomon, you would make a very good romanian housewife. Say, have you ever considered getting a 701st wife...?

-

Beel: *munching happily on the food MC makes*

Lucifer: *getting a fucking break*

MC: *making grătar(barbeque) cu mici*

MC: Everybody loves 1 Mai!

-

MC: Beelphiiieee!!!! I have a spell for you 😊

Belphie: Please not the lingură de lemn-

MC: *boop on the nose* ✨du-te dracu✨ (go to hell)

-

Lucifer: How did you make everyone behave?

MC: *looking at the papuc de casă in hand*

MC: You either die a hero...or live enough to become the villain...

Lucifer: Interesting, can you teach me?

MC: The secret is to use your wrist-

-

MC, whispering: Psst! Mammon! How's the sarmale trading going?

Mammon: Its okay, but why can't you just give me the recipe?

MC: E din moşi strămoşi (it's from older generations) I can't give it to you

-

MC: Hey pisi, want a ride in my Dacia?

Simeon: ...what? :)

MC: Come on gagica(girlfriend)! We are going to visit my family they will love you!

MC: You can also bring Luke. Just uhhh don't let him drink from the "juicebox" ok? It's not- It's not juice in there

MC: But you can drink. I won't tell anyone.

-

Diavolo: MC you can't leave yet. Not even for a quick visit back home.

MC: Auzi, da du-te-n p- (well why don't you fuck yourself on my dic-)

-

MC: *sigh* Sometimes I wish Satan was wearing Vagabond instead of...whatever that is

Asmo: Ouch, but yeah I guess we are that desperate.

Satan: I'm never tutoring any of you again.

-

MC and Luke, just vibing honestly: ⬇️Intră-n👇apa🌊mării🐚şi🐋nu🐟te🙄teme😱ai😳să-nveți🤯să-noți🐠printre🤔sirene🧜‍♀️🧜‍♂️

(go in the sea's water and don't you be afraid you'll learn to swim among mermaids)

-

MC: No Asmo, I have a date to the ball he's right here *points at țuică bottle*

-

Belphie: *misbehaving*

MC: Vai, vai, vai. Sărumâna Belphie 😃 ( well, well, well good day Belphie)

MC: *grabs the papuc (slipper)*

-

MC: NO LUCIFER IT CAN NOT BE AN AN NOU FERICIT (happy new year) IF WE DO NOT DANCE THE HORĂ

-

MC and Luke, vibing yet again: POVEȘTI DIN FOLCLORUL MAGHIAR!!! (maghiar folklore stories!)

-

MC: Where is my țuică? :)

Everyone: *quiet*

MC: I won't get mad :)

MC:

MC: Foaie verse de trifoi~ *papuc reappears* Dați băi țuica înapoi (green leaf of clover, give the țuică back you fucker)

Everybody: *runs*

MC: Mândruțelor (girls), come back until I'll put this to good use

-

Levi: *exists*

MC: *in love with him bc his fav color is in the Romanian flag and not in the commie flag*

MC: Te las să te lingi cu mime în parcare la lidl (I'll let you french kiss me in the Lidl market parking lot)

-

MC: Lucifer you don't understand!

MC: Sandu Ciorbă cured my depression!

-

MC: Muie cretinii pământului (fuck y'all stupid asses) my țuică is back and I'm not sharing anymore

-

Asmo: We're doing hot girl shit tonight

MC: Ne curvim rău (we're hoeing)

-

MC: futu-ți cristelnița mătii (fuck your mother's font) Simeon you're the one that drank all my țuică

MC: I'll let it slide this once, if u take me for shaorma(shawarma) in Piața Victoriei (Victoria's market)

-

Solomon: Whoops, I accidentally messed up the sarmale recipe

MC: Aşadar războiu alesu l-ai (So you have chosen war)

-

Mammon: MC, how do you say "I hate you" in romanian?

MC: Dar eu sunt mândru că sunt twink. (I'm proud to be a twink)

Mammon, clueless: ok thanks

-

MC, to Belphie: I had such a rough day, please fute-mi una (fuck me over) and not the way I like

-

Mammon: What would be a quick way to make money?

MC: Gagica(girlfriend), listen. Culegător de sparanghel (asparagus picker) in Spain is your go-to.

-

Asmo: *blasting manele vechi (old manele).2006*

Asmo: Please love me!

MC: *already in wedding attire*

-

MC: Beel! Here, try this! Yeah yeah its completely fine!

MC: ...what do you mean it looks like Solomon's cooking?

MC: THIS IS PIFTIE AND YOU WILL LEARN TO APPRECIATE IT

-

MC: *dragging them all by the hand to therapy*

MC: Păi aşa-i hora pe la noi măi bade- (This is hora to us well my mans)

-

MC, talking to Lucifer: Măi omu lu dumnezeu îți fut una de nu te vezi (listen God's man I'll fuck you over that you'll not see again) if u lay a finger on my țuică again

MC: I don't care that you have daddy issues, this is MINE now thank you very much.

-

MC: Doamne cu ce ți-am greşit? (God, what have I done to you?)

MC: tanti Lilith, ia-mă cu tine gagicuțo milf ce ești (Miss Lilith, take me with you you milf girlfriend)

MC: Chiar și culesul de căpșuni din Spania era mai ok dacât (even strawberry picking in Spain is better than) Therapist Simulator hell edition

-

Diavolo: *exists*

MC: Vrei să-ți fiu a ta mireasă? (Do you want me to be your wife?)

-

Simeon: *exists*

MC: Vrei să-ți fiu Ileană Cosânzeană? ( Want me to be your fairy wife?)

-

Belphie: Every time I doze off they say this weird phrase...

MC: Dormeo(mattress company) ! Noapte bună! (good night!)

-

MC: What do you mean im not allowed to have a cross around my neck?

MC: My dead grandmother would kill me it's Sfântu Andrei for fucks sake

MC: The law is law we gotta put garlic and salt everywhere around the house

MC: This is what you get from taking my țuică away AGAIN

-

MC: I mean, at least i dont have to take the bacalaureat and face the woman-hating-Ion-Creangă-fucking-twink-looking-nightmare-inducing Eminescu so

MC: *drinks a Mona Spirt (rubbing alcohol) bottle in one go*

MC: that works wonders for me

[zuffer-weird-girl]

@thotsforvillainrights

Honestly, he was starting to think that people were suicidal or completely dumb and worthless.... more than he thought already.

He was a man that was feared by most on the underworld. Hell, even speaking his name gave others a chill. He was known of being the most cruel, cold and merciless man of all the universe of the yakusas, his quirk even helping him on his reputation that screamed on his masked face "DANGER".

Yet there were those imbeciles deprived of brain cells and wish for living flirting openly with his companion? Right on his front no less?

Seriously, this entire world was sick. They needed a cure, quickly.

You were a simple and honest kind of person. Mever requesting neither taking advantage of his surroundings or his position like he thought you were on the start. And this only egged him even more on wanting to give you the most of luxuries and goods of a rich life.

Even if the yakusa was in need of money... he still had some savings that he refused to spend on anything last other than you. And come on, he could steal from a minor and incompetent amateur gang at any time, so what is even the waste?

The way you flushed pink, tried to deny due to the price of the thing he brought to you was just simply flattering. The sign made him half smirk evertime behind his mask.

So today's new thing was a trustful restaurant which the Shie Hassaikai had the power over it. The way you looked up and down at the place in astonishment like a little kid entering on a playground for the first time was simply like seing a angel for the first time.

Well, things dont always go in the way we expected. He learned that from a very young age but wouldn't make a fuss about it.... most of the time.

But that son of a bitch? Right there? He was going to torture if he let out even one more flirtatious look. He was tired of giving him any chances.

"This place is great Kai! You sure is not a bother to bring me here?" You spoke, snapping him out of his furious and murderous glare at the worker who just keeps glancing now at then. The disgusting even crossed faces along with him and gulped thick air.

"Kai?" You said worriedly, tilting your head a bit as he sighed out loud and straightened his back a bit.

"Is not. Since this place own us a big amount of money and are in our possession, then it wont even cost us a single pea. They are repaying a portion of their debt, so it doesn't matter." You made a understatement sound as you circled with your finger the hem of the glass.

He smirked at that, the sign of you so vulnerable and so his. Everyone could see that. Sincee he wasn't the type of a man to hook up with anyone neither to get out much, you were evidently his to anyone who looked. So why exactly there were those people that just oh so enjoyed playing with fire?

"Mind if I take the order now?"

Speaking of trash...

"Oh! Sure!" You gave the waiter a smile before looking at Kai "You're going to ask first?"

"Suit yourself." He waved his hand nonchalantly while the garbage of human being right on his side refused to take eyes out of you.

The bastard didn't even blinked, a young soul that clearly screamed he was interested on you as you spoke your own order.

"A excellent choice." They he bonded a bit to give you a flirtatious look "Particularly, is my favorite one as well."

"Oh, really?" You asked, giving a look to Chisaki and even flinching a bit when you saw how he was... dead ass serious, not even moving... but his eyes spoked everthing you needed to know.

He was at least thinking on eighty possibilities tortures for this waiter.

"Why of course!" The waiter winked at you with a charming smile "Such a beauty like yourself should have a good taste."

Oh. That's it. Last fucking straw and he managed to even exploded his pacience.

He took of his glove and touched his atra hand on the table, creating through hsi quirk a sharp spike aiming right on the waiter's throat.

"Give me one negociable reason to still keep your sorry excuse for garbage alive." He said darkly, ignoring your pleas for him to stop and just glaring holes at the waiter's trembling in fear face.

A old geezer came in a rush, pleading for mercy on the part of Overhaul to not kill his youngest child.

"You gave this ridiculous brat a fucked up education to keep flirting freely with others partners like that." He hissed as you he got up, only calming down a bit at feeling your touch on his arm to calm him down.

By the time it passed. He had grew used to your touch, so he rarely flinched or tensed at the contact of your skin with his.

"F-Forgive me sir Overhaul!" The elder said hushed as he pushed the young waiter behind his back "He is just my youngest son, too young and naive sometimes and reckless. I assure you he is not doing anything again with your partner neither going to bother you any longer!"

"That's what is expected." He said darkly as he lifted his head a not before sending a murderous gaze at the responsible of his anger "You're on the luck side. Today I happen to had a good mood, now completely ruined with this... bullshit." He hissed the last word and even you flinched at that.

One thing that everyone who heard and knew Overhaul knows. If he curses, than he is enraged and out of any remaining pacience. But only knew that he was also like that when he was avoided of sleep along with his unusual need of having you close to sleep.

"I should increase the price of your debt with the Shie Hassaikai after this, but is illogical such a thing." He urged you to follow to exit the restaurant "But I hope you have in your mind that neither me or any member of the Shie Hassaikai will be coming over here so soon. Have on your mind that." He said nonchantly as teh old man almost fainted, knowing that if the debtors stopped frequenting then he would not only have to pay with food but with his savings.

You walked besides him as his eyes remained in his usual uncaring look before you smirked.

"All of that because you were jealous of a waiter?" You asked in a teasing tone as he scoffed, awkwardly extending his arm behind your lower back and pulling you close to him as he walked, soon returning his arm back like he hadn't done a thing.

"Bold of you to assume I was 'jealous' at some disgusting horrific brat."

"Oh cmon, he wasn't that horrific-"

"You're joking." He glared daggers at you "You must be blind or have a terrible sign then." He scoffed again.

"What??? But I find you to be the most attractive man on earth! So now I have bad taste?" You asked and giggled at how his face grew pink as he glared at his front.

"Oh shut your mouth already." He growled and opened the door of the car with a huff "Enter. We don't have all night thanks for that bastard, and if it happens again you will be the one punished here."

"What?! But why-?!" You stopped talking the moment you saw the hunger and teh evidential list on his golden eyes as he looked you up and down expectantly.

Oh. That kind of punishment.

