The Teeth

Sleep paralysis!

The Teeth — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 20:30:20 -0000

Here's what happens to me at least once a week while we're on tour:

I'm napping in the van (Brian is usually driving, I'm in the back bence seat), and I wake up and feel like I can't move. I sort of see and hear what's happening, but things are still a little hazy as I pass through that half-asleep half-awake stage you pass through as you fall asleep or wake up. And I'm totally paralyzed. This was very frightening the first few times it happened to me (I can remember a few cases over the years, but never regularly except on tour), but now it registers in my brain that I will snap out of it and things will be okay. It is still somewhat disturbing while I lay there paralyzed.

Then it gets a little wierder. I try to get someone to help me snap out of it by grabbing me, or pulling me up. I imagine that I am saying "help" or reaching out my arm to whoever is near by, but this is not actually happening. I always think it is happening, because I am also seeing the other guys and hearing their conversation, so it seems that I am awake. All the while I am trying very hard to move any of my muscles and it is not working. But soon enough I do snap out of it and I snap into fully awake mode and I can move around again. Once I am totally conscious I assume that I was actually dreaming the whole time I thought I was asking for help. However, I never dream that I am paralyzed anywhere besides exactly where I am laying, and I always see my surroundings exactly as they are once I fully wake up.

I know other people get this occassionally, and it doesn't seem like a big deal, because it is not as bad as it sounds now that I recognize the phenomenon as it is happening. I knew that it was called sleep paralysis, and I got curious about it and looked it up on wikipedia. Check it out. It's pretty interesting.

I discovered that I probably am actually awake while I am paralyzed, and I am actually seeing and hearing what is going on in the van. And when I think I am asking for help or even reaching out an arm I am actually having "hypnogogic hallucinations" (according to wikipedia). Hypnogogia is a great new term I learned while I was researching this, referring to the state in between asleep and awake that people experience as they fall asleep or as they wake up. I remember this from High School, when I was always really tired in the morning and would start to nod off. I would be trying really hard to stay awake and then for a few moments things would start to get funny and I would start to get the teachers' words all mixed up or weird things would appear in the front of the room and then I would snap out of it without ever actually falling fully asleep. (This would happen over and over as I kept resolving to stay awake but my body couldn't handle it. I hated High School.) I assume most people recognize the hypnogogic state and know what I am talking about. Now you know the word for it.

Wikipedia says:

"More often than not, sleep paralysis is believed by the person affected by it to be no more than a dream. This explains many dream recountings which describe the person lying frozen and unable to move. 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 a theory for alien abductions and ghostly encounters."

Pretty wild, huh? Wikipedia says the average person will experience sleep paralysis once or twice in a lifetime. So why does it happen to me all the time on tour? Here's some of the factors believed to increase the liklihood of sleep paralysis:

* Sleeping in an upwards supine position
* Irregular sleeping schedules; naps, sleeping in, sleep deprivation
* Increased stress
* Sudden environmental/lifestyle changes

That pretty much explains it. Sleeping in slightly contorted positions in the back of the van, not getting enough sleep at night and then napping frequently throughout the day, the stress of the touring lifestyle (this one's debatable), and the sudden change of environment from my house and my city to living in a box most of the time and sleeping on strangers' floors.

While reading up on this, I read about people who can consciously enter a state of sleep paralysis as a technique for inducing lucid dreams. This is one of several techniques people use to enter a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD), where the dreamer goes straght from awake to dreaming without losing consciousness, and enters the dream world fully aware that he is dreaming. Sounds pretty awesome. A more common way of inducing a WILD is by trying to maintain consciousness as you enter the hypnogogic state. If you can recognize the hypnogogic state without snapping yourself out of it (which is the tough part), you can enter from there into a lucid dream without losing your consciousness. I'm starting to work on this. Dreaming is crazy!

I haven't had any luck yet, but I've noticed that since I started thinking about this I've been more likely to recognize my dreams as dreams while I'm having them (known as a dream-initiated lucid dream, the kind most of us experience occasionally). Last night I dreamed I was alone on an indoor basketball court. When I realized it was a dream, and I could experiment with the dream state, I took the opportunity to try out some three-pointers.

So I'm not exactly a mystic yet, but I'm on my way.

Canada!

The Teeth — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:16:20 -0000

We were a little nervous about going into Canada. We'd been provided with a paper signed by someone or other suggesting that we not be taxed for our show in Toronto, as Lee's Palace should not count as a bar, or something to that effect. It happened that I was behind the wheel as we pulled into the little booth with a physically intimidating but friendly Canadian dude poised to shake us down for some info. I handed him the letter and our identification and explained that we are a rock band going to Toronto for one show. Presumably trying to be friendly, he asked us about the music we play and complimented Brian's mustache. He mentioned that he'd been to Lee's Palace once but the music that night sucked. Then he got down to business (still in a friendly way).

