Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Madeleine Peyroux

We're in the middle of the last unofficial weekend of summer; it's still warm, but the days are growing noticeably shorter. It's time to say goodbye to the summer of 2008, and what better way than the song Summer Wind, performed here by jazz singer Madeleine Peyroux. The images are paintings by Winslow Homer and Maurice Prendergast; they call to mind summers from a bygone era. Stay cool and enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend!

Summer Nights, Flecks of Light

Summer nights are vanishing, even as I type. Before they're completely gone, I wanted to give a nod to fireflies, whose lovely show each year never fails to mesmerize.

This year it seemed like we had more fireflies than usual. In the picture above, I was able to capture several of the buggers while they were still in the lawn at twilight, before they started flying around.

Here's a much better image from someone who knows how to take this kind of picture:

I actually found this image on the website for the city of Kitakyushu,
Japan, which is using its firefly population as an indicator of environmental health. It hopes to become the "World's Best Firefly City."

However, it faces stiff competition from Malaysia, where tropical fireflies congregate on trees along a river and then, amazingly, synchronize their flashes:

You can take a boat tour to see this natural wonder, which is used as a navigation aid by local residents boating along the river.

As beautiful as fireflies are, there's something you need to know. Some (not all) species of firefly engage in deception. Males of one species will imitate the mating signal of males from another species to attract females of that species. Why? Because they're hungry. That's right. The unwitting female ends up as a meal. And female fireflies are not above this behavior either. I think that's a little more cleverness than I like in my insects.

One final insect-related phenomenon, which I like to call, "Turn off the porch light!" It's about all those poor nocturnal insects attracted to our electric lights, thinking they're the moon. There's not a lot we can do, except dash in and out of our houses to avoid them.

But here's a more positive take on the porch light issue, featuring a really lovely green luna moth. If you're especially squeamish about insects, you may want to skip this video and take comfort in the fact that they'll all be dead soon, at least in northern climates.



Enjoy what little is left of summer, try to be tolerant of our insect friends and have a great holiday weekend!

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Ulrich Schnauss

This week's lullaby features ambient music from German artist Ulrich Schnauss, paired with the "Cloudscapes" sequence from the film Koyaanisqatsi. The song is Nothing Happens in June. I have to say, I think this is some of the best electronica I've come across - bright and fresh, yet smooth and mellow, and fitting the images perfectly.

Diversions for Insomniacs

A sleepless night seems like the perfect time to survey the wonders of the internet, particularly the flotsam and jetsam that drifts by as we surf the web.

So here are some utterly pointless websites, presented for your amusement:

- Feeling sleepy? You couldn't ask for anything more.

- Kirby dances for you! Kirby just needs some music to go with the dancing.

- Golems of Light are on the move. Thanks to Cliff Pickover for this one, whose main website, Reality Carnival, has been the source for more than one Diversions for Insomniacs.

- Dancing Parabolas. Finally, an animation with music worthy of the dancing.

- Zombo.com. (Absolutely turn your speakers on for this one.) Zombo.com represents the pinnacle of useless websites, and is possibly the oldest such site, having been created in 1999.

Remember, for each of these sites, someone is paying for server space to keep it going.

To discover more websites like these, visit PointlessSites.com.

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Zero 7

Time for some cool music for a hot summer's night. The song is Destiny, by Zero 7, featuring Sia Furler and Sophie Baker on vocals. So smooth, so gorgeous - it's music that washes over you, leaving you relaxed and refreshed.

Dreamscapes - Lucid Dreaming

© Leeloomultipass Dreamstime.com

As a child, I had a series of dreams in which I worked in a shop. I can't remember now what was being sold, but whatever the merchandise was, it was displayed in glass cases. My job was to keep the cases clean.

The boss, unfortunately, was a mean man. I didn't want to work in the shop anymore. Then a solution presented itself. There was a lantern, and if I held it up, I would awaken from the dream. Somehow I knew I was dreaming, and I knew what to do to come out of the dream.

Lucid dreaming, or the awareness that one is dreaming and can even control the dream, is pretty much the exact opposite of a nightmare. In fact, a 2006 study showed that people who suffer from nightmares benefit from lucid dreaming techniques.