[achieveandhunt]

live typing extra life 2019

part 2

warning: this was a mistake and i’m in the grapes

this starts right at Facilities vs AH. link to first post

let’s fuck some shit up babEY

oh what the fuck they’re playing a prerecorded video

last year was a fuckin doozy, nobody forget that

“legends of the under achiever” i didn’t know someone wrote my biography

why do i hear geoff screaming “FIVE FUCKIN FOUR” in my head, like in the legends of the hidden temple minecraft videos

jeremy looks. so dead inside on this fine november evening

ryan buzzing while they’re trying to explain the rules

my video quality went down so much that i thought i was watching someone playing roblox for a second

ryan “salty mother fucker” haywood has made a lovely appearance. he’s my favorite

michael and lindsay looking so domestic makes me so happy,, they’re my parents

someone donated under the name “ryan goes feral” uh??? yeah? you say that like it’s a bad thing??

oH FUCK MICHAEL GO DRIVE WIN PLEASE

jeremy HAS BROKEN OUT THE GLASSES SHIT’S SERIOUS

NO THEY’RE LOSING GOD DAMMIT

ʳʸᵃⁿ ᶦⁿ ᵗʰᵉ ᵇᵃᶜᵏᵍʳᵒᵘⁿᵈ, ᵠᵘᶦᵉᵗˡʸ: ʰᵉˡᵖ

JEREMY IT’S TIME TO TEST OUT THAT NONEXISTENT GAG REFLEX AND SWALLOW THE OPPONENT’S CONTROLLER

oh nvm they’re winning again lmao

OH FUCK thEYRE LOSING

oh nvm

OH FUCK

oh nvm they unplugged his contoller lol

OH FUCKING TH EY LOST MICHAEL JONES MY HEART IS BROKEN

the amount of people watching has gone up from 32k to 40k in the past fifteen minutes

michael “hurry up you dumb cunts” jones

“oh don’t worry about destroying our cabinet, it’s essentially matchsticks”

“how are you feeling john? are you ready for this?” “MM M M Mmm mM”

TEAM NICE DYNAMITE IS NEXT AND IM READY FOR PERMANENTLY RINGING EARS FROM ALL THE LEET DONATIONS

oH god here we go

“hopefully they haven’t been saving them all day” oh honey. you’ve got a big storm coming

if xavier slaps gavin i think gav might go up in a puff of smoke

i did the math, they went up 45k+ within five minutes of team nice dynamite showing up on stream

GAVIN AND MICHAEL ARE GOING TO DIE

THERE’S GONNA BE A MOONBALL SIZED HOLE IN GAVIN’S CHEST

ryan and lindsay both donating a grand during this segment... so good

the day gavin free successfully gets a tattoo is the day i drop dead

lindsay saying she didn’t want the TND tattoo on michael but she agreed because gav is michael’s boi :((( 

i’m too sleep deprived for this i might cry

oh god michael’s punching the floor

i’m too sober for this

EIGHTY EIGHT LEET DONATIONS IN TWENTY MINUTES HOLY FUCJKIGN SHIT YOU GUYS ARE GONNA BE THROWING MOONBALLS FOR FUCKIN SIX YEARS

on a sentimental note- i love how much collective love we have for gav and michael,, they deserve it all

milk boarded has some not-so-great connotations attached to it

gavin “the bullshit bitch” free

a mark nutt reference?? in my 2019 extra life????

this just in: sarah is going to obliterate gavin

oh. oh my god. that was the sound of a wet fish smacking a wall

why is jeremy the liquor goblin walking like a crab that has a bird attached to its back??? see: flapping arms

that beer and milk concoction... gag

“drink that milk yard”

“YOU GOT MY TOES MILKY”

no. nO MICHAEL NO YOUR INTESTINES NOO

michael “the milk’s in my brain” jones

“stop pouring it on people!” “iT’S HARD DICKHEAD”

lindsay is now. taking a milk shower

*caiti brings a small roll of paper towels* *gavin gently places a single paper towel on the massive puddle of milk*

no LINDSAY NO THINK OF THE CHILDREN

gavin: this has gotten way out of hand. she’s... she’s swimming in an inch of milk! everyone knows you should swim in at least two!!

the fajita seasoning will solve everythinG everyone calm down

fiona: yeah this is my first extra life. jack: and what were you expecting? fiona: this. exactly this.

ah yes. the bunny suits have arrived and michael is ready to tackle gavin

aaaand here comes the AH fanfic. it can only get worse from here so buckle up fuckos

“holy fuckeroni”

“re-reanimated trevor”

michael is so fucking smashed and god i wish that was me

“cum-ductor”

fiona “this is a white man” nova

“bone-ating” *leet donation* *leet donation* 

“ready set blow” made me genuinely bust a lung laughing

aaaand michael’s licking the floor which is to be expected

jeremy “i’m gonna actually harm you” dooley

IF ONE MORE PERSON BRINGS UP RANCH IM GOING TO WALK TO AUSTIN AND PROJECTILE VOMIT ON THE OFF TOPIC SET

no JEREMY NO YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE I THOUGHT YOU WOULDN’T DO THIS GET OFF THE F  L O O R

don’t get close ups on jeremy’s tongue. don’t do that to me. i don’t want nightmares

“fuck root” “let’s just fucking fuck”

1 2 3 CONSENT

michael has gone full gerkie

alfredo’s look when larry is reading the part about trevor choking him is how i feel about everything that’s happened in the past twenty minutes

almost 300k in less than an hour 

fiona saying “i don’t want this” overlaying michael humping a trash can

“TAKE THE TACO CHAD”

aaaand michael’s in the trash can

nO why is there a triangle is this a POETRY READING ALL OF A SUDDEN

oh thank god it’s over

OH FUCK THERE’S A N EPILOGUE

aaand trevor’s dead again. poor treyco

DUSK BOYS DUSK BOYS DUSK BOYS EVERYONE PUT A CUP IN YOUR PANTS

people singing along... what goes on

why am i downloading this fuckin song asap

jeremy turning his phone flashlight on and waving it like he’s at a concert god dammit i love these people so much

those are my BOYS

oh my gosh they’re still singing the song. why is my heart so happy from this i need to get slapped

“come on you’ve never been waterboarded before gavin?”

everyone standing in a circle shining their flashlights at gavin

someone surprise them and instead of a moonball just yeet a whole gallon of milk at them

actually, on second thought, no

OH god GavIN Is GOING to Die 

gavin “i forgot to breathe” free

several milk explosions

gavin “my brain is cold” free

michael has milk dripping from his ears

i’m about to pass out i don’t know what’s happening

michael is in the grapes right now man

how many moonballs? oh, only 107. :)

i’m not writing this part- you guys have to watch the moonball segment yourself, if you didn’t watch it live!

team nice dynamite finishes up with over 300k!! holy shit, that’s so cool! this community is awesome

werewolf is up next!

xavier is such a gentleman can we keep him

alfredo: *chooses to kill miles* trevor in the audience: *silently freaking out*

xavier is about ruin another man on stream

miles has no self preservation instinct

barbara is now smelling fiona

this just in: i love alfredo and 100% would have done the same thing

trevor running up to film alfredo getting smacked. what an icon

alfredo SCREAMING oh my god i felt it in my soul

the high-five of the backs in solidarity of intense pain

miles choosing alfredo is so fucking good

and also, i feel so bad 

his heart might shoot out of his asshole this time guys

oh NOOO HE’s so bruised :(((( fredo nooo :((

oh my god it’s gotten to the usual point in the stream where you start to question whether someone is going to die this time

rip blaine but at least i think he can take the hit

he can but ouch it still hurts me 

barbara “i’m participating in the game” dunkleman

yo miles might win this game

the crowd when someone needs to shoot barb: TREVOR TREVOR TREVOR! trevor, with the strength of a thousand suns: N O

people are now chanting about shooting an unprotected trevor. the man already died once this stream god dammit

alfredo is about to throw hands for fiona

that’s a big F in the chat for miles, but his loss is well deserved

xavier’s hands could serve as a defibrillator

alfredo showed jeremy his chest and jeremy shied away as if he was looking at the sun

 --- i’m taking another break to finish an assignment---

i’m barely alive and it’s ready set show time 

oh god please no more shock collars

i’m so fucking tiiiiredd please take thge res t of this post  wigth  a grain of salt lbecasue i can hardly type at this ponitn 

“do you want to control the shock collars” “will there be repercussions” “no” “fuck yeah i’ll do it then”

“smother the children. steal the baby” “DONT STEAL THE BABY TREVOR”

lunging forward “s c a r e  t h e  b a b y” “OKAY I’M PASSING THIS ONE”

“you can’t bake popcorn????” jeremy hits the floor

alec and matt clearly = dream team

oh thasnk god the shock collars are on their arms now i was stressed out for chris earlier

this stream does not promote recreational nyquil usage 

i don’t even know how to explain the pure insanity of what ready set show has become

alec has become this whole segment

i would write more but i have no thoughts because my brain doesn’t work

larry “makes people fuck other people besides their wife” insert last name that my brain can’t come up with

anyways. marbles

oh. no marbles

i’ve blacked out idk what happened during backwardz compatible

i mean i was awake but does that really mean anything at this point

SPPOKU PSOOKY SPPOKKKY SPOOOKY !!! FUCL YEAH 

cole is so good during this segment

oh so many 1337s right away 

the real scariest thing during the segment: being genuine

oH my god the scream being pitched up. i have fucking dogs outside of my house now

i don’t fuck w/ ghosts no thank you

“aba-jail” wow if u guys weren’t gonna get haunted before you will now

okay i’m about to pass out i have to take a nap

oH fucking I SLEPT until thirty minutes before the en d  fuck

conclusion: this community is incredible and raised an unimaginable amount of money for charity. the fact that rooster teeth does this every year is awesome, and honestly, it makes me feel hopeful in times when things aren’t so great. so yeah! for the kids & stuff 

[nicklukenelson]

Hunger live reaction!!!!!

HUNGER LIVE REACTION!

(Sorry this is so long I dont have a PC so I can't add a read more break 💔)

HUNGER

Started kinda slow but that CHORUS!!! AND THE BRIDGE!!!!! not my fave but a whole ass 7/10

GET IT WRONG

The way as soon as the music started I could feel my heart grow hands and grab onto that shit for dear LIFE. Not even 12 seconds in and already losing my shit okay.. I can do this 🤡 the vibrato on the "in my luUugs part"!!!!!!! THE HARMONIES IN THE CHORUS THAT SHIT HITS! This song is really exactly the song I needed to listen to after crying for a good two hours shit, i might have fallen more in love with her, didnt even know that was possible at this point 😌🤡 ONCE AGAIN!!!! THE CHORUS!!!!!!!!!!!! RIGHTS!! ALL OF THEM!! JUST TAKE MY SOUUUUUL 😭

SORRY

I've already listened to this song but! Always down to lisen again. This song has that very calming element to it, feels kinda like a lullaby, it's just. Very gentle and delicate and listening to it feels like a kiss on the forehead 👉👈 The "I knew I could stay" in the bridge is my favorite part too feels like shes singing to me. Fun fact! The music video to this song was my first ever interaction with Mali's music!!

REVOLUTION

This is most likely my least favorite song of hers but the bridge does in fact have SO MANY RIGHTS! also has a very high school musical 3 Sharpay Evan's cafeteria scene vibe 😌

HEARTS

Yay a new song!!! She really did not waste any time before stabbing me in the heart, huh. "As soon as it's perfect I'm searching for something more, let's break eachothers heart" this song might be my favorite lyrically! Really appreciate how low energy the instruments are in this song her voice is really the main focus of the song which is perfect for the theme of the lyrics and the message I think? I love how well her music is not only mixed but organized everything is planned out so well you can tell how much work she put into this. GAH!!! as a music nerd this song is so pleasing to me!!! Very much enjoy how at the beginning her voice is the main focus and it's very. Slow. And a little unsteady. Because she (in the context of the song) is in a very confused and hesitant mindset? But then the music picks up as it continues and not only does her voice grow louder with the music but it becomes shakier!!!!

ME BEFORE YOU

If only I had a brain because I really wanna do an lyrical analysis on this album but I do not! Have! The capability :(( This song is very much a dancing while crying type vibe. Her bridges are always IMMACULATE! The run she does on the last "would bring me so much pain" !!!!! HERE HAVE MY HEART...and a kidney

AT THE END OF THE DAY

THE PRECHORUS!!!!! MALI'S LOWER REGISTER IS GOING TO KILL ME!!!!! not even joking if not from a heart attack then definitly from sleep deprivation! AHHHH 2:15. 2:15!!!!! Trust me. TRUST. ME. IM- MA'AM! THE WAY SHE GOES "WaAaSste" !!! Ma'am just take entire ass soul at this point!

SOME THINGS

:((( this song makes me :((( the chorus is really beautiful too :((( and then the STRINGS!! :((((( THE CHORUS WITH THE STRINGS!! :(((((((( The way she changes the last "it never goes away" :(((((( Her voice is just spectacular and all her songs have so much thought put into them and care and :(((((((

SHOEBOX

Never noticed the little strings at the very beginning of this but wow that was pretty. The beat on this song!! Very much a spin around in a circle while crying type vibe!! This beat is sick as fuck tho like. Appreciate that beat. It just keeps getting better! The "woAoAh" was very appreciated thank you, mali 😌

HUMAN NATURE

Oo this song had some pretty lyrics too! Dont love how it randomly increased in volume at the chorus tho. The little guitar riff right before the chorus is cute tho, very much enjoy that part. I'm getting progressively sleepier while writing these and it doesnt help that all her songs feel like lullabies :(

THE ART OF LETTING GO

OKAY FALSETTO! OKAY LOW NOTES!!! THIS VERSE IS SO FUCKIN BEAUTIFUL VOCALLY 😭😭😭 I NEVER WANT IT TO END! THE CHORUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! **OH MY GOD!!!! ** Genuinely my favorite song I can't even process it. Before anyone comes for the autotune chorus I just declare that I Will Cry if anyone hates on it, okay thanks! Like! Cmon!!! CMON!!! It adds so much to the song!! You cant tell me it doesnt make u just. Immediately stop breathing as soon as it starts 😌 also the lyrics in this song are so fucking beautiful, appreciation to the lyrics because HOT DAMN.

