I owe my friends a new comic but I've gotten so lazy to draw with a mouse! D:

OH NOOOOO.

Alright, here's the thing: I've been having this "thing" in which I sleep, and when I try to wake up, I can't. I'm pretty sure I'm awake, but I can't move a muscle. It has happened two nights in a row now - last night and tonight.

I'm guessing what I experienced was something called "sleep paralysis". I googled it, and due to my laziness to browse through the hundreds of thousands of results, I just clicked on the most convenient link: the ever-so-awesome-yet-rather-unreliable-Wikipedia!

"Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain awakes from a REM (Rapid Eye Movement) state, but the body paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully conscious, but unable to move. The paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes after which the individual may experience panic symptoms and the realization that the distorted perceptions were false."

So now I'd just like to bring your attention to the part about realizing blah blah. This is actually pertty true. I'd give you an example from today's incident. So as I said, I couldn't wake up. I was having this dream in a dream thing. So the dream in a dream (let's call it dream2 for convenience), was something about me running around in a shopping mall at lightning speed cause I was chasing this idk-what. It was a pretty awesome dream but then for no reason, I just decided to wake up. Which... brings me to dream1 where I find myself in a state of sleep paralysis.

Now at this point, I was like thinking "Aw shucks, not again!" cause I've had sleep paralysis twice before. I wasn't as scared as I was the first time, so I just remained calm, composed myself and tried to move. It was extremely difficult so it ended up with my hands simply shaking violently and my head vibrating as though I was being possessed. Finally, I managed to open my eyes, and hurray, I saw my room. The light was on (which was true cause I just wanted to take a nap) and I heard the TV outside. So I went outside to the living room to find my mom lying on the sofa, saying that her stomach hurts. So I sat there for a while, trying to make her feel better when suddenly...

BOOM.

I'm back into my sleeping state. Now this is no longer a dream cause now I'm really awake, just that I really can't move. At this point I was getting really annoyed and I just wanted to wake up so I gave it all I had. The entire time in this state, my ears were hurting like hell cause there was this really really loud white noise or some static high pitched sound. When I finally managed to open my eyes, I saw the same scene as in dream1. Lights on, familiar yellow walls of my room and my computer was still on. But thankfully, this time I was truly awake.

This happened about 25mins ago. I just woke up from a 20min nap and this shit had to happen. Unlucky much? D:

Another paragraph I decided to copy-paste from Wikipedia:

"... the paralysis state may be accompanied by terrifying hallucinations and an acute sense of danger. Sleep paralysis is particularly frightening to the individual because of the vividness of such hallucinations. The hallucinatory element to sleep paralysis makes it even more likely that someone will interpret the experience as a dream, since completely fanciful, or dream-like, objects may appear in the room alongside one's normal vision. Some scientists have proposed this condition as an explanation for alien abductions and ghostly encounters."

Awesome, I might have been either violated by little green lifeforms, or a really fat demon was sitting on me. But I just decided to dismiss this incident as a case of "your body obviously doesn't want to wake up cause you've been sleeping so little due to the god damn Prelims". Yeah.

Just to leave you with something rather interesting. The first time I had sleep paralysis was almost exactly a year ago, and I'm finding it slightly harder to breathe at the moment. This makes the idea of something paranormal more likely? Maybe the aliens come visit me once every year! But then again...

"... Some reports read that various factors increase the likelihood of both paralysis and hallucinations. These include: sleeping in a face upwards or supine position (1); irregular sleeping schedules; naps, sleeping in; sleep deprivation; or increased stress. (2)"

(1): In all the cases in which I experienced sleep paralysis, I was sleeping in that position.
(2): I usually had major exams (promotional exams last year, and prelims this year) during the period where I get sleep paralysis.

What's your stand? Are you gonna go with the scientific and logical explanation just like me? Let me know. We'll see if I have any trouble waking up a year from now. ;)

So... today I messed up my Physics papers and I'm pretty upset about it so I went to YouTube to look for some funny videos and boy, did I find some funny videos. You guys are gonna lose your minds over these videos hahaha.

Seriously, prepare to witness the wrath of Gale Beggy! Some background info about this character: She's just.... clueless about every piece of technology on Earth. ;)






Hope it brightened up your day! It kinda worked for me, but now I have other tests to study for. Math.... I dread it. (._.)

Oh.. and something else to make you laugh (if you didn't already laugh at the comic, which will make me a very very sad person):



My friend shared it with me. I don't know the dude, but he does a very very good Filipino accent! I'm sure he meant no harm in doing the video so I hope no one gets offended! It's all in good fun. :D

And I'm watching hilarious videos by Collegehumor on YouTube. Hahaha. Here's one for you guys to enjoy:



Funny-ass shit! Hahaha. Well if you have time and you wanna watch the rest of their videos (they have hundreds, seriously), just go to YouTube and search for CollegeHumor. Have fun!

Take a power nap!

To some of you, it might seem that taking power naps are almost useless. How can a short 20-minute nap benefit you, right? I mean, with that little sleep, you'll definitely feel tired even after you wake up. Right?

WRONG!

Studies by NASA (Yes, the big organisation that shoots people in metal buckets into space) have shown that a short nap of about 26 minutes can increase productivity by about 34%! It's true! Well at least I think it is, I've been doing a little bit of reading about power-naps. Well, even if I got the 34% part wrong, the main point is that taking short naps will really help you! It increases memory and makes you more alert.

But be careful, sleeping for > 30minutes will put you in a shitty situation called sleep inertia, where you'll feel all groggy and tired. You'll probably regret taking a nap when you wake up and you'll think to yourself, "Screw that bloody Shahrin. He fuckin' lied to me! I don't feel any better zzz." To cut the story short, you have several stages of sleep and if you cross the line (generally 30mins), you just screwed yourself cause the only way you can feel refreshed is if you continue sleeping for the next 7 hours.

Another useful tip is to take caffeine right before your power nap. This is because caffeine takes about 15minutes to travel through your body so when you wake up from the nap you'll be even more refreshed!

So from now on, whenever you feel tired at work/school/home (while studying), take a short nap of about 20 minutes. Turn the music down, dim the lights and set the alarm for 20 - 25 minutes. If you're the sort that simply says "Argh, fuck the phone" and just presses the snooze button and then go back to sleep, you should put the alarm a distance away so you'll have to get up and walk those miserable 5 metres to shut the alarm.

With that, I hope you guys can study more efficiently now! But if it doesn't work for you, I'm sorry! D:

Well, a short update before I hit the bed:

I AM TOTALLY GROOVIN' TO MY BLOG SONG.

I think the intro is pretty powerful - the way the bass drums just come in like BANG BOOM CRASH! The vocals are pretty good too. The meaning behind the song is interesting. For those of you who are familiar with the rapper T.I, he got convicted of possession of a firearm and got sentenced to 1 year in prison. He recorded the song right before he went in.

"Don't forget to remember me."

I think once he gets out of jail, he's gonna record a kick-ass album that will fuck everyone's minds like a dirty sock.

Well, on another note, I wanna wish all my TPJC friends ALL THE BEST for the upcoming Prelims! This is our 2nd last major examination before we rape (or get raped) by the A levels. Press on, the journey's almost over. :D