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Junior News

The cartoon, as usual, said it all. The salesman was showing a man different models of PC. Stopping in front of one, he said “.... and this comes complete with airbag, in case you fall asleep...” The comment may not have been so far-fetched. The eyes of most of us, I am sure, have glazed over as the rest of us went onto automatic pilot when in front of a monitor. The probability is that we doze off for what we think is a split second – to wake up finding that the spell-check will not continue underlining typos in red... because there are too many, and it cannot cope. This is similar to the phenomenon of when one is lulled asleep at the steering wheel by a combination of the motion of a car, the quiet obtaining when one is alone and the radio is off, tiredness, and other factors....

The difference is that whereas driving while asleep is as dangerous as DUI or while talking on a mobile phone, in the other instance, unless you are at an internet café, you are relatively out of harm's way unless you tripped over a pair of gym shoes as you drag yourself out of the twilight zone and into bed.

Lately, we have been inundated with alarming messages about how spending too much time of Facebook and Twitter and Plaxo and all other social interaction sites can give us depression and even cancer. I know for a fact that people who already have these conditions, however, say that they actually benefit from these sites.

They don’t have to go through the motions of being there, something which might have made them change their minds about “going” – because they are already virtually at their meeting place. Look at it this way – there was a time when calling a friend while still in pyjamas was the antidote to all life’s ills. This friend might not have been able to meet you physically – and after a night of weeping, blotched of face and with bags under the eyes large enough to give Morgan Freeman a run for his money, you wouldn’t have wanted to be seen in public anyway.

This week, the Net was abuzz about an even newer happening that would seem to indicate how seriously the Web has ensnarled us with its filaments. Most people know that ‘somnambulism’ is the technical name for ‘sleep-walking’. There had been a furore when Lee Hadwin, a nurse from North Wales, began a “second career” as an artist... in his sleep. Dubbed “Kipasso”, this man wakes up – in a manner of speaking – grab his pencils, and produces intricate drawings, not remembering anything when he eventually – really –wakes up. People who film him in action reported that he never responded when his name was called.

The Edinburgh Sleep Clinic describes Lee’s case as “unique”; he has been sleep-drawing since the age of four, but it is only recently that his works have acquired cachet. Enough stories about sleep-walking have been written to fill a book – and indeed, several books have been written about this phenomenon.

We have heard of people who talk (somniloquy), cook and even eat, do housework, purchase items over the Net, make phone-calls, play musical instruments, move furniture around, write letters, have sex with strangers... and commit murder, in their sleep. Some blame mental states, some blame medication, and some blame substance abuse. The only contest fact is that this “automatism” happens.

This type of “sleep-plus” is best described as “para-somnia”, because it is actually a combination of non-REM sleep and wakefulness. In Maltese we have the word “lubien” – half-awake and half-asleep. The latest episode in this docu-drama involves zzz-mailing... a new word invented to describe the action done by a person sending e-mails while asleep. A woman recently got up from bed, went into another room, and sent some e-mails to her friends, inviting them to a party she had not even planned. There was mention that the woman had been suffering from insomnia, and was in fact taking medication for it.

Some sections of the press appeared impressed because the woman had to switch on her pc and remember the password before doing this. But this is no different from driving a car, doing the laundry, or baking a cake, because the “instructions” would have been wired into the brain anyway.

It was reported that the 44-tear-old woman “realised” what she had done when a friend called to accept the invitation – which included “bring wine and caviar” on it.

A fuss was made about how the messages were in a combination of upper- and lower-case letters which the woman does not use in “real” life. I would say that the explanation for this was that it did not really “register” that she was pressing the shift key every so often... and this happens to two-fingered typists like me several times. This could send careers off at a new tangent..... If the boss asks why you would rather tele-commute and no longer work at the office, you could glibly say “...because I can do it in my sleep....”