DANCER

GOING FROM THE ABSOLUTE HEART BREAK OF THE LAST SONG TO THIS UPBEAT VIBEY SHIT IS!!!!! A CHOICE. AND A VERY GOOD ONE! I wanna see her perform this song live 👀 think she'd? Dance?

I DIDNT KNOW THAT WAS THE LAST ONE! NOW IM SAD :((

Overall rating: 10/10 fuckin Brilliant

[all-hail-the-witcher]

hello, this is your fbi agent

okay so i have no explanation for this im sorry

____

ship: ralbert

genre: crack with memes

warnings: first person (????), memes, more memes, this is not related to spies, the worst crack and even worse writing, idk fam

editing: ha

words: 1099

____

*record scratch*

*freeze frame*

Yes, that’s me, Albert Dasilva, sitting behind a desk, spying on someone through their phone camera for the FBI. You’re probably wondering how i ended up in this situation. Well, frankly, I am too. I always knew that I was a walking meme, but I never thought that I would actually become one.

See, I had just finished college and, like most college graduates, was looking for a job. One of my friends who asked to remain nameless *ahem* jAcK keLLy, told me to apply to work at the FBI because apparently you only need a college degree to do that. And me, being the dumbass that I am, decided to do it as a joke cause fuck it, why would they ever hire someone who had been arrested for stealing oats and cream cheese from Target when they were 14? (Alright fine, I technically wasn't arrested, the cop was clearly caffeine deprived and let us off with a warning. Although they didn't catch us the one time Jack and I stole one of the Target balls in broad fucking daylight. Wait. Forget I said that. I’m a good wholesome Christian child and have never stolen anything, anything I may or may not have told you was a blatant lie.)

Plot twist, they fucking hired me.

(Jack got a real kick out of that, believe me.)

And, as part of my intern training, I had to do only the most memey job on the whole internet:

Watch people through their phone cameras.

Yes! We actually exist! This is not just some dumb meme that the internet made up! And I would know, because the idiot I’m assigned to watch doesn’t sleep so therefore I don't sleep and I have the dark undereye circles to prove it!

God, I want a fucking nap.

But no, instead I’m watching an idiot look up fucking lazytown quotes at two in the fucking morning.

*muffled shouting* Oh, and he’s hot. Thanks for reminding me, Jack. Not like that's WHY IM WRITING THIS YOU ASSHOLE!

*deep breath* Okay, anyway. Back to the story.

Why am I doing this?

Right. Cause I hate myself, that’s why.

Anyway. The kid that I have to watch through his phone camera. His name is Race. And no, before you ask, I do not know why he goes by Race. It’s not my business. I only watch his every move on the Internet, I don't know his whole life story! What kind of organization do you think the FBI is, huh?

Just kidding, we definitely know your whole life story and its definitely recorded in three different places, one of which is a vault hidden under Argentina. But you didn't hear that from me.

*more muffled shouting*

Jack is telling me that I’m “beating around the bush too much and need to get to the point.” Fine. I know that’s what you came here for anyway.

In short, it was a stormy night and the power had gone out, but I, a dedicated FBI intern who did not want to lose my only source of income, was using my rapidly dying iPhone to watch my assigned civilian through his phone camera. That night, the man had looked especially enchanting, the light from his phone illuminating his luscious blonde curls and accentuating his deep blue eyes, making it seem as though I could drown in their-

Okay this just sounds like shitty Wattpad fanfic. Is tHAT WHAT YOU WANTED JACK?! Also I don't know what Wattpad fanfic is like because I’ve personally read any. I spy on people through their phone cameras alright, I’ve seen a whole lot of weird shit.

Essentially, what happened was I caught some feelings. And, my supervisor figured this out by reading my weekly reports and told me essentially to “tell him you like him so you can go on a date and I can reassign you so that I don't have to keep reading these lovey dovey reports because they make my brain turn to mush.”

Thanks for that Katherine. Love you too.

And now, here I am, having this fan tas tic  monologue while trying to figure out how to compose a text message.

(Before you ask how I have Race’s phone number, I work for the FBI. There’s a lot of information I have that any normal citizen would want. Like what is actually kept in Area 51 (baby iPhones), if mothman is real (he is and secretly is the president of the United States), and if Canada is real (its not). But you shouldn’t trust any of this information because I work for the FBI and I could be lying to you.)

Here’s what I have so far:

Hi Race. My name is Albert and you might not believe this but I am actually the FBI agent in your phone...yes, we exist. I’ve spent the last 5 months watching you and I think you're kinda cool and pretty cute and was wondering if you would like to meet up some time. (Also stop looking up lazy town quotes at 2 am, I now have the whole show memorized because of you.)

Overall, it’s not bad, but there’s some things that I think could be improved and- wait, Jack, nO! WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP GIVE THAT BACK I’M NOT FINISHED!!

*10 minutes later*

He sent it. Jack sent my fucking message before it was fuking finished and now Race isn’t going to fucking respond and I’m going to be alone forever and Katherine is going to reassign me and I’m never going to see Race’s angelic face ever again and-

Oh.

He responded?

What the hell?

Honestly, I guess I should have seen that coming. Race has no common sense.

What? I’m allowed to say that! I spend my days looking at what he googles, alright!

Anyway, I’m sure you're dying to know what he said, so here it is:

Hi Albert! You better not be trolling me because this has been the biggest and I oop moment I’ve ever had. Please tell me that you haven’t exposed my two am lazy town search sessions to the public. No one is supposed to know about that. And yes, I would love to meet up with you. Mostly to apologize for my google search history and for the memes (hehe) but also because anyone who can spy on me for 5 months without going to therapy than maybe you can actually put up with my craziness! Xx Race.

Huh.

Maybe this job isn’t so bad after all...

____

im so sorry please dont unfollow me

feedback is always appreciated, hmu to be on the taglist

tag list

@fairly-awkward-trashcan​

@well-the-kids-do-too​

@racetrackcook​

@ughwaitwhat​

@aw-jus-let-em-try​

@voice-foundshoe-lost​

@stopthe-presses​

@ridin-in-style​

@pinecovewoods​

@i-got-no-clue-what-im-doing​

@getchapapes

@be-more-chill-evan-hansen​

@stellar-alpaca​

@saxoph-ella​

@smolcanadiankid​

@disney-princess-sized​

@the-newsies-justice-for-zas-blog​

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@writing-makes-me-antsy

[wanderers-minuet]

I haven’t been active on here in a while but i still browse, and i saw this, and it really hit home. it’s entirely accurate, and exactly how I’m feeling right now.

Rest under read more, tw: animal/pet death, grief.

I just went through a major loss - I had to put down my dog Bandit of 16 years, my best friend, yesterday on Tuesday Nov. 12th. He’s been part of my life for literally half of it. (I turned 32 oct 26th.) I got sent home twice from work the last few days because I couldn’t keep my cool, and was crying and generally being a hot mess. Monday I was sent home after 20 minutes, and spent the next 6 hours or so at the vet with my family and Bandit crying and basically losing my mind, gave myself a headache and nearly threw up. We decided at the end to bring him home for the night so my sister and her boyfriend could cuddle him all night. I was off the next day, thank god, but I couldn’t stand to spend the day watching him be miserable and suffering like I had for nearly 6 hours the night before, so i spent most of the day trying to distract myself in my apartment with laundry and games or just busywork, and a few bouts of crying, with only a few hours of sleep during the night. So I went over in the evening to get a little time with him at the house before we brought him to the vet around 7:30pm. We spent some more time with him in a special Comfort Room, and I kept my cool for the most part, just the quiet sobbing kinda thing, for a few hours until we pressed the button for the doctor to come in. Me and my sister held him between us, face to face, in our laps, while the doctor did their thing, and I went absolutely batshit insane crying. We didn’t get home until around 11pm, and we buried him in our backyard. At this point I’ve pretty much been crying for 48 hours. I’m very not okay. I didnt get back to my apartment until around 12:30, my boyfriend helped me wash my back and hair in the bath (I was craving the human contact and being cared for), and I didn’t get to bed until close to 2am. I tried to go into work today at 11am (wednesday) and I lasted about 10 minutes before I started crying (one of my coworkers asked why I was crying when I was sort of sniffling at my register - i was really trying to keep my shit together, i really was, but the question and my subsequent answering of it just broke the dam and I lost it, and was sent home) so that didn’t go well. I spent the day at home thinking about Bandit, playing games to give my brain a break, crying a lot, took a nap cuddling one of his favorite toys and his collar that i took home with me.

I saw this and I thought: the ball in my box is bursting the box at the seams right now, there is no release of the button unless I forcibly distract my thoughts (games are easy, as is sleeping with the aid of benedryl and NyQuil.). Working is not as engaging as I would like/need, which is why i had problems working the day before and after, bc my mind could easily wander.

I’m really hoping my ball is smaller tomorrow, because I can’t afford to keep missing work, and keep putting them at a disadvantage bc i’m not there. I need to get my shit together and move on, like my mom says (even though I don’t really agree, I think I should be able to take more time for myself to work through my grief but such is the way of life, I guess. Especially for “just a pet” as a lot of people like to thing of it. Fortunately my workplace is really understanding though so there’s that I guess)

anyway i don’t know where im going with this I guess I needed to write this out? Thanks for reading if you got this far.

i should go to bed now because I work at noon and I really dont want to be sleep deprived again on top of grieving.

I love you Bandit. I miss you a whole lot and I feel like I’m dying and there’s a giant hole in my chest, and I keep thinking you’re gonna just pop up and be there when I visit the house, that this isn’t real.... but I know you’re in a better place, and making lots of friends in doggy heaven - i’m sure Bentley was there to greet you, and you’re teaching all your new friends all the tricks I taught you! Such a smart boy! The best boy, my handsome little man! My little buddy.

You be good. I love you forever.

(gonna go cry myself to sleep now.)

This is the most accurate description I’ve ever found, thought it was worth spreading ❀

[onlyjihoons]

boyfriend!daehwi

a/n; i felt bad not giving magumagu a scenario of his own,, so here is an au,,,,,this is also gonna be a lil lengthy so grab your snacks and prepare yourself for the fluffiest bf au you will ever read and also i might be swerving for him thanks cheryl and im sorry jihoon

a totally last minute thing i suppose

i wanted to write to just isolate myself from reality

so ok enough deep shit w zechu

leggo

ok so

you’re in the same school as daehwi since like?? middle school or something

and ya’ll weren’t close like him and somi ukno

but still friends!!

ngl when you guys were about to choose high schools your heart decided that it was a good time to have a crush on him

i mean

just look at him

oops

pls i was snatched by the entire fancam smh

pls dont bash me

im the same age as him

moving on

he’s legitimately nice to every.single.being he meets and he just can’t seem to hate anyone tbh

and ukno those fantasies of him composing music on your anniversary??

yep

anyhow

you said your final goodbyes at the graduation

daehwi was like 

“y/n,, i have something to tell you”

your heart was bbbeating

what could it be

does he hate me

does he like me???

all those thoughts ran through your mind

and then he was like “never mind,, forget it ithinkyoudontlikeme”

you were legit so confused 

cause one time hes serious and one time hes like never mindsjdnsvibdv

youre like

“ok what i didn’t quite catch the last part”

“i--its nothing, y/n,, good luck in high school!”

and that’s how you guys parted

on the way home you kept thinking about it but over time you just forgot about it

until you enrolled into high school

it was your first day in school 

and honestly you started school not on the conventional first day of school

it was like on the second day or smth

you were so nervous cause ukno hanlim,, is a school of uber talented people

twice’s tzuyu

twice’s chaeyoung

redvelvet’s yeri

^just to name a few

and you got in by a teacher’s recommendation

by dance what’s new lmao zelia you gotta start changing ideas

ok back to first day of school

you stepped into class when it was homeroom

and you felt so many eyes on you and you wanted to cri tbh

they all look so judgemental

“h--hello my name is y/n and i major in practical dance,, p--please take care of me!”

“well, y/n, welcome to hanlim. please take the seat next to somi.”

somi. jeon somi.

you didn’t really watch pd101 during the first season but somi was well-known enough for you to know who she is

you bowed politely,, tbh you were a little scared of idols bc if you said smth wrong you would be on pann or smth for offending an idol

aND SHE FLASHED THAT MEGAWATT SMILE AT YOU AND EXCITEDLY SHIFTED OVER TO MAKE SOME SPACE FOR YOU

and you definitely was not expecting that

“y/n!! hi omg im so excited i finally have a tablemate,, lets be friends!!”

well ok ya’ll very conviniently besties at first sight 

but someone was staring at you this whole time 

and you didnt notice

lee

dae

hwi

was the one staring at you!!!!!!!