Which implies, of course, that lucid dreaming can be learned. That sounds pretty cool, until you start to look at some of the methods. One procedure is to go to sleep normally, wake up six hours later, think very hard about lucid dreaming for an hour, then going back to sleep. It seems like a lot of work if you just want to experiment. Those with nightmares may find it worth their while, though.

Also interesting is the idea of reality testing. What if you think you might be dreaming, but aren't sure? According to the Wikipedia article on lucid dreaming, you could:

• Pinch your nose and see if you can breath without using your mouth.
• Stick your finger through the palm of your hand.
• Flip on a light switch (the light level shouldn't be affected).
• Look in a mirror. "(In) dreams, reflections from a mirror often appear to be blurred, distorted, incorrect or frightening."
  

Well, if the reality test is scary, what good is that? I've had dreams where I looked in a mirror; the results were mixed. In one, my eyes changed color (nice!). In another, my one eye appeared to be corroding away (not so nice).

But of course, if that last dream had been lucid, I suppose I could have done something about my health issue. It does seem that, for whatever ability we have to control our dreams, even lucid dreaming has its strange aspects. It may yield more vivid imagery and a feeling of giddiness, but it's still part of the noctural dreamscape, a strange reality that will always contain mysterious aspects.

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Moving Fractals

After that trip to Winkie's Diner last week, I managed to find what I think is an especially mellow, relaxing lullaby. Videographer David B. Davis created this lovely film, Moving Fractals, and also composed the music. Fractals are geometric shapes with parts that are similar to the whole. They make for beautiful art - in this case, wispy, ethereal colors that dance against the darkness.

Dreamscapes Bonus Post - Mulholland Drive

Well, I couldn't go completely reductionist on you when it comes to nightmares. So here's a scene from David Lynch's extraordinary film, Mulholland Drive. A man tells his friend about a nightmare he had, and suddenly he's in the dream, living it out. If you haven't seen this film, let me tell you, this is scary. Seriously. Proceed at your own risk. Because it's so scary. Maybe watch it during the day. That'd probably be best. Okay, I'll stop now.

(It's scary!)

Dreamscapes - Nightmares

Nightmares, the darkest manifestations that our psyches have to offer, seem to provide a kind of perfect storm for the experience of fear, even terror. Common themes include being chased or attacked, drowning and falling. Some nightmares tend toward the apocalyptic, featuring natural disasters, warfare or fire. They have been fodder for literature, paintings and film.

One in two adults suffers from an occasional nightmare. There seems to be some debate about whether nightmares have any value for the dreamer, as far as addressing some problem in waking life. Common causes for nightmares include anxiety, trauma or some sudden change, like the death of the loved one.

But there are other causes that might lead us to take a more reductionist view of nightmares. Some medications actually cause nightmares as a side effect; withdrawal from some substances (such as alcohol) can also trigger difficult dreams. And sleep disorders and sleep deprivation can make nightmares more frequent.

So where does this leave us? Perhaps at a point where we come up against the limits of the help we can receive from the unconscious mind. One of the tricks to introspection is knowing when to come up for air. If nightmares persist, despite an effort to understand them, determine their meaning and incorporate that meaning into daily life, it may be time to see a doctor for an evaluation.

Which is not to say that their imagery can't be useful for creative endeavors. It's just about getting a decent night's sleep on a regular basis.

For myself, I will sometimes have dreams from which I wake up frightened, but they don't generally rise to the level of a nightmare. The one dream I had like that was a long time ago. I finally got the interpretation, about 20 years later. The complexity of the situation prevents me from getting into it here. Was it worth the wait? Well, it was an explanation for an event I would not have otherwise understood. That's about it, though. I've gotten a lot more information from my regular dreams, so that's where I tend to focus. It sounds strange to say, given that we're talking about dream interpretation, but it's really about applying a little common sense.

Lullaby for Grown-Ups - Satie

This week's lullaby is an interpretation by classical guitarist John Williams of Erik Satie's Gnossienne No. 1, set to water images. The music seems to have the quality of a tune drifting by on the warm air of a summer's evening, the source of which is not immediately evident. To follow it is to enter into mystery, and possibly adventure, in and among the side streets of Paris.