Sleeping Foot Dreams!

Everyone has at one time or another had it happen. Maybe you're sitting at a movie theater. Perhaps at a nice restaurant. Maybe you're in a pew at church. Then, there's that all too familiar pins and needles feeling in your foot, then it creeps up your leg. You try to shake it so that it wakes up. People start to give you weird looks. Some people smirk, others wink. You're unwittingly sending mixed messages. Your foot is asleep.

Well finally, after years of painstaking research, Dr. Ivan Malcomb claims that sleeping feet actually dream. His project began as a simple question from a neighbor while they were playing scrabble and drinking a supposedly non-alcoholic beverage.

"Linda said to me, 'Ivan, my foot's asleep. I hate when this happens. It's probably dreaming of comfortable but stylish shoes, or a stroll on a tropical beach somewhere no doubt. I mean right?' Of course, she was probably just being silly, but a lightning bolt struck my brain at that moment. I had an apostrophe...er...epiphany."

For the next 5 years Dr. Malcomb invited people over to his house to play scrabble, trying myriad techniques to lull their feet into a deep sleep; a sleep he calls RTM. Rapid Toe Movement, similar to its cousin REM - Rapid Eye Movement - occurs when the foot has reached its dream state.

"I tried to be really sedate and boring for 5 years. My wife told me I didn't have to try, but I did anyway. We sat around watching reruns of Mr. Rogers and Baywatch, and playing scrabble, hangman, and team solitaire. Yes, team solitaire," said Dr. Malcomb.

Once a subject's foot entered RTM, he strapped electrodes along its "Neo-Pedal Cortex" on the arch of the foot, and measured the dream activity. After two years of mapping dream activity, Ivan found that he could accurately map the energy, and even what each foot was dreaming.

Dr. Malcomb elaborated, "If the energy is concentrated in the ball of the foot with slow radiating impulses to the toes, the most likely dreams are of little piggies, pedicures, and weird foot-related toe-sucking nightmares. If the energy is along the main corridor of the Neo-Pedal Cortex, then the dreams are more intricate and tend to be about trendy shoe styles, glamor, or massages."

While his research maybe controversial, and his methods unorthodox, Dr. Ivan Malcomb remains adamant that his conclusions are correct.

"I stand by work one hundred percent. I think it will change the world and the way we think about feet, and sleep. My next study will be assessing dreams in other appendages like the arm, the leg, or the...I guess that's it."

So even if you are bothered by your foot's narcolepsy, consider your foot. It might actually enjoy sleeping. Instead of hitting your sleeping foot against a table leg on nervously stamping the floor, perhaps next time you should just rock back and forth gently, sing a sweet lullaby and give your foot a break.

The Greatest Past Time: Sleeping

While you can be sure that baseball is a great past time, I would suggest there is an even better one. One that many people seem only to be able to dream about while awake. This marvelous past time I refer to is sleeping. It is truly a difficult one to master for many. There are however, many child prodigies out there who seem to drop their heads, close their eyes, and start REM at will. What is their secret? Why do so many people who enjoy the past time have such difficultly mastering it?

Well, it's the same as baseball. There are only so many Jake Peavys, Pedro Martinezes, Alberto Pujols and Babe Ruths. In fact, some of our greatest sleepers come around only once in a generation. Some of our greatest sleepers are, however, unfortunately less appreciated and far more scrutinized than anyone entering the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Those who have this amazing God given skill to sleep and sleep well are often called lazy and unproductive. Usually, I would suggest, out of jealousy. Why can we not appreciate it? Because we want it for ourselves. We cannot enjoy a sleeper's gift the way we can a great baseball player's gift. But, perhaps in the near future, with all those crazy dream and sleep scientists out there, we will be able to experience the beautiful sleep of a true sleeper. Sure, we'll have to be conscious to enjoy their subconsciousness, but hey, it's a step in the right direction.

With greater empathy and insight we might even be able to posthumously admire the former sleeping greats. Here are a few: Ben Franklin, Ronald Reagan, King George III, Harriet Tubman Jimmy Kimmel, Franck Bouyer, Harold M. Ickes, and Lenny Bruce. You may have noticed that some of them are not dead. Even better. We can still appreciate them and further the great past time of sleeping with stars of today.

Here is a link explaining some of these famous narcoleptic's challenges.

Living our dreams

I live my own dreams.

It's perhaps just the luck of the draw. Some are destined to dream their dreams and only dream of living them. There are also those who dream real dreams, believe they are but dreams, soften the edges of those dreams, and chase the shadow. Then there are those who live them.

We all dream.

We cannot avoid it, and even if you believe you do not, you're only deceiving yourself. When you wake up from a dream and can't remember it, it doesn't mean it didn't happen. Even if all you remember is closing your eyes and waking up, you dreamt while sleeping. However, when we dream, our conscious mind and subconscious mind synthesize a fantastic world of abject horror and unfathomable jubilation. The real world (or what we would like to believe is real) is a muddling in between those two extremes. But it is with the help of this muddle that we are able to see the extremes. Our dreams are a composition of the glorified muddle.

But it is that composite that gives us hope. Perhaps not a particular subconscious REM romp, but our hopes, dreams, and aspirations. They come from within us and without us. They give us something to strive for. Something that we might become, or attain. And, we must give them life. We cannot allow them to remain mystical mental illusions. We must live them.

It's something that I've done all my life. Of course there have been exceptions, but on the whole, if I have a dream, or aspiration, I put myself to work to attain it. If I want to sing a duet for someone's wedding, I do it. If I want to write a great philosophic work, I do it. If I want to travel the world, I do it. Sitting on my hands was never an option. It allows a meaningless reality to consume me. Our reality does not have to be meaningless, and we can consume it.

Live your dreams.