/cues signal for daehwi/

/sign nalbune signal bulnae/

you were the last person he would expect to see in this school

he knew you could dance but he expected you to go to sopa

but ok lmao he was like almost gonna burn a hole through your uniform with his stare

until the teacher noticed

“lee daehwi? please pay attention.”

you heard the teacher call out that familiar name you missed and whipped your head around

AND YOUR EYES MET HOHOHO MY DEAR READER YOURE SO BLESSED

you could barely believe your eyes but you turned back to face the front if not the teacher will call you out for staring @ daehwi lmao

somi saw you staring at daehwi and was like

“you like him??”

and you were like yes somi bingo i have liked him since middle school and i missed him so much--

but in the end you were like

“he’s my middle school classmate”

“ah really? then that saves me the trouble of introducing ya’ll”

“ok what”

“daehwi and i are good friends,, we trained together in jyp until he left for brand new music”

“he’s a trainee??”

“yeah and he’s gonna be on the second season of produce-- oops”

you were so shook there were too many things happening at once

“what omg first,, he’s a trainee, and second,, he’s gonna be on produce??? JEON SOMI WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME EARLIER”

somi was like

¯\_(ツ)_/¯  

and soon it was recess and daehwi sped to your table and slammed his palm on the table

“y/n??? is it you???”

“no daehwi it isn’t--”

“shut up somi,,, and yes daehwi i am y/n from (middle school name)”

and lil smol practically hugged you until you deprive of oxygen 

“okok daehwi let go im dying,,”

at this point somi knows whats going on and shes just,,

“guys imma let ya’ll catch up while i get banana milk”

after somi left daehwi just HELD YOUR HANDS IN HIS AND STARES AT YOU LIKE ITS HIS LAST DAY ON EARTH

“ok daehwi i know we haven’t seen each other in a long time but you don’t have to be like this,, you’re making me shy”

“shy??? y/n omg”

“??”

“ok im not gonna be a coward,,”

“daehwi pls stop talking to yourself i’m right here”

“i like you, y/n.”

“are you hallucinating??” you let the back of your hand touch daehwi’s forehead “ do you feel dizzy?”

“i’m serious y/n!”

“we just so-called reunited 3 minutes ago and you say you like me?? im not even--

and he just can’t take it and k i s s e s  y o u

and at this point pls send your prayers for zechu

you were so shook like ???

and also your first kiss has been taken by magumagu,, youre welcome

i mean that’s how they do it in american and korean dramas right

lol

“i have liked you since middle school, y/n,, how can you not notice?”

you’re so dumbfounded you just,,

“i like you too, daehwi”

aAAAA so cute

what a way to start your first day in your high school

ok now on the real boyfriend au guys

lots of fluff ahead

u ready

gr8

lets go

daehwi is a very very very

clingy

playful

sweet

caring

boyfriend

yes

i mean he will deadass wait for you outside your house just to walk you to school

even if your house is all the way in jeju

and i can see that going on dates is never boring

be it like day dates

in the amusement park or just shopping at myeongdong

or in the arcade

one moment is never dull as daehwi will do anything and everything to make you happy

you want that plush toy?? 

hes gonna get it for you

i mean he is the 01′ version of golden child ukno

he can do everything

he got that fluffy unicorn for you in one try

and if ya’ll go out to see cherry blossoms(sigh its summer but ok lmao)

he would take rlly nice and aesthetic shots of you to post on sns

and couple pics,, ult goals ugh omg

and for eating

i saw one fanacc on twt that daehwi doesnt rlly eat well

:(

so as his girlfriend you sorta have to force him to eat

by eating as deliciously as you can

“babe look i’m eating this churro”

“mhm”

“it has condensed milk on it”

“mhm”

“i’m gonna buy a chocolate one”

“c-chocolate?”

“yeah”

/queues up in line for churros/

/gets 2 but eats both/

and be it night dates like exploring the dark town or at hangang river

he’s gonna be one of those boyfriends that use the “i’m cold” joke just to hug you

i mean daehwi’s cuddles are the best so

and go on slow walks

just enjoying each other’s presence

or maybe just a fun sleepover

watching studio ghibli

and of course,, we can’t miss out his cooking

he will deadass cook a 3 course meal for you

and you’re like

pls eat too, i cant finish all those

when ya’ll are watching the movie you would build a pillow fort and cuddle in there

“i really want a totoro irl”

“we can just get the stuffed toy, daehwi”

“no like,, the cat bus”

peck in between uninteresting parts

ya’ll might be throwing fluffy banter throughout the movie too lolol

and when you get sleepy halfway daehwi just grins to himself like an idiot and softly lulls you to sleep by singing

“goodnight jagi, i love you”

rip zechu pt 2

i can imagine daehwi being the big spoon tbh

bc he just loves you sm

he doesn’t want to lose you

OH and when he asks you who’s your bias in pd101

“jihoon-oppa”

“what has jihoon hyung’s wink done to you”

“i’m not voting for you anymore daehwi”

“oK IM SORRY”

he will practically beg you to come to the concept evaluations

bc he has worked so hard for the Never stage omg

and

his dancing

is art

a literal art i would frame up at the louvre

not to mention his singing too???????

pure honey 

when you visit him at backstage he would engulf you in a big big hug

“you did great up there,, daehwi-ah”

“its bc you’re watching me”

“aWWWWWWW”

guess who^

the Never team lmao

and also proud dad dongho lmao

he would avoid jihoon at all costs in case you fangirl and leave him alone lol

wow ok so ya’ll bump into jihoon which like have a tickle fight

“daehwi? is that your girlfriend?”

gOtTA bLaST

“n-no, its my friend...”

“oh really? i saw ya’ll hugging in the hallway just now”

“...”

“last long!”

“that’s,, park jihoon right??”

“no its park hoonji”

lmao daehwi you piece of shit

ya’ll rarely fight bc you guys are so loving both your parents and his parents practically want the both of you to get married lololol

ok i shall end it here my brain juice has run dry

please give daehwi lots of love

thanks

ok

have a good day/night friends

thank you for reading!

[theinfinityofonekamincik]

Just watched a vid with graphic depiction of a breakdown, realized i conciously coerced myself into a breakdown multiple times some time ago, realized that i actually fucking knew what i was doing but it still didn’t quite work because i still have very little idea as to what the hell my breakdowns are all about and memories are still not connected with emotion and emotion is still not quite processable, realized that my dad is an ass because i was in a highly vulnerable state and he tried to convince me it was one that would doom me, comparing me to his mother whom he hates and essentially speaking as though he was willing to put a cross on me because i had ‘schitzophrenia’ realized i decided to fall into that schitzophrenia idea and was heavily biased towards it because I Simply need to Understand Myself and if he doesn’t know it yet after every single time i told him that i only crave knowledge he’s even stupider than i am, because i bet that his inner reflex would also be to learn if he put his defences down at least a little 

But I get that’s scary. I really do. Whenever i would get high (yes i am still 15 yes i know it’s not good i don’t wanna care about that) i would have panic attacks, and first, i didn’t get why i still wanted most desparately to get high again- it was not pleasant, my brain did not feel pleased it felt horrible, overworked, overheated, overstimulated, it was a constant barge of slowly but surely going low-function 

The very first time I got high, the only difference I got was that I felt a lot sadder and it felt Natural, for once. I could feel. I could only feel. No lables. No reasons. I just felt I needed to care for people, to be perfect for people, and i also felt that i couldn’t leave for i had no desire for anything. I dont quite remember it, though it is possibly my clearest, most linear record. 

I was extremely high function. I etched it up to not having inhaled properly. I was... 14, I think. Yeah it was last winter i was defo 14 

The next few times, I got videos put on for me. I didn’t choose them. I managed to get lost in them quite well, until they became normal. Until I got used to the emotion, that pulled me so far away from the actual video and the real world all i remember is my uncontrolable, hysterical laughter from watching that one vid that i might find and share later, and how i couldn’t stop smiling and how it hurt my face, how I would shake and how i would try my best to explain it with arousal because arousal was NORMAL, it was NATURAL, it was OKAY TO EXPERIENCE while whatever I couldn’t put a finger on.. was not. 

I remember clearly when my dad put on some old rock for me. White dudes, black clothes, horrible video quality, easy to follow, neigh hypnotic rhythm. violent message. I danced to them, tryng my best to ignore both the clips and the lyrics. I... didn’t fail, per say, I just found upset in everything But the mood music. I remember dancing, and than feeling enough terror to fall to the floor- rather, sit down, my body is good at keeping itself in one piece- and need to hold myself up by the couch. I felt it because I’d been throwing careful glances at dad, because I Knew he put it on, and noticed him looking at me. I don’t feel comfortable talking about what I thought. It was that my father was... idk the words, but pedophelia was involved. The horror I experienced at both the fact I Thought That and the precieved danger is not something I want to repeat, but is probably something that had happened before, real or precieved because of how much information I had on sex since a very young age and how little anyone cared when I didn’t want that information. No, I am not saying sex ed is bad, I am saying that Consent is important, and that the entier vibe of sex as precieved by a child is Vile because of how secretive and horrible society is about it. 

I am shutting off. It’s only partly the sleep deprivation. Shock therapy is really wearing me thin, concidering I am my main support and i only had two sessions with a real therapist. I am basically trying to coerce myself into feeling safe within the boundaries of my own mind, to know that i can exist and rely on myself, which is not easy because well, i am 15, and i can’t. I can build some resemblance of emotional well being, some resemblance of control, but they will be fake- i... kinda learn my ways around that control one though. 

It’s hard to keep myself in check. To make sure I won’t try jumping to controling other people as well. To make sure I don’t fall into a dangerous set of belief. To make sure my back doesn’t hurt, which i can’t really do but am Meant to do. To make sure I look Good- which I am fighting, what i really need is to make sure I am healthy, not anyting about my looks, but society is hell. Also can’t be healthy without hospital, possible need pills- definetly need some pills for anxiety purpouses, being able to ignore it is great but i keep forgeting the reciet, though i at least don’t feel bad about it and had found a way to not go to a dark- or rather, blind- place whenever i walk outside. 

Ironically, it’s by going to a blind place- headphones, the answer is headphones, it’s so much easier to block people out with headphones and to ignore precived danger, and i figured, if nothing bad happens, danger has no reason to pick up- have at least one reason for why that is wrong, that reason being chaos factor, but well 

Recently, got my shoulder hit on a railing. It hurts. I just felt it for the first time in forever, because I strained it and failed to notice, which is not a good way to put it- I went to the blind place again, to a place i can Ignore, to the place i get to ignore Pain, and well 

idk 

i know i don’t feel good 

i just wat to not exist, or well, die if you will 

I don’t wanna commit suicide tho 

My first thought when precived danger was a plane crash was something along the lines of death being inevitable 

I find comfort in death, though not in an ‘edgy’ way whatever that means 

I find comfort in the fact that it doesn’t matter, i find comfort in the fact that it is certain, i find comfort in the fact it’s happened to people before and well, humanity as a whole stands just like the universe will stand when the last human dies, just like it will all blow up into something 

I have no idea what I’m saying, and it’s only partly from sleep deprivation. It’s still part of the process, tho. memory or no memory, it matters. everything matters. isn’t that lovely, how humans brain work? In tandem with the universe, out of synch with each other, in dissaray with itself. Those are not quite the words. The human brain tries to deal with general unpredictability and randomness of things by trying to put them into order, which might sound logical but It’s Not. It’s... Backwards. It’s weird. It feels so intuitive I can logic it only with something as intuitive, but that is noy logic. Logic makes sense in the long run, logic has predictive power, logic is order of a certin kind but logic has nothing to do with order, it explains the mess, drwas lines between random things tying them together, it feels like a connect the dots scenario and it can be written down, it can be documented 

Intuition can not 

Well it can, but we don’t have a level of languge to convey it yet, and when we will- if we will- intuition will stop being intuition and will become, in itself, logic. Just, by then, it will stop being ‘belief for the sake of belief’, or ‘belief in spite of everything’, or ‘belief’ with no other specification, it will be complex and more like ‘belief based on fact’, and can that really be called belief? I think it can. We do have to believe our senses an awful lot. This could all be a simulation for all that we care. 

I am not okay 

gotta sleep but that won’t happen yet, will it? ah well, i need some time to sizzle over, to chill my frontal lobe a bit, to let myself feel for once. hopefully it winds up working. 

[trendingnewsb]

The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life: the new sleep science

Leading neuroscientist Matthew Walker on why sleep deprivation is increasing our risk of cancer, heart attack and Alzheimers and what you can do about it

Matthew Walker has learned to dread the question What do you do? At parties, it signals the end of his evening; thereafter, his new acquaintance will inevitably cling to him like ivy. On an aeroplane, it usually means that while everyone else watches movies or reads a thriller, he will find himself running an hours-long salon for the benefit of passengers and crew alike. Ive begun to lie, he says. Seriously. I just tell people Im a dolphin trainer. Its better for everyone.

Walker is a sleep scientist. To be specific, he is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute whose goal possibly unachievable is to understand everything about sleeps impact on us, from birth to death, in sickness and health. No wonder, then, that people long for his counsel. As the line between work and leisure grows ever more blurred, rare is the person who doesnt worry about their sleep. But even as we contemplate the shadows beneath our eyes, most of us dont know the half of it and perhaps this is the real reason he has stopped telling strangers how he makes his living. When Walker talks about sleep he cant, in all conscience, limit himself to whispering comforting nothings about camomile tea and warm baths. Its his conviction that we are in the midst of a catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic, the consequences of which are far graver than any of us could imagine. This situation, he believes, is only likely to change if government gets involved.