"Anything to declare?"
"What are we supposed to declare?"
"Any drugs, alcohol, or weapons?"
"We do have a camping hatchet under the seat there..."
"Okay. Commercial goods?"
"We have about a hundred CDs"
"How many do you expect to sell?"
"A few"
"Okay..." He wrote up something on a little yellow paper.
"Just pull in up ahead there behind that truck and show them this paper. They'll need to check out the van and verify this letter you have here."

While we were waiting for some more friendly Canadians to search our van (quite thoroughly) I glanced at the yellow paper that explained who we were.

"Musical group.
Going to play show in T.O.
Have hatchet."

Things went smoothly and soon we were on our way. During our 24 hour stay in Canada we continued to find very friendly folks. And cheap food! I got a Lebanese veggie pita for 2.50 and in the morning we had breakfasts of three eggs, potatoes, toast, and meat or veggies for 4.99! That is even less in American dollars. I don't know if that's the sort of thing anyone really cares about, but it was very exciting to us. Canada is awesome.

Coming back to America was pretty easy. An American dude checked out IDs and peeked in the back of the van and waved us on through. A week later we were in San Antonio.

The Teeth Go On Tour

The Teeth — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:23:08 -0000

These days, The Teeth tour a lot. And it is fun. We play shows, meet people, hang out, go camping, screw around, check things out, get bored, argue, chat, listen to the radio, drive, read, eat, and think about stuff. Touring is probably a lot like you think it is, with several possible exceptions. There aren't, like, a million "girls" that you "get", even though people are always asking me about that for some reason. And the best times (for me anyway) tend to be random activities like playing hot potato or "kick the ball" in the middle of the night with some folks who are into it. You spend a lot more time in the van than you can really comprehend unless you've done it. It's something that suits some and not others, and overall, I'd say it suits me pretty well.

The upcoming stretch of touring, which goes most places in the country (sorry, Minneapolis and Portland, we promise to come back in the Fall), includes fewer days off than a lot of our other tours, so we won't be able to "see the sights" as much. I will miss being showed around places by people who know them, but there will still be time for hanging out, and there is always time for you to let us sleep at your house. That is a very fun thing to do! We hope.

We are going to San Antonio for the first time. I'm curious. And Toronto, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Lincoln, Nebraska. Soon I will have been to almost every city in the country. I was bragging about it the other day. Then someone questioned my statistics, and I backed off. It is best not to brag, because often you will sound like a fool.

For this tour, I would like to work on some sort of mobile cooking setup, based on one of those really small stove burners that fold up real compact-like, a frying pan and a few utensils. Maybe a cutting board too. It's all gotta be pretty small though, or someone will keep wishing that it wasn't there and subliminal antogonism towards mobile cooking will begin to form. Anybody got any advice on that? The small cooking system, that is? I probably won't get it all together for this tour. I've got other stuff to do as well.

We always end up camping out in West Texas, and I bet we will again. Camping is pretty nice there, and there's not really anywhere to play or anything, but you have to drive through to get to Arizona, one of the greatest states in the country. And California, another one of the greatest states in the country. In fact, I love the whole drive from Florida to Los Angeles on Interestate 10, probably the greatest interstate in the country. Soon I will know the whole interstate system well enough to give directions from memory. When that happens, I will try not to brag about it, but wait until the situation when my knowledge is helpful arises on its own. Then I will casually give complicated cross-country directions, and impress everyone. That's the kind of stuff that crosses my mind when I'm taking my driving shift sometimes.

I'm pretty freakin' excited about this touring we're going to be doing, and if you have any information whatsover about any of the places we're going to be, I'd sure like to hear it. Where to eat cheap, perhaps? Something awesome that I can walk to from the venue? Advice on anything? Anyone want to play tennis?

blogging by Jonas

Updates to playlist: The Teeth

The Teeth — Mon, 14 May 2007 01:20:06 -0000

Yellow

The Teeth — Thu, 03 May 2007 17:33:48 -0000

That Light That Always Goes Out

The Teeth — Thu, 03 May 2007 15:55:27 -0000

Oh, Bessy! by The Teeth

The Teeth — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 03:10:48 -0000

So Long by The Teeth

The Teeth — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 03:00:44 -0000

Yellow by the Teeth

The Teeth — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:30:05 -0000

Ball Of The Dead Rat by the Teeth

The Teeth — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 21:17:36 -0000