#i wonder if nyc has any cosplay themed figure drawing nights..

[judgedarts]

sketches i did during the dark magician girl themed figure drawing night at @gallerynucleus (plus my favorites)!

[dropintomanga]

Junji Ito Was Right - Get Some Sleep

Earlier this year, Junji Ito, probably the most well-known horror mangaka today, was at Toronto Comic Art Festival to meet and greet fans of his works. He talked about a bunch of things and one of his remarks made a big splash on the internet - which was about sleep.

Ito said that everyone should get enough sleep and that the best ideas come to you when you do sleep well.

Now as I’m personally going through a case of either sleep apnea or insomnia or maybe both, he has a damn good point.

Around spring of this year, my pet finch of 12 years died. Seeing his dead body bought me down to my knees and I was struggling to figure out what to do with him. I thought about cremation and then I learned how expensive it is to cremate a pet in New York City. Cremating a dog in my area costs $230 USD. My bird would cost probably $60. I wish I could have buried him, but the urban landscape of NYC doesn’t have good space for such a things compared to other parts of the U.S. I had to throw him away in the trash as I discussed the issue with my family. 

Since that incident, my sleep hygiene slowly fell off the map. I started waking up in the middle of the night after a dream. I didn’t think much of it at the start of it all. Then one night around August 2019, I woke up after a sudden dream and couldn’t go back to sleep. That’s when the constant waking became a problem. I rushed to see a neurologist who freaked me out, went to an ENT, and then to some sleep physician who suggested a sleep study (which I haven’t done yet).

In-between all of this, I’ve been struggling to look for answers on how to cope with my fractured sleep. Even though I keep my sleep schedule, the frequent wakings began to distract me. My head was racing, my heart was aching, and I just wanted to cry. 

I had two horrible dreams. One was about seeing children being used in some news report to draw attention to some tragedy. One of the child was shown crying, but their face was scary. I had some control and said it was fake news as in real life, I’m wary of how media outlets try to target our raw emotions with children to get views.

The 2nd nightmare involved a man who killed someone in front of my place. He killed that person with some electric powers. My dad said “I saw everything” and the killer decided to rush to my door. I locked the door right away, Then I woke up.

There was one good dream I had through all of this. I even wrote it all down on a journal. I was with some Asian girls who were all into anime and also my best friend. We all hung out in the Bay Area checking out anime-themed events. I was in a cosplay contest and beat a female cosplayer who was a bit of a drama queen. I asked one of the girls on how I managed to win and she said that I showed more genuine heart than my rival. I told the girls that we would have to part and they sounded sad. It had to be done as I woke up shortly thereafter.

That dream was wonderful because it meshed a lot of things I loved about life.

And I wonder how any of this frequent dreaming is any good. What I want to say is that sleep is important for anyone who has mental health issues. We’ve all been down that road where we think about what happened that hurt us and it seems like the road never ends. It keeps us up all day and night. Bad sleep can lead to depression and anxiety or magnifies them to a huge degree. 

I started to force myself to sleep. I kept asking myself “Why can’t I go to sleep?” I was telling myself to sleep because I need it. All that led to me just jumpy and my brain treating my bed like it was a chair to sit on, not a place to sleep. Please don’t treat sleep like it’s a job. I know it’s not easy as it feels like there’s so much to do with the limited time we have. I do think we have to change our perception of time and that’s another topic altogether.

Anyway, I’ve been doing research on sleep disorders for the sake of my mental health. I realize how crazy it is that people worship the idea of sleep being a problem. They equate rest with laziness when that’s not the truth. There’s also problems on the other side of the spectrum. People who want to emphasize good sleep talk about what happens when you don’t. They shout things like you will get cancer/diabetes/etc. Not getting enough sleep does do harm, but how does using a fright tactic really help anyone?

I know late night anime and gaming are big parts in some fans’ lives and will tell them to “go do you.” In fact, maybe they can help with sleep problems. There was one fun story I read in my research from a book called Sleepyhead where someone with cataplexy, a huge problem associated with narcolepsy where your body just crumbles from experiencing heavy emotion of any kind, actually does a pseudo-Dragon Ball Z Super Saiyan transformation method to deal with sudden cataplectic seizures. He closes his eyes, breathes in, yells and roles his eyeballs to the point of being dilated. The man also emphasized on keeping your ears open. He’s noted to be a unique person who had the ability to withstand and stop cataplexy when it strikes him.

Right now for me, I’m still trying to figure out what my sleep problem is. I’ve tried a bunch of things to some success and failure. I wonder if there’s more to the situation as I learned that some parts of my body might be flawed and my home environment may not exactly be the most comfortable. I don’t feel too compelled to blog because I’m scared I’m losing my memory due to lack of sleep. I do realize that my fears might be stretching it a bit as I’m writing this right now.

So please, if you’re working really hard to get ahead in life and sacrificing sleep for it, it’s not worth it or should I say, it’s worth not sacrificing sleep as you’ll get the much-needed energy of a young shonen protagonist who wants to move ahead as much you do. If you all have sleep problems and/or advice to share, feel free to share!