Walker has spent the last four and a half years writing Why We Sleep, a complex but urgent book that examines the effects of this epidemic close up, the idea being that once people know of the powerful links between sleep loss and, among other things, Alzheimers disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and poor mental health, they will try harder to get the recommended eight hours a night (sleep deprivation, amazing as this may sound to Donald Trump types, constitutes anything less than seven hours). But, in the end, the individual can achieve only so much. Walker wants major institutions and law-makers to take up his ideas, too. No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by sleep deprivation, he says. It sinks down into every possible nook and cranny. And yet no one is doing anything about it. Things have to change: in the workplace and our communities, our homes and families. But when did you ever see an NHS poster urging sleep on people? When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritised, even incentivised. Sleep loss costs the UK economy over 30bn a year in lost revenue, or 2% of GDP. I could double the NHS budget if only they would institute policies to mandate or powerfully encourage sleep.

Why, exactly, are we so sleep-deprived? What has happened over the course of the last 75 years? In 1942, less than 8% of the population was trying to survive on six hours or less sleep a night; in 2017, almost one in two people is. The reasons are seemingly obvious. First, we electrified the night, Walker says. Light is a profound degrader of our sleep. Second, there is the issue of work: not only the porous borders between when you start and finish, but longer commuter times, too. No one wants to give up time with their family or entertainment, so they give up sleep instead. And anxiety plays a part. Were a lonelier, more depressed society. Alcohol and caffeine are more widely available. All these are the enemies of sleep.

But Walker believes, too, that in the developed world sleep is strongly associated with weakness, even shame. We have stigmatised sleep with the label of laziness. We want to seem busy, and one way we express that is by proclaiming how little sleep were getting. Its a badge of honour. When I give lectures, people will wait behind until there is no one around and then tell me quietly: I seem to be one of those people who need eight or nine hours sleep. Its embarrassing to say it in public. They would rather wait 45 minutes for the confessional. Theyre convinced that theyre abnormal, and why wouldnt they be? We chastise people for sleeping what are, after all, only sufficient amounts. We think of them as slothful. No one would look at an infant baby asleep, and say What a lazy baby! We know sleeping is non-negotiable for a baby. But that notion is quickly abandoned [as we grow up]. Humans are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason. In case youre wondering, the number of people who can survive on five hours of sleep or less without any impairment, expressed as a percent of the population and rounded to a whole number, is zero.

The world of sleep science is still relatively small. But it is growing exponentially, thanks both to demand (the multifarious and growing pressures caused by the epidemic) and to new technology (such as electrical and magnetic brain stimulators), which enables researchers to have what Walker describes as VIP access to the sleeping brain. Walker, who is 44 and was born in Liverpool, has been in the field for more than 20 years, having published his first research paper at the age of just 21. I would love to tell you that I was fascinated by conscious states from childhood, he says. But in truth, it was accidental. He started out studying for a medical degree in Nottingham. But having discovered that doctoring wasnt for him he was more enthralled by questions than by answers he switched to neuroscience, and after graduation, began a PhD in neurophysiology supported by the Medical Research Council. It was while working on this that he stumbled into the realm of sleep.

Matthew Walker photographed in his sleep lab. Photograph: Saroyan Humphrey for the Observer

I was looking at the brainwave patterns of people with different forms of dementia, but I was failing miserably at finding any difference between them, he recalls now. One night, however, he read a scientific paper that changed everything. It described which parts of the brain were being attacked by these different types of dementia: Some were attacking parts of the brain that had to do with controlled sleep, while other types left those sleep centres unaffected. I realised my mistake. I had been measuring the brainwave activity of my patients while they were awake, when I should have been doing so while they were asleep. Over the next six months, Walker taught himself how to set up a sleep laboratory and, sure enough, the recordings he made in it subsequently spoke loudly of a clear difference between patients. Sleep, it seemed, could be a new early diagnostic litmus test for different subtypes of dementia.

After this, sleep became his obsession. Only then did I ask: what is this thing called sleep, and what does it do? I was always curious, annoyingly so, but when I started to read about sleep, I would look up and hours would have gone by. No one could answer the simple question: why do we sleep? That seemed to me to be the greatest scientific mystery. I was going to attack it, and I was going to do that in two years. But I was naive. I didnt realise that some of the greatest scientific minds had been trying to do the same thing for their entire careers. That was two decades ago, and Im still cracking away. After gaining his doctorate, he moved to the US. Formerly a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he is now professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California.

Does his obsession extend to the bedroom? Does he take his own advice when it comes to sleep? Yes. I give myself a non-negotiable eight-hour sleep opportunity every night, and I keep very regular hours: if there is one thing I tell people, its to go to bed and to wake up at the same time every day, no matter what. I take my sleep incredibly seriously because I have seen the evidence. Once you know that after just one night of only four or five hours sleep, your natural killer cells the ones that attack the cancer cells that appear in your body every day drop by 70%, or that a lack of sleep is linked to cancer of the bowel, prostate and breast, or even just that the World Health Organisation has classed any form of night-time shift work as a probable carcinogen, how could you do anything else?

There is, however, a sting in the tale. Should his eyelids fail to close, Walker admits that he can be a touch Woody Allen-neurotic. When, for instance, he came to London over the summer, he found himself jet-lagged and wide awake in his hotel room at two oclock in the morning. His problem then, as always in these situations, was that he knew too much. His brain began to race. I thought: my orexin isnt being turned off, the sensory gate of my thalamus is wedged open, my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex wont shut down, and my melatonin surge wont happen for another seven hours. What did he do? In the end, it seems, even world experts in sleep act just like the rest of us when struck by the curse of insomnia. He turned on a light and read for a while.

Will Why We Sleep have the impact its author hopes? Im not sure: the science bits, it must be said, require some concentration. But what I can tell you is that it had a powerful effect on me. After reading it, I was absolutely determined to go to bed earlier a regime to which I am sticking determinedly. In a way, I was prepared for this. I first encountered Walker some months ago, when he spoke at an event at Somerset House in London, and he struck me then as both passionate and convincing (our later interview takes place via Skype from the basement of his sleep centre, a spot which, with its bedrooms off a long corridor, apparently resembles the ward of a private hospital). But in another way, it was unexpected. I am mostly immune to health advice. Inside my head, there is always a voice that says just enjoy life while it lasts.

The evidence Walker presents, however, is enough to send anyone early to bed. Its no kind of choice at all. Without sleep, there is low energy and disease. With sleep, there is vitality and health. More than 20 large scale epidemiological studies all report the same clear relationship: the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. To take just one example, adults aged 45 years or older who sleep less than six hours a night are 200% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in their lifetime, as compared with those sleeping seven or eight hours a night (part of the reason for this has to do with blood pressure: even just one night of modest sleep reduction will speed the rate of a persons heart, hour upon hour, and significantly increase their blood pressure).

A lack of sleep also appears to hijack the bodys effective control of blood sugar, the cells of the sleep-deprived appearing, in experiments, to become less responsive to insulin, and thus to cause a prediabetic state of hyperglycaemia. When your sleep becomes short, moreover, you are susceptible to weight gain. Among the reasons for this are the fact that inadequate sleep decreases levels of the satiety-signalling hormone, leptin, and increases levels of the hunger-signalling hormone, ghrelin. Im not going to say that the obesity crisis is caused by the sleep-loss epidemic alone, says Walker. Its not. However, processed food and sedentary lifestyles do not adequately explain its rise. Something is missing. Its now clear that sleep is that third ingredient. Tiredness, of course, also affects motivation.

Sleep has a powerful effect on the immune system, which is why, when we have flu, our first instinct is to go to bed: our body is trying to sleep itself well. Reduce sleep even for a single night, and your resilience is drastically reduced. If you are tired, you are more likely to catch a cold. The well-rested also respond better to the flu vaccine. As Walker has already said, more gravely, studies show that short sleep can affect our cancer-fighting immune cells. A number of epidemiological studies have reported that night-time shift work and the disruption to circadian sleep and rhythms that it causes increase the odds of developing cancers including breast, prostate, endometrium and colon.

Getting too little sleep across the adult lifespan will significantly raise your risk of developing Alzheimers disease. The reasons for this are difficult to summarise, but in essence it has to do with the amyloid deposits (a toxin protein) that accumulate in the brains of those suffering from the disease, killing the surrounding cells. During deep sleep, such deposits are effectively cleaned from the brain. What occurs in an Alzheimers patient is a kind of vicious circle. Without sufficient sleep, these plaques build up, especially in the brains deep-sleep-generating regions, attacking and degrading them. The loss of deep sleep caused by this assault therefore lessens our ability to remove them from the brain at night. More amyloid, less deep sleep; less deep sleep, more amyloid, and so on. (In his book, Walker notes unscientifically that he has always found it curious that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, both of whom were vocal about how little sleep they needed, both went on to develop the disease; it is, moreover, a myth that older adults need less sleep.) Away from dementia, sleep aids our ability to make new memories, and restores our capacity for learning.

And then there is sleeps effect on mental health. When your mother told you that everything would look better in the morning, she was wise. Walkers book includes a long section on dreams (which, says Walker, contrary to Dr Freud, cannot be analysed). Here he details the various ways in which the dream state connects to creativity. He also suggests that dreaming is a soothing balm. If we sleep to remember (see above), then we also sleep to forget. Deep sleep the part when we begin to dream is a therapeutic state during which we cast off the emotional charge of our experiences, making them easier to bear. Sleep, or a lack of it, also affects our mood more generally. Brain scans carried out by Walker revealed a 60% amplification in the reactivity of the amygdala a key spot for triggering anger and rage in those who were sleep-deprived. In children, sleeplessness has been linked to aggression and bullying; in adolescents, to suicidal thoughts. Insufficient sleep is also associated with relapse in addiction disorders. A prevailing view in psychiatry is that mental disorders cause sleep disruption. But Walker believes it is, in fact, a two-way street. Regulated sleep can improve the health of, for instance, those with bipolar disorder.

Ive mentioned deep sleep in this (too brief) summary several times. What is it, exactly? We sleep in 90-minute cycles, and its only towards the end of each one of these that we go into deep sleep. Each cycle comprises two kinds of sleep. First, there is NREM sleep (non-rapid eye movement sleep); this is then followed by REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. When Walker talks about these cycles, which still have their mysteries, his voice changes. He sounds bewitched, almost dazed.

During NREM sleep, your brain goes into this incredible synchronised pattern of rhythmic chanting, he says. Theres a remarkable unity across the surface of the brain, like a deep, slow mantra. Researchers were once fooled that this state was similar to a coma. But nothing could be further from the truth. Vast amounts of memory processing is going on. To produce these brainwaves, hundreds of thousands of cells all sing together, and then go silent, and on and on. Meanwhile, your body settles into this lovely low state of energy, the best blood-pressure medicine you could ever hope for. REM sleep, on the other hand, is sometimes known as paradoxical sleep, because the brain patterns are identical to when youre awake. Its an incredibly active brain state. Your heart and nervous system go through spurts of activity: were still not exactly sure why.

Does the 90-minute cycle mean that so-called power naps are worthless? They can take the edge off basic sleepiness. But you need 90 minutes to get to deep sleep, and one cycle isnt enough to do all the work. You need four or five cycles to get all the benefit. Is it possible to have too much sleep? This is unclear. There is no good evidence at the moment. But I do think 14 hours is too much. Too much water can kill you, and too much food, and I think ultimately the same will prove to be true for sleep. How is it possible to tell if a person is sleep-deprived? Walker thinks we should trust our instincts. Those who would sleep on if their alarm clock was turned off are simply not getting enough. Ditto those who need caffeine in the afternoon to stay awake. I see it all the time, he says. I get on a flight at 10am when people should be at peak alert, and I look around, and half of the plane has immediately fallen asleep.

So what can the individual do? First, they should avoid pulling all-nighters, at their desks or on the dancefloor. After being awake for 19 hours, youre as cognitively impaired as someone who is drunk. Second, they should start thinking about sleep as a kind of work, like going to the gym (with the key difference that it is both free and, if youre me, enjoyable). People use alarms to wake up, Walker says. So why dont we have a bedtime alarm to tell us weve got half an hour, that we should start cycling down? We should start thinking of midnight more in terms of its original meaning: as the middle of the night. Schools should consider later starts for students; such delays correlate with improved IQs. Companies should think about rewarding sleep. Productivity will rise, and motivation, creativity and even levels of honesty will be improved. Sleep can be measured using tracking devices, and some far-sighted companies in the US already give employees time off if they clock enough of it. Sleeping pills, by the way, are to be avoided. Among other things, they can have a deleterious effect on memory.

