counting sheeps

part 1:..... dreaming
part 2:..... sleep paralysis
part 3:..... 100 black cats

i wish i could provide better images but I have to avoid copyrights and I dont wanna only use ai generated images either, so thats why theres a couple of rly bad illustrations hand drawn by me (im a super noob when it comes to drawing!)

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part 1
dreaming is something we all do. both humans and other mammals, and its believed that several bird species have their own unique spin on the process as well. even some reptiles has been suspected to dream too, but we still dont have decently enough evidence yet. tho If it is true that both reptiles, birds, and mammals all dream, it means that the process originated as far back as 350 million years ago when the three species shared a common ancestor; the amniote.

although the exact reasons to why we dream in the first place is still not fully understood, its clear that its an important part of healthy sleeping, that has been developed thru evolution for a reason. good sleep has been connected to better cognitive function and emotional health, and studies have also linked dreams to effective thinking, memory, and emotional processing.

sometimes dreams can be truly inspiring, so inspiring it motivates us to bring them up to life! for instance did u know Einsteins mighty theory of relativity ultimately first was inspired by a dream?

"One of history’s most famous physicists, Albert Einstien deamt that he was walking through a farm where he found a herd of cows huddled up against an electric fence. When the farmer suddenly switched the electric fence on, he saw the cows jump back at the same time – although the farmer saw them jump one by one in a Mexican wave.
That’s what inspired Einstein’s Theory of Relativity – that events look different depending on where you’re standing, because of the time it takes the light to reach your eyes."

(copy and pasted from this website https://www.bedguru.co.uk/9-inventions-inspired-by-dreams there's also 8 more cool stories included there if ur interested)

other times dreams can be straight up terrifying. nightmares so horrorish not even the greatest writers from hollywood could come up with. tho then on the other hand somethimes they can be just amazing. whether its a dream about pretty landscapes or love or flying. they can be as beautiful as only our deepest depths of human imagination can shine up to life.

most times however, or at least for me, my dreams are way most often just nonstop random nonsense, the one after the other. dumb surrealistic stuff where the weirdness really have no boundaries. if my dreams can be that reducilously weird I can only imagine just what kinda next level surreallistic the dreams for other animals can be!

fun fact: the brainwaves are almost as active under REM sleep as it is when we're awake

interestingly we don't have any control whatsoever, everything just kinda happens, so to speak. its hard to imagine not having a consciousness as we're so used to have the mind to be self aware. its like as the great French mathematical and philosopher famously coined; "I think, therefore I am." but when we dream there's no such thing. like were still very much ourselves but without the constant sharp mind of consciousness and control, and that's what makes dreaming so fascinating to me.

really the dream could be as unrealistic and -just borderline cartoonishly surrealistic as possible, and yet it would still somehow feel just right. like as if this is the universe I've been born and raised in all this time. it isn't before after (or in some cases right before) you wake up u realise how ridiculous everything actually was and it was indeed just a dream

lucid dreaming is an exceptional type of dream where u eventually realize ur dreaming and thus gain full consciousness and control. for most of us its super rare to have, but there are ways u can "learn" urself to get them more frequently (the post is from CN's Ed Edd n Eddy show)

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part 2
dreams mostly occurs during REM sleep, which the last and the most active of our 4 sleeping phases. followed up with a very short brief wakening -up state, that may cause a little confusion for a few seconds before we fully wake up, but like that's about it. very simple and straightforward right? Well unfortunately this isn't always the case, and it brings me to the next topic; sometimes the head wakes up before the body causing a phenomenon we call sleep paralysis.

the name alone is only hinting of how terrifying it actually can be, especially if u dont know what it is. I still remember my first like as it was yesterday. waking up but for some reason u can't move. no matter how hard you try u can't at all move a single part of ur body. u cant even scream, ur just left up complitely paralysed, trapped in ur own body without no one else even knowing. and then the hallucinations kick in..

tho before I expand further I just want to clarify, for those who don't know, that sleep paralysis Always ends fairly quickly and nothing u see or hear is actually real. it is not harmful in any way. so really it might feel absolutely horrific, but ultimately sleep paralysis is nothing to worry about!

looking back, sleep paralysis was originally belived to be the works of demons, demons that supposedly sits on the chest of sleepers. something that Henry Fuseli illustrated perfectly with the painting "The Nightmare" (1781) which is propably the most famous type of art associated with sp. now a few houndred years later we know that those hallucinations occurs more or less because our mind is still in a dream like state. what's so fascinating is that we're fully consciously awake and yet we see and sometimes even feel things that are so unbelievably realistic it can be impossible to distinguish whats real or not at the time. like its believed that almost all of those alien abduction stories that people report are in reality actually just sleep paralysis. eitherway it really goes to tell just how frightening and realistic the hallucinations of sps truly can feel

im so thankfull i havent experienced anything like that, instead my sps usually consists og either no hallucinations at all, or just some random minor stuff. but there was this one time that was unlike anything I've ever had, and somehow in a positive way too. it even inspired me to make this surrealistic drawing and was the main reason I wanted to make this blog in the first place

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part 3

the dim orange sunshine shining thru the windows was the only source liting the room and walls, before slowly but surely shading away as the sun disappeared behind our neighbours tall darkgreen trees. the living room was now even darker, so dark it was almost hard to see. I dont know how, -or if its just some kinda weird illusions going on, but it looks like as if theres this eerie light mist somehow spreading across not only the outside but also now here inside too? I hurried to search for a lightswitch before suddenly getting stopped by a small black cat appearing out of nowhere. just sitting right in front of me looking innocently up at me. I could see a scared -but also kinda playful mystifying look thru his tiny blue eyes. before I could even react I got all of a sudden completely surrounded by what it felt like ahoundreds of other small black cats, running all over and playing with each other. many right around me with many more in the further distances and in every corner. tho alot of them was so hard to see as they blended in with the fog like tiny dark dots of shadows.

where did they all come from? how did they even get in? I have so many questions this whole thing doesn't make any sense. I carefully crouched down with cat after cat sprinting around and passing me, with some even running straight thru my legs. one cat looked particularly curious about me. I gently moved my hands to him as he slowly moved even closer to me as well and then reaching one of his paws on my hand before letting me pick him up. he was so reducilously small its almost like i cant even feel any weight. just his soft furr.

everything was so bizarre. beautiful but so weird, like as if i was in the middle of some kinda surrealistic painting. I remember getting really confused and well before I knew it I woke up in my bed again. only to be surprisingly greeted by the same cats again! the same cats running all over both left and right and over me and anything in-between. literally the entire room was flooded with them. some were even smaller than the others, somehow, they kinda looked like tiny baby stuffed animals. I tried to get up only in vain; I was indeed having a sleep paralysis. and as I laid there locked, completely unable to move, the cats kept on cating. some really liked to jumb, and they jumped high! with others playing with other cats tails. not to mention the one cat after the other that kept on running around and everywhere.

it was actually one of The cutest things I've ever seen, yet alone being in the middle of. which still feels wrong to say considering it was a sleep paralysis which almost always sucks, and that's not even mentioning how utterly horrific one episode can be. so as wholesome my sp sounded like I admit I couldn't actually "enjoy " it as I was really worried something bad would happen, and especially to the cats. (fortunately it didnt!) in retrospective tho, 5months later now, i still keep thinking about it. it was actually very cool! the absurdity of it all and idk, sometimes our minds can be really weird!

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