ponderings of tv treatment of mental stuff
Jun. 6th, 2010 02:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
burntcopperOkay, we've just had the Van Gogh ep of Dr Who, where by several accounts they treated his depression pretty well.
Which makes me ponder something.
I get, occasionally, but haven't for years (got it mostly as a child) the type of night terrors which are a kind of sleeping sickness. Mediumly well-catalogued,and generally understood to be what gave rise to in medieval times the myth of the succubus/incubus, the black hag and in current times alien abduction. (Didn't turn off the tv as a teen once, it segued into a program about this condition and I started counting off symptoms on my fingers and went '...other people get this? Seriously, you're narcissitic enough to delude yourself into thinking it's alien abduction?') Essentially, you're partway through lucid dreaming, you think you're awake, you know damn well you're still in your own room, but you're paralysed. Add floating sensation, the feel like your body is expanding/contracting/doing some very weird shit, but you have no control over this. Sound is magnified but partly like you're underwater, and lights are either very bright or dark. It is utterly fucking terrifying. Oh, and you wake up completely fucking exhausted and it's not uncommon to go through a few days' worth.
So, not uncommon for sci-fi and fantasy tv to have this, or to be investigating this. However, every damn time it turns out to be mental control/aliens/succubus.
For once, I want it to turn out to be simply night terrors. If only to *not* pander to the alien abductees.
Which makes me ponder something.
I get, occasionally, but haven't for years (got it mostly as a child) the type of night terrors which are a kind of sleeping sickness. Mediumly well-catalogued,and generally understood to be what gave rise to in medieval times the myth of the succubus/incubus, the black hag and in current times alien abduction. (Didn't turn off the tv as a teen once, it segued into a program about this condition and I started counting off symptoms on my fingers and went '...other people get this? Seriously, you're narcissitic enough to delude yourself into thinking it's alien abduction?') Essentially, you're partway through lucid dreaming, you think you're awake, you know damn well you're still in your own room, but you're paralysed. Add floating sensation, the feel like your body is expanding/contracting/doing some very weird shit, but you have no control over this. Sound is magnified but partly like you're underwater, and lights are either very bright or dark. It is utterly fucking terrifying. Oh, and you wake up completely fucking exhausted and it's not uncommon to go through a few days' worth.
So, not uncommon for sci-fi and fantasy tv to have this, or to be investigating this. However, every damn time it turns out to be mental control/aliens/succubus.
For once, I want it to turn out to be simply night terrors. If only to *not* pander to the alien abductees.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 05:08 pm (UTC)I'd add to "wake up completely fucking exhausted" "and the last thing you want to do is go back to sleep" but that last part may not be as universal.
For once, I want it to turn out to be simply night terrors. If only to *not* pander to the alien abductees.
Me too.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 10:30 pm (UTC)I think I heard it referred to as sleep paralysis once, but is there a technical term for it?
no subject
Date: 2010-06-07 04:30 am (UTC)