Those who are focused on so-called clean sleep are determined to outlaw mobiles and computers from the bedroom and quite right, too, given the effect of LED-emitting devices on melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone. Ultimately, though, Walker believes that technology will be sleeps saviour. There is going to be a revolution in the quantified self in industrial nations, he says. We will know everything about our bodies from one day to the next in high fidelity. That will be a seismic shift, and we will then start to develop methods by which we can amplify different components of human sleep, and do that from the bedside. Sleep will come to be seen as a preventive medicine.

What questions does Walker still most want to answer? For a while, he is quiet. Its so difficult, he says, with a sigh. There are so many. I would still like to know where we go, psychologically and physiologically, when we dream. Dreaming is the second state of human consciousness, and we have only scratched the surface so far. But I would also like to find out when sleep emerged. I like to posit a ridiculous theory, which is: perhaps sleep did not evolve. Perhaps it was the thing from which wakefulness emerged. He laughs. If I could have some kind of medical Tardis and go back in time to look at that, well, I would sleep better at night.

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreamsby Matthew Walker is published by Allen Lane (20). To order a copy for 17 go toguardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99

Sleep in numbers

Two-thirds of adults in developed nations fail to obtain the nightly eight hours of sleep recommended by the World Health Organisation.

An adult sleeping only 6.75 hours a night would be predicted to live only to their early 60s without medical intervention.

A 2013 study reported that men who slept too little had a sperm count 29% lower than those who regularly get a full and restful nights sleep.

If you drive a car when you have had less than five hours sleep, you are 4.3 times more likely to be involved in a crash. If you drive having had four hours, you are 11.5 times more likely to be involved in an accident.

A hot bath aids sleep not because it makes you warm, but because your dilated blood vessels radiate inner heat, and your core body temperature drops. To successfully initiate sleep, your core temperature needs to drop about 1C.

The time taken to reach physical exhaustion by athletes who obtain anything less than eight hours of sleep, and especially less than six hours, drops by 10-30%.

There are now more than 100 diagnosed sleep disorders, of which insomnia is the mostcommon.

Morning types, who prefer to awake at or around dawn, make up about 40% of the population. Evening types, who prefer to go to bed late and wake up late, account for about 30%. The remaining 30% lie somewhere in between.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2weQZrI

from Viral News HQ http://ift.tt/2ylFZwz via Viral News HQ

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Leading neuroscientist Matthew Walker on why sleep deprivation is increasing our risk of cancer, heart attack and Alzheimers and what you can do about it

Matthew Walker has learned to dread the question What do you do? At parties, it signals the end of his evening; thereafter, his new acquaintance will inevitably cling to him like ivy. On an aeroplane, it usually means that while everyone else watches movies or reads a thriller, he will find himself running an hours-long salon for the benefit of passengers and crew alike. Ive begun to lie, he says. Seriously. I just tell people Im a dolphin trainer. Its better for everyone.

Walker is a sleep scientist. To be specific, he is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute whose goal possibly unachievable is to understand everything about sleeps impact on us, from birth to death, in sickness and health. No wonder, then, that people long for his counsel. As the line between work and leisure grows ever more blurred, rare is the person who doesnt worry about their sleep. But even as we contemplate the shadows beneath our eyes, most of us dont know the half of it and perhaps this is the real reason he has stopped telling strangers how he makes his living. When Walker talks about sleep he cant, in all conscience, limit himself to whispering comforting nothings about camomile tea and warm baths. Its his conviction that we are in the midst of a catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic, the consequences of which are far graver than any of us could imagine. This situation, he believes, is only likely to change if government gets involved.

Walker has spent the last four and a half years writing Why We Sleep, a complex but urgent book that examines the effects of this epidemic close up, the idea being that once people know of the powerful links between sleep loss and, among other things, Alzheimers disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and poor mental health, they will try harder to get the recommended eight hours a night (sleep deprivation, amazing as this may sound to Donald Trump types, constitutes anything less than seven hours). But, in the end, the individual can achieve only so much. Walker wants major institutions and law-makers to take up his ideas, too. No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by sleep deprivation, he says. It sinks down into every possible nook and cranny. And yet no one is doing anything about it. Things have to change: in the workplace and our communities, our homes and families. But when did you ever see an NHS poster urging sleep on people? When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritised, even incentivised. Sleep loss costs the UK economy over 30bn a year in lost revenue, or 2% of GDP. I could double the NHS budget if only they would institute policies to mandate or powerfully encourage sleep.

Why, exactly, are we so sleep-deprived? What has happened over the course of the last 75 years? In 1942, less than 8% of the population was trying to survive on six hours or less sleep a night; in 2017, almost one in two people is. The reasons are seemingly obvious. First, we electrified the night, Walker says. Light is a profound degrader of our sleep. Second, there is the issue of work: not only the porous borders between when you start and finish, but longer commuter times, too. No one wants to give up time with their family or entertainment, so they give up sleep instead. And anxiety plays a part. Were a lonelier, more depressed society. Alcohol and caffeine are more widely available. All these are the enemies of sleep.

But Walker believes, too, that in the developed world sleep is strongly associated with weakness, even shame. We have stigmatised sleep with the label of laziness. We want to seem busy, and one way we express that is by proclaiming how little sleep were getting. Its a badge of honour. When I give lectures, people will wait behind until there is no one around and then tell me quietly: I seem to be one of those people who need eight or nine hours sleep. Its embarrassing to say it in public. They would rather wait 45 minutes for the confessional. Theyre convinced that theyre abnormal, and why wouldnt they be? We chastise people for sleeping what are, after all, only sufficient amounts. We think of them as slothful. No one would look at an infant baby asleep, and say What a lazy baby! We know sleeping is non-negotiable for a baby. But that notion is quickly abandoned [as we grow up]. Humans are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason. In case youre wondering, the number of people who can survive on five hours of sleep or less without any impairment, expressed as a percent of the population and rounded to a whole number, is zero.

The world of sleep science is still relatively small. But it is growing exponentially, thanks both to demand (the multifarious and growing pressures caused by the epidemic) and to new technology (such as electrical and magnetic brain stimulators), which enables researchers to have what Walker describes as VIP access to the sleeping brain. Walker, who is 44 and was born in Liverpool, has been in the field for more than 20 years, having published his first research paper at the age of just 21. I would love to tell you that I was fascinated by conscious states from childhood, he says. But in truth, it was accidental. He started out studying for a medical degree in Nottingham. But having discovered that doctoring wasnt for him he was more enthralled by questions than by answers he switched to neuroscience, and after graduation, began a PhD in neurophysiology supported by the Medical Research Council. It was while working on this that he stumbled into the realm of sleep.

Matthew Walker photographed in his sleep lab. Photograph: Saroyan Humphrey for the Observer

I was looking at the brainwave patterns of people with different forms of dementia, but I was failing miserably at finding any difference between them, he recalls now. One night, however, he read a scientific paper that changed everything. It described which parts of the brain were being attacked by these different types of dementia: Some were attacking parts of the brain that had to do with controlled sleep, while other types left those sleep centres unaffected. I realised my mistake. I had been measuring the brainwave activity of my patients while they were awake, when I should have been doing so while they were asleep. Over the next six months, Walker taught himself how to set up a sleep laboratory and, sure enough, the recordings he made in it subsequently spoke loudly of a clear difference between patients. Sleep, it seemed, could be a new early diagnostic litmus test for different subtypes of dementia.

After this, sleep became his obsession. Only then did I ask: what is this thing called sleep, and what does it do? I was always curious, annoyingly so, but when I started to read about sleep, I would look up and hours would have gone by. No one could answer the simple question: why do we sleep? That seemed to me to be the greatest scientific mystery. I was going to attack it, and I was going to do that in two years. But I was naive. I didnt realise that some of the greatest scientific minds had been trying to do the same thing for their entire careers. That was two decades ago, and Im still cracking away. After gaining his doctorate, he moved to the US. Formerly a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he is now professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California.

Does his obsession extend to the bedroom? Does he take his own advice when it comes to sleep? Yes. I give myself a non-negotiable eight-hour sleep opportunity every night, and I keep very regular hours: if there is one thing I tell people, its to go to bed and to wake up at the same time every day, no matter what. I take my sleep incredibly seriously because I have seen the evidence. Once you know that after just one night of only four or five hours sleep, your natural killer cells the ones that attack the cancer cells that appear in your body every day drop by 70%, or that a lack of sleep is linked to cancer of the bowel, prostate and breast, or even just that the World Health Organisation has classed any form of night-time shift work as a probable carcinogen, how could you do anything else?

There is, however, a sting in the tale. Should his eyelids fail to close, Walker admits that he can be a touch Woody Allen-neurotic. When, for instance, he came to London over the summer, he found himself jet-lagged and wide awake in his hotel room at two oclock in the morning. His problem then, as always in these situations, was that he knew too much. His brain began to race. I thought: my orexin isnt being turned off, the sensory gate of my thalamus is wedged open, my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex wont shut down, and my melatonin surge wont happen for another seven hours. What did he do? In the end, it seems, even world experts in sleep act just like the rest of us when struck by the curse of insomnia. He turned on a light and read for a while.

Will Why We Sleep have the impact its author hopes? Im not sure: the science bits, it must be said, require some concentration. But what I can tell you is that it had a powerful effect on me. After reading it, I was absolutely determined to go to bed earlier a regime to which I am sticking determinedly. In a way, I was prepared for this. I first encountered Walker some months ago, when he spoke at an event at Somerset House in London, and he struck me then as both passionate and convincing (our later interview takes place via Skype from the basement of his sleep centre, a spot which, with its bedrooms off a long corridor, apparently resembles the ward of a private hospital). But in another way, it was unexpected. I am mostly immune to health advice. Inside my head, there is always a voice that says just enjoy life while it lasts.

The evidence Walker presents, however, is enough to send anyone early to bed. Its no kind of choice at all. Without sleep, there is low energy and disease. With sleep, there is vitality and health. More than 20 large scale epidemiological studies all report the same clear relationship: the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. To take just one example, adults aged 45 years or older who sleep less than six hours a night are 200% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in their lifetime, as compared with those sleeping seven or eight hours a night (part of the reason for this has to do with blood pressure: even just one night of modest sleep reduction will speed the rate of a persons heart, hour upon hour, and significantly increase their blood pressure).

A lack of sleep also appears to hijack the bodys effective control of blood sugar, the cells of the sleep-deprived appearing, in experiments, to become less responsive to insulin, and thus to cause a prediabetic state of hyperglycaemia. When your sleep becomes short, moreover, you are susceptible to weight gain. Among the reasons for this are the fact that inadequate sleep decreases levels of the satiety-signalling hormone, leptin, and increases levels of the hunger-signalling hormone, ghrelin. Im not going to say that the obesity crisis is caused by the sleep-loss epidemic alone, says Walker. Its not. However, processed food and sedentary lifestyles do not adequately explain its rise. Something is missing. Its now clear that sleep is that third ingredient. Tiredness, of course, also affects motivation.

Sleep has a powerful effect on the immune system, which is why, when we have flu, our first instinct is to go to bed: our body is trying to sleep itself well. Reduce sleep even for a single night, and your resilience is drastically reduced. If you are tired, you are more likely to catch a cold. The well-rested also respond better to the flu vaccine. As Walker has already said, more gravely, studies show that short sleep can affect our cancer-fighting immune cells. A number of epidemiological studies have reported that night-time shift work and the disruption to circadian sleep and rhythms that it causes increase the odds of developing cancers including breast, prostate, endometrium and colon.

Getting too little sleep across the adult lifespan will significantly raise your risk of developing Alzheimers disease. The reasons for this are difficult to summarise, but in essence it has to do with the amyloid deposits (a toxin protein) that accumulate in the brains of those suffering from the disease, killing the surrounding cells. During deep sleep, such deposits are effectively cleaned from the brain. What occurs in an Alzheimers patient is a kind of vicious circle. Without sufficient sleep, these plaques build up, especially in the brains deep-sleep-generating regions, attacking and degrading them. The loss of deep sleep caused by this assault therefore lessens our ability to remove them from the brain at night. More amyloid, less deep sleep; less deep sleep, more amyloid, and so on. (In his book, Walker notes unscientifically that he has always found it curious that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, both of whom were vocal about how little sleep they needed, both went on to develop the disease; it is, moreover, a myth that older adults need less sleep.) Away from dementia, sleep aids our ability to make new memories, and restores our capacity for learning.

And then there is sleeps effect on mental health. When your mother told you that everything would look better in the morning, she was wise. Walkers book includes a long section on dreams (which, says Walker, contrary to Dr Freud, cannot be analysed). Here he details the various ways in which the dream state connects to creativity. He also suggests that dreaming is a soothing balm. If we sleep to remember (see above), then we also sleep to forget. Deep sleep the part when we begin to dream is a therapeutic state during which we cast off the emotional charge of our experiences, making them easier to bear. Sleep, or a lack of it, also affects our mood more generally. Brain scans carried out by Walker revealed a 60% amplification in the reactivity of the amygdala a key spot for triggering anger and rage in those who were sleep-deprived. In children, sleeplessness has been linked to aggression and bullying; in adolescents, to suicidal thoughts. Insufficient sleep is also associated with relapse in addiction disorders. A prevailing view in psychiatry is that mental disorders cause sleep disruption. But Walker believes it is, in fact, a two-way street. Regulated sleep can improve the health of, for instance, those with bipolar disorder.

