Myoclonus and the Art of Zen Buddism

Myoclonus? Feminism? Mark Twain?  Which is foremost in my mind as I sit in this coffee house beginning to blog? The answer first was Sam Clemens.  After watching a portion of Ken Burn's episodic biography I surprising was happy.  Inexplicably I found a connection with this iconic American writer's history.  His job as a steamboat captain on the winding Mississippi river is not disimilar from the experience of working as a musician on cruise ships.  There is a certain type of freedom this lifestyle affords a person.  In addition it was refreshing to hear about an artist, someone trying to excel and achieve in American literature.  Not only that his voice was an honest social narrative about American slavery.  It seems he was the first person to ascribe a human nature to these captured Africn workers.  It was groundbreaking.  Enough of that.  The moral of the story for me was, if I added a bit of satire and humor to my blog entries, maybe they would become more palatable.  I am not a complainer by nature, but sometimes social injustices demand it.  Second topic.  Myoclonus.  When I awoke this morning after an absence of sedative the evening before, I acutely was aware that when I don't drink I don't sleep.  Most Americans it seems rely upon prescription medication for their daily ills.  I possess none, therefore I make use of the legal over-the-counter variety of drug, alcohol.  When I drink alcohol late a night there is a good chance when finally I hit the bed my eyes will close and I will enter a deep slumber.  Usually it is restful, relaxing, and in a way cathartic.  Why?  "Sleep is a rose the Persians say," quoting from Clare Quilty in Adrian Lyne's movie version of "Lolita."  Why would ancient Iranians have such a favorable outlook on sleep?  I only can surmise from my own experiences.  When I really sleep many things happen.  First and foremost it is well known our immune systems work most efficiently when we are at rest.  They body is not busy supporting human activity.  Secondly the muscles and notably the spine are decompressed and allowed to recuperate from a day full of compression and expansion.  Third understanding the emotions are vibrations or actually electrical impulses of varying low frequencies, these are allowed to escape because the muscles are relaxed and uncontrolled by conscious thought.  It is a catharsis of sorts allowing our subconscious feelings to surface.  Fourth as our subconscious emotional self is released the mind accompanies creating dreams.  I look forward to this process, but again and again it is thwarted.  When it happens I dream similarly-themed scenrarios involving survival in a foreign environment.  Often I am  an adolescent placed in a foreign town like a transient soldier's son.  I must aclimate to my new social construct determining with  whom to make friends, to doubt, and to resist or deter.  It is a challenging and rewarding game, and I play the politics well.  I have learned after twelve years working on cruise ships how to play politics.  One must because your happiness is reliant upon this skill.  Often I am running, or hiding, or feeling moderate pain from a chase.  I overcome diverse obstacles as my skin, psyche, and emotions are over-stimulated from sound and vibration I am feeling from the environment in my bed.  In this case my expectations only partially are fulfilled.  I do not always wake feeling good.  I wake with the recent memories of how to survive in a challenging world.  Often the experience is more colorful and thus rewarding than my own life.  I am allowed to meet new people including women.  I am challenged to conquer an opponent.  I am allowed to roam on vast rural and urban geographical landscapes including war-like paraphernalia.  I traverse razor wire actually feeling the pain on my skin.  I scrape off rogue-like creatures from my scrotum.  I tolerate blades in my back.  Often I fight an invading Sasquatch-like creature that attaches itself to my back and whispers in my ear in an inescapable bear hug.  This is stimulated by sleep paralysis when I am half asleep and half awake but cannot move.  It is quite the experience and takes some getting used to.  Over the years I have learned that I cannot be physically harmed from my dreams, so I wake without concern.  This is in spite of the awareness of Wes Craven's macabre character Freddy Krueger, who in the movie "A Nightmare on Elm Street" actually does antagonize, torture, and murder innocent teenagers.  My bed does not suck me in, and my bedroom provides a sense of security.  I do not feel intimidated from my surroundings, although often I do feel afraid.  A loaded pistol under my pillow helps me calm this fear.  My dreams shouldn't kill me, but a potential criminal could.  He wouldn't make it through the window without being riddled with .22 caliber hollow point bullets.  There is a sense of comfort knowing this, and that I have two pre-loaded clips stored with the Walther PPK.  Formerly I used to sleep with a Springfield A1 1911.  While its stopping power was proven by the U.S. military in World War ll, that kind of percussion in the small confines of an  uncarpeted bedroom could prove harmful.  I opt for the less potent .22.  Dreams and novelas aside this morning a new realization was had.  While I am accustomed to the over-stimulation of my skin, muscles, and emotions (which I do not like or enjoy), I am not accustomed to myoclonus.  While I have experienced this annoying anomoly in a lover, it has been years since I found myself exhibiting its symptoms.  This morning was an exception.  I did not sleep well as usual.  I feel intense heat and electrical activity in the air.  That translates into an electromagnetic wave which exudes both.  A duality these waves are electrical energy coupled with a magnetic field that creates vibration and heat.  Over the years and with the world's reliance upon wireless telecommunication, I have begun to recognize this phenomena.   Often it is difficult to tell the difference between an infrasound wave and an electromagnetic wave.  Infrasound waves produce similar sensations but without the vibration.  Sometimes the sensations are a summation of both, a vibration carried along by a long-wave-lengthed sound wave.  Commonly it is known that radio uses this principle utilizing a carrier wave to transmit its audible content.  While I have been tolerating these menacing sensations for years, never have I induced a conscious episode of myoclonus.  I did so this morning out of necessity.  I awoke from my third night of non restful tossing and turning to these exact sensations.  I am unable to actualize any of the positive attributes of sleep because of it.  My senses, skin, and emotions athletically are overstimulated subduing any or all of my own personal subconscious responses.  The result is one of which I have been suffering for several days if not weeks.  Whatever it is in the environment is prohibiting my own personal emotional profile from actualizing.  Electrical impulses from my brain releasing serotonin fail to travel down the cervical spine allowing me to "feel good."  This particular anomaly is addressed by The Alexander Technique, which is a method  taught at some colleges which attempts to relax this particular area of the body.  We are taught how not to scruntch our shoulders, rather lifting the head, straightening the spine, and assuming what is considered to be "good posture."  How does one achieve this lying in a vibrating bed?  It is impossible.  I have learned the sleep I crave and need to be healthy is elusive.  Instead I sleep less and less and use my conscious wake time to avoid the sensations at all cost.  I was so distraught this morning and angered by this unsympathetic invasion privacy, I fought back.  I created my own vibrations not dissimilar to early American Quakers and Shakers.  It seems the Holy Spirit or what native Americans considered spirits of nature induce such a reaction, a catharsis of emotional energy.  Chanting, meditating, and dancing all can release such tension.  Simply I squeezed my neck, and that constriction of either arteries or nerves released a myoclonic fit.  From a spectator’s point of view, it should have been considered a seizure.  Wow.  My muscles began to twitch uncontrollably in waves of activity.  I was awake.  Myoclonus is more common in sleep as a spontaneous and involuntary release of muscle and/or emotional energy.  It was glorious to return fire.