Ive mentioned deep sleep in this (too brief) summary several times. What is it, exactly? We sleep in 90-minute cycles, and its only towards the end of each one of these that we go into deep sleep. Each cycle comprises two kinds of sleep. First, there is NREM sleep (non-rapid eye movement sleep); this is then followed by REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. When Walker talks about these cycles, which still have their mysteries, his voice changes. He sounds bewitched, almost dazed.

During NREM sleep, your brain goes into this incredible synchronised pattern of rhythmic chanting, he says. Theres a remarkable unity across the surface of the brain, like a deep, slow mantra. Researchers were once fooled that this state was similar to a coma. But nothing could be further from the truth. Vast amounts of memory processing is going on. To produce these brainwaves, hundreds of thousands of cells all sing together, and then go silent, and on and on. Meanwhile, your body settles into this lovely low state of energy, the best blood-pressure medicine you could ever hope for. REM sleep, on the other hand, is sometimes known as paradoxical sleep, because the brain patterns are identical to when youre awake. Its an incredibly active brain state. Your heart and nervous system go through spurts of activity: were still not exactly sure why.

Does the 90-minute cycle mean that so-called power naps are worthless? They can take the edge off basic sleepiness. But you need 90 minutes to get to deep sleep, and one cycle isnt enough to do all the work. You need four or five cycles to get all the benefit. Is it possible to have too much sleep? This is unclear. There is no good evidence at the moment. But I do think 14 hours is too much. Too much water can kill you, and too much food, and I think ultimately the same will prove to be true for sleep. How is it possible to tell if a person is sleep-deprived? Walker thinks we should trust our instincts. Those who would sleep on if their alarm clock was turned off are simply not getting enough. Ditto those who need caffeine in the afternoon to stay awake. I see it all the time, he says. I get on a flight at 10am when people should be at peak alert, and I look around, and half of the plane has immediately fallen asleep.

So what can the individual do? First, they should avoid pulling all-nighters, at their desks or on the dancefloor. After being awake for 19 hours, youre as cognitively impaired as someone who is drunk. Second, they should start thinking about sleep as a kind of work, like going to the gym (with the key difference that it is both free and, if youre me, enjoyable). People use alarms to wake up, Walker says. So why dont we have a bedtime alarm to tell us weve got half an hour, that we should start cycling down? We should start thinking of midnight more in terms of its original meaning: as the middle of the night. Schools should consider later starts for students; such delays correlate with improved IQs. Companies should think about rewarding sleep. Productivity will rise, and motivation, creativity and even levels of honesty will be improved. Sleep can be measured using tracking devices, and some far-sighted companies in the US already give employees time off if they clock enough of it. Sleeping pills, by the way, are to be avoided. Among other things, they can have a deleterious effect on memory.

Those who are focused on so-called clean sleep are determined to outlaw mobiles and computers from the bedroom and quite right, too, given the effect of LED-emitting devices on melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone. Ultimately, though, Walker believes that technology will be sleeps saviour. There is going to be a revolution in the quantified self in industrial nations, he says. We will know everything about our bodies from one day to the next in high fidelity. That will be a seismic shift, and we will then start to develop methods by which we can amplify different components of human sleep, and do that from the bedside. Sleep will come to be seen as a preventive medicine.

What questions does Walker still most want to answer? For a while, he is quiet. Its so difficult, he says, with a sigh. There are so many. I would still like to know where we go, psychologically and physiologically, when we dream. Dreaming is the second state of human consciousness, and we have only scratched the surface so far. But I would also like to find out when sleep emerged. I like to posit a ridiculous theory, which is: perhaps sleep did not evolve. Perhaps it was the thing from which wakefulness emerged. He laughs. If I could have some kind of medical Tardis and go back in time to look at that, well, I would sleep better at night.

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreamsby Matthew Walker is published by Allen Lane (20). To order a copy for 17 go toguardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99

Sleep in numbers

Two-thirds of adults in developed nations fail to obtain the nightly eight hours of sleep recommended by the World Health Organisation.

An adult sleeping only 6.75 hours a night would be predicted to live only to their early 60s without medical intervention.

A 2013 study reported that men who slept too little had a sperm count 29% lower than those who regularly get a full and restful nights sleep.

If you drive a car when you have had less than five hours sleep, you are 4.3 times more likely to be involved in a crash. If you drive having had four hours, you are 11.5 times more likely to be involved in an accident.

A hot bath aids sleep not because it makes you warm, but because your dilated blood vessels radiate inner heat, and your core body temperature drops. To successfully initiate sleep, your core temperature needs to drop about 1C.

The time taken to reach physical exhaustion by athletes who obtain anything less than eight hours of sleep, and especially less than six hours, drops by 10-30%.

There are now more than 100 diagnosed sleep disorders, of which insomnia is the mostcommon.

Morning types, who prefer to awake at or around dawn, make up about 40% of the population. Evening types, who prefer to go to bed late and wake up late, account for about 30%. The remaining 30% lie somewhere in between.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/sep/24/why-lack-of-sleep-health-worst-enemy-matthew-walker-why-we-sleep

[marthadanielle]

I just woke up a little while ago and im still reeling because i had a ton of dreams last night which is weird to me because i usually cant remember my dreams. I use to wake up and wait to remember what i was dreaming about but too many times ive had anxious dreams rather than cool and funny dreams so ive stopped caring to try and remember what i dreamed about but wow i actually recall having like six different drams last night. its probably because ive been sleep deprived from a crazy work week and most of my dreams have something to do with whats been worrying me this week or stuff i was watching on youtube before i went to sleep including one cool dan and phil dream.

lately my car has had a little warning light on my dash but ive been procrastinating on it mostly cause i didnt have time this week to go get it checked out but i had this dream that i regretted not fixing it because my car had gone out of control and i couldnt stop it because the breaks werent working but than the car started tilting upright on two wheels and spinning around like a carnival ride and i was panicking and then a car flew by me in slow motion that was also spinning weirdly and then i could see the people in the car and i knew it was a drinking and driving incident and they looked like they were about to crash and then i saw other cars out of control like mine and i felt better because it meant there was something wrong with the cars in the world and not just me. Then I saw my dad in the passenger side and asked him what to do as if he knew everything and had all the answers because he’s an Adult™ but instead he was giving me the silent treatment like my parents do sometimes when i ask them a question or advice about something and they stay mute and act like they didnt hear me or dont have an opinion which frustrates me to no end. 

I had a dream someone gifted it us a lioness as a pet. i just got a dog a few months ago and so i was trying to handle both of them and i was so worried they wouldnt get along and get into a fight but they were both either sleeping under my bed together or on top of it. i think i dreamed this because before i went to bed i took my dog outside to do her business and she got loose from her leash and was running back and forth in excitement and she wouldnt let me catch her. i was too tired to deal with it so i went inside and just waited for her to start crying at the door that she wanted to come inside but also worried she would want to stay outside.

Then i had a dream i saw my boss at the grocery store parking lot. this week shes been around more often at work and i feel like i always manage to look bad in front of her. She is a nice lady but a strict boss and sometimes im scared she doesnt like me. In my dream i was walking to my car and i was almost there when i saw her coming this way so i looked down and pretended not to see her and was rushing to get in the car and then she passed right by me near the drivers side without acknowledging me and i felt offended she didnt say hi even though i was the one making an effort to avoid the awkwardness of running into her at the store. then the funny part was pewdiepie was getting into his car right next to me and it was this bright pink car. Its cause my boss is from Sweden and sometimes when I see her I remember Felix Lol And for some reason i told him this and he made some joke i didnt get was a joke and i felt lame. 

The most impressive dream was the Dan and Phil one. I dreamed that I had stepped outside for some air during the night (which i never do?) but then i was scared to go back in the house because i thought i was going to cause a racket and wake everybody up so i went to the movies instead at midnight?? As if that makes any sense. So apparently Dan and Phil had been working on a secret project that they hadnt told us about, you know like they always do, and it turned out they made a film. I went to the midnight showing and it was like a really artsy film that was going over my head a bit but really good. I’ve mind must have been really exhausted because i was falling asleep in my own dream. I was watching the movie but i kept blacking out. Its likd my mind was too tired to create the dream and i didnt want it to end.The film was telling us what their aspirations were and how they were moving on to different things but at the same time it was autobiographical because they played out scenes from their time in school and university. It had an original soundtrack and i couldnt figure out what the music was like. It was soooo long i had checked the time and it was 4:33AM and it still wasnt close to being over lol at first i thought it was only gonna be about Phil because his part went own for a while and then it started Dan’s story and there was an actor playing a little Dan who I guess was rapping about his school days but it was a very soft rap?? It was kinda like a music video but really long and kinda mysterious. I think its because before i went to sleep and had been watching a lot of youtube videos till i got drowsy and one of the things i watched was a fine bros reaction video to Melanie Martinez who i heard about but didnt really care cause i thought she was only popular with middle and high school aged teens who like anything but the age group reacting to the video were college kids my age and they were saying how good her music is and the music video had pastel and doll house aesthetics which i liked and they said all the music videos continue a story and she has merch of a story book and i was sold so i was binge watching her music videos and im not sure if im a fan yet but i liked the sound of her music and i just realized the dan and phil film was similar to how she was telling a story about herself and the style of music was the same so i guess thats were my brain was getting ideas from but i loved it either way

[trendingnewsb]

The shorter your sleep, the shorter your life: the new sleep science

Leading neuroscientist Matthew Walker on why sleep deprivation is increasing our risk of cancer, heart attack and Alzheimers and what you can do about it

Matthew Walker has learned to dread the question What do you do? At parties, it signals the end of his evening; thereafter, his new acquaintance will inevitably cling to him like ivy. On an aeroplane, it usually means that while everyone else watches movies or reads a thriller, he will find himself running an hours-long salon for the benefit of passengers and crew alike. Ive begun to lie, he says. Seriously. I just tell people Im a dolphin trainer. Its better for everyone.

Walker is a sleep scientist. To be specific, he is the director of the Center for Human Sleep Science at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute whose goal possibly unachievable is to understand everything about sleeps impact on us, from birth to death, in sickness and health. No wonder, then, that people long for his counsel. As the line between work and leisure grows ever more blurred, rare is the person who doesnt worry about their sleep. But even as we contemplate the shadows beneath our eyes, most of us dont know the half of it and perhaps this is the real reason he has stopped telling strangers how he makes his living. When Walker talks about sleep he cant, in all conscience, limit himself to whispering comforting nothings about camomile tea and warm baths. Its his conviction that we are in the midst of a catastrophic sleep-loss epidemic, the consequences of which are far graver than any of us could imagine. This situation, he believes, is only likely to change if government gets involved.

Walker has spent the last four and a half years writing Why We Sleep, a complex but urgent book that examines the effects of this epidemic close up, the idea being that once people know of the powerful links between sleep loss and, among other things, Alzheimers disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and poor mental health, they will try harder to get the recommended eight hours a night (sleep deprivation, amazing as this may sound to Donald Trump types, constitutes anything less than seven hours). But, in the end, the individual can achieve only so much. Walker wants major institutions and law-makers to take up his ideas, too. No aspect of our biology is left unscathed by sleep deprivation, he says. It sinks down into every possible nook and cranny. And yet no one is doing anything about it. Things have to change: in the workplace and our communities, our homes and families. But when did you ever see an NHS poster urging sleep on people? When did a doctor prescribe, not sleeping pills, but sleep itself? It needs to be prioritised, even incentivised. Sleep loss costs the UK economy over 30bn a year in lost revenue, or 2% of GDP. I could double the NHS budget if only they would institute policies to mandate or powerfully encourage sleep.

Why, exactly, are we so sleep-deprived? What has happened over the course of the last 75 years? In 1942, less than 8% of the population was trying to survive on six hours or less sleep a night; in 2017, almost one in two people is. The reasons are seemingly obvious. First, we electrified the night, Walker says. Light is a profound degrader of our sleep. Second, there is the issue of work: not only the porous borders between when you start and finish, but longer commuter times, too. No one wants to give up time with their family or entertainment, so they give up sleep instead. And anxiety plays a part. Were a lonelier, more depressed society. Alcohol and caffeine are more widely available. All these are the enemies of sleep.

But Walker believes, too, that in the developed world sleep is strongly associated with weakness, even shame. We have stigmatised sleep with the label of laziness. We want to seem busy, and one way we express that is by proclaiming how little sleep were getting. Its a badge of honour. When I give lectures, people will wait behind until there is no one around and then tell me quietly: I seem to be one of those people who need eight or nine hours sleep. Its embarrassing to say it in public. They would rather wait 45 minutes for the confessional. Theyre convinced that theyre abnormal, and why wouldnt they be? We chastise people for sleeping what are, after all, only sufficient amounts. We think of them as slothful. No one would look at an infant baby asleep, and say What a lazy baby! We know sleeping is non-negotiable for a baby. But that notion is quickly abandoned [as we grow up]. Humans are the only species that deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent reason. In case youre wondering, the number of people who can survive on five hours of sleep or less without any impairment, expressed as a percent of the population and rounded to a whole number, is zero.

The world of sleep science is still relatively small. But it is growing exponentially, thanks both to demand (the multifarious and growing pressures caused by the epidemic) and to new technology (such as electrical and magnetic brain stimulators), which enables researchers to have what Walker describes as VIP access to the sleeping brain. Walker, who is 44 and was born in Liverpool, has been in the field for more than 20 years, having published his first research paper at the age of just 21. I would love to tell you that I was fascinated by conscious states from childhood, he says. But in truth, it was accidental. He started out studying for a medical degree in Nottingham. But having discovered that doctoring wasnt for him he was more enthralled by questions than by answers he switched to neuroscience, and after graduation, began a PhD in neurophysiology supported by the Medical Research Council. It was while working on this that he stumbled into the realm of sleep.

Matthew Walker photographed in his sleep lab. Photograph: Saroyan Humphrey for the Observer

I was looking at the brainwave patterns of people with different forms of dementia, but I was failing miserably at finding any difference between them, he recalls now. One night, however, he read a scientific paper that changed everything. It described which parts of the brain were being attacked by these different types of dementia: Some were attacking parts of the brain that had to do with controlled sleep, while other types left those sleep centres unaffected. I realised my mistake. I had been measuring the brainwave activity of my patients while they were awake, when I should have been doing so while they were asleep. Over the next six months, Walker taught himself how to set up a sleep laboratory and, sure enough, the recordings he made in it subsequently spoke loudly of a clear difference between patients. Sleep, it seemed, could be a new early diagnostic litmus test for different subtypes of dementia.

After this, sleep became his obsession. Only then did I ask: what is this thing called sleep, and what does it do? I was always curious, annoyingly so, but when I started to read about sleep, I would look up and hours would have gone by. No one could answer the simple question: why do we sleep? That seemed to me to be the greatest scientific mystery. I was going to attack it, and I was going to do that in two years. But I was naive. I didnt realise that some of the greatest scientific minds had been trying to do the same thing for their entire careers. That was two decades ago, and Im still cracking away. After gaining his doctorate, he moved to the US. Formerly a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, he is now professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California.

Does his obsession extend to the bedroom? Does he take his own advice when it comes to sleep? Yes. I give myself a non-negotiable eight-hour sleep opportunity every night, and I keep very regular hours: if there is one thing I tell people, its to go to bed and to wake up at the same time every day, no matter what. I take my sleep incredibly seriously because I have seen the evidence. Once you know that after just one night of only four or five hours sleep, your natural killer cells the ones that attack the cancer cells that appear in your body every day drop by 70%, or that a lack of sleep is linked to cancer of the bowel, prostate and breast, or even just that the World Health Organisation has classed any form of night-time shift work as a probable carcinogen, how could you do anything else?

There is, however, a sting in the tale. Should his eyelids fail to close, Walker admits that he can be a touch Woody Allen-neurotic. When, for instance, he came to London over the summer, he found himself jet-lagged and wide awake in his hotel room at two oclock in the morning. His problem then, as always in these situations, was that he knew too much. His brain began to race. I thought: my orexin isnt being turned off, the sensory gate of my thalamus is wedged open, my dorsolateral prefrontal cortex wont shut down, and my melatonin surge wont happen for another seven hours. What did he do? In the end, it seems, even world experts in sleep act just like the rest of us when struck by the curse of insomnia. He turned on a light and read for a while.

Will Why We Sleep have the impact its author hopes? Im not sure: the science bits, it must be said, require some concentration. But what I can tell you is that it had a powerful effect on me. After reading it, I was absolutely determined to go to bed earlier a regime to which I am sticking determinedly. In a way, I was prepared for this. I first encountered Walker some months ago, when he spoke at an event at Somerset House in London, and he struck me then as both passionate and convincing (our later interview takes place via Skype from the basement of his sleep centre, a spot which, with its bedrooms off a long corridor, apparently resembles the ward of a private hospital). But in another way, it was unexpected. I am mostly immune to health advice. Inside my head, there is always a voice that says just enjoy life while it lasts.

The evidence Walker presents, however, is enough to send anyone early to bed. Its no kind of choice at all. Without sleep, there is low energy and disease. With sleep, there is vitality and health. More than 20 large scale epidemiological studies all report the same clear relationship: the shorter your sleep, the shorter your life. To take just one example, adults aged 45 years or older who sleep less than six hours a night are 200% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in their lifetime, as compared with those sleeping seven or eight hours a night (part of the reason for this has to do with blood pressure: even just one night of modest sleep reduction will speed the rate of a persons heart, hour upon hour, and significantly increase their blood pressure).

A lack of sleep also appears to hijack the bodys effective control of blood sugar, the cells of the sleep-deprived appearing, in experiments, to become less responsive to insulin, and thus to cause a prediabetic state of hyperglycaemia. When your sleep becomes short, moreover, you are susceptible to weight gain. Among the reasons for this are the fact that inadequate sleep decreases levels of the satiety-signalling hormone, leptin, and increases levels of the hunger-signalling hormone, ghrelin. Im not going to say that the obesity crisis is caused by the sleep-loss epidemic alone, says Walker. Its not. However, processed food and sedentary lifestyles do not adequately explain its rise. Something is missing. Its now clear that sleep is that third ingredient. Tiredness, of course, also affects motivation.

Sleep has a powerful effect on the immune system, which is why, when we have flu, our first instinct is to go to bed: our body is trying to sleep itself well. Reduce sleep even for a single night, and your resilience is drastically reduced. If you are tired, you are more likely to catch a cold. The well-rested also respond better to the flu vaccine. As Walker has already said, more gravely, studies show that short sleep can affect our cancer-fighting immune cells. A number of epidemiological studies have reported that night-time shift work and the disruption to circadian sleep and rhythms that it causes increase the odds of developing cancers including breast, prostate, endometrium and colon.

Getting too little sleep across the adult lifespan will significantly raise your risk of developing Alzheimers disease. The reasons for this are difficult to summarise, but in essence it has to do with the amyloid deposits (a toxin protein) that accumulate in the brains of those suffering from the disease, killing the surrounding cells. During deep sleep, such deposits are effectively cleaned from the brain. What occurs in an Alzheimers patient is a kind of vicious circle. Without sufficient sleep, these plaques build up, especially in the brains deep-sleep-generating regions, attacking and degrading them. The loss of deep sleep caused by this assault therefore lessens our ability to remove them from the brain at night. More amyloid, less deep sleep; less deep sleep, more amyloid, and so on. (In his book, Walker notes unscientifically that he has always found it curious that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, both of whom were vocal about how little sleep they needed, both went on to develop the disease; it is, moreover, a myth that older adults need less sleep.) Away from dementia, sleep aids our ability to make new memories, and restores our capacity for learning.

And then there is sleeps effect on mental health. When your mother told you that everything would look better in the morning, she was wise. Walkers book includes a long section on dreams (which, says Walker, contrary to Dr Freud, cannot be analysed). Here he details the various ways in which the dream state connects to creativity. He also suggests that dreaming is a soothing balm. If we sleep to remember (see above), then we also sleep to forget. Deep sleep the part when we begin to dream is a therapeutic state during which we cast off the emotional charge of our experiences, making them easier to bear. Sleep, or a lack of it, also affects our mood more generally. Brain scans carried out by Walker revealed a 60% amplification in the reactivity of the amygdala a key spot for triggering anger and rage in those who were sleep-deprived. In children, sleeplessness has been linked to aggression and bullying; in adolescents, to suicidal thoughts. Insufficient sleep is also associated with relapse in addiction disorders. A prevailing view in psychiatry is that mental disorders cause sleep disruption. But Walker believes it is, in fact, a two-way street. Regulated sleep can improve the health of, for instance, those with bipolar disorder.

Ive mentioned deep sleep in this (too brief) summary several times. What is it, exactly? We sleep in 90-minute cycles, and its only towards the end of each one of these that we go into deep sleep. Each cycle comprises two kinds of sleep. First, there is NREM sleep (non-rapid eye movement sleep); this is then followed by REM (rapid eye movement) sleep. When Walker talks about these cycles, which still have their mysteries, his voice changes. He sounds bewitched, almost dazed.

During NREM sleep, your brain goes into this incredible synchronised pattern of rhythmic chanting, he says. Theres a remarkable unity across the surface of the brain, like a deep, slow mantra. Researchers were once fooled that this state was similar to a coma. But nothing could be further from the truth. Vast amounts of memory processing is going on. To produce these brainwaves, hundreds of thousands of cells all sing together, and then go silent, and on and on. Meanwhile, your body settles into this lovely low state of energy, the best blood-pressure medicine you could ever hope for. REM sleep, on the other hand, is sometimes known as paradoxical sleep, because the brain patterns are identical to when youre awake. Its an incredibly active brain state. Your heart and nervous system go through spurts of activity: were still not exactly sure why.

Does the 90-minute cycle mean that so-called power naps are worthless? They can take the edge off basic sleepiness. But you need 90 minutes to get to deep sleep, and one cycle isnt enough to do all the work. You need four or five cycles to get all the benefit. Is it possible to have too much sleep? This is unclear. There is no good evidence at the moment. But I do think 14 hours is too much. Too much water can kill you, and too much food, and I think ultimately the same will prove to be true for sleep. How is it possible to tell if a person is sleep-deprived? Walker thinks we should trust our instincts. Those who would sleep on if their alarm clock was turned off are simply not getting enough. Ditto those who need caffeine in the afternoon to stay awake. I see it all the time, he says. I get on a flight at 10am when people should be at peak alert, and I look around, and half of the plane has immediately fallen asleep.

So what can the individual do? First, they should avoid pulling all-nighters, at their desks or on the dancefloor. After being awake for 19 hours, youre as cognitively impaired as someone who is drunk. Second, they should start thinking about sleep as a kind of work, like going to the gym (with the key difference that it is both free and, if youre me, enjoyable). People use alarms to wake up, Walker says. So why dont we have a bedtime alarm to tell us weve got half an hour, that we should start cycling down? We should start thinking of midnight more in terms of its original meaning: as the middle of the night. Schools should consider later starts for students; such delays correlate with improved IQs. Companies should think about rewarding sleep. Productivity will rise, and motivation, creativity and even levels of honesty will be improved. Sleep can be measured using tracking devices, and some far-sighted companies in the US already give employees time off if they clock enough of it. Sleeping pills, by the way, are to be avoided. Among other things, they can have a deleterious effect on memory.

Those who are focused on so-called clean sleep are determined to outlaw mobiles and computers from the bedroom and quite right, too, given the effect of LED-emitting devices on melatonin, the sleep-inducing hormone. Ultimately, though, Walker believes that technology will be sleeps saviour. There is going to be a revolution in the quantified self in industrial nations, he says. We will know everything about our bodies from one day to the next in high fidelity. That will be a seismic shift, and we will then start to develop methods by which we can amplify different components of human sleep, and do that from the bedside. Sleep will come to be seen as a preventive medicine.

What questions does Walker still most want to answer? For a while, he is quiet. Its so difficult, he says, with a sigh. There are so many. I would still like to know where we go, psychologically and physiologically, when we dream. Dreaming is the second state of human consciousness, and we have only scratched the surface so far. But I would also like to find out when sleep emerged. I like to posit a ridiculous theory, which is: perhaps sleep did not evolve. Perhaps it was the thing from which wakefulness emerged. He laughs. If I could have some kind of medical Tardis and go back in time to look at that, well, I would sleep better at night.

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreamsby Matthew Walker is published by Allen Lane (20). To order a copy for 17 go toguardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99

Sleep in numbers

Two-thirds of adults in developed nations fail to obtain the nightly eight hours of sleep recommended by the World Health Organisation.

An adult sleeping only 6.75 hours a night would be predicted to live only to their early 60s without medical intervention.

A 2013 study reported that men who slept too little had a sperm count 29% lower than those who regularly get a full and restful nights sleep.

If you drive a car when you have had less than five hours sleep, you are 4.3 times more likely to be involved in a crash. If you drive having had four hours, you are 11.5 times more likely to be involved in an accident.

A hot bath aids sleep not because it makes you warm, but because your dilated blood vessels radiate inner heat, and your core body temperature drops. To successfully initiate sleep, your core temperature needs to drop about 1C.

The time taken to reach physical exhaustion by athletes who obtain anything less than eight hours of sleep, and especially less than six hours, drops by 10-30%.

There are now more than 100 diagnosed sleep disorders, of which insomnia is the mostcommon.

Morning types, who prefer to awake at or around dawn, make up about 40% of the population. Evening types, who prefer to go to bed late and wake up late, account for about 30%. The remaining 30% lie somewhere in between.

Read more: http://ift.tt/2weQZrI

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