Tag Archives: death

DREAMS: ELSEWHERE OR NOWHERE

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When you sleep, YOU may be elsewhere or nowhere…. 
Sleeping Beauty
“The acute phase announced itself by nightmares of a grotesque and terrifying and premonitory nature. Miss R. had a series of dreams about one central theme: she dreamed she was imprisoned in an inaccessible castle, but the castle had the form and shape of herself; she dreamed of enchantments, bewitchment, entrancement; she dreamed that she had become a living, sentient statue of stone; she dreamed that the world had come to a stop; she dreamed that she had fallen into a sleep so deep that nothing could wake her; she dreamed of a death which was different from death.”   ~ Oliver Sacks, describing the symptoms experienced by Rose R., a patient who fell ill with Encephalitis Lethargica (Sleepy Sickness), from Awakenings. Later in the text, Rose R. is described as “…she was simply — elsewhere (or nowhere).”PAINTING:  Edward Burne-Jones (1833-1898),  The Sleeping Beauty, 1870-1873

Dream of girl before sunrise - Karl Briullov

PHILOSPHICAL MIND: 360 B.C.E.

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Painting by John LaFarge, American (1835- 1910)

“Philosophical minds always love knowledge of a sort which shows them the eternal nature not varying from generation and corruption. He whose desires are drawn towards knowledge in every form will be absorbed in the pleasures of the soul. Then how can he who has magnificence of mind and is the spectator of all time and all existence, think much of human life?

He cannot.

Or can such an one account death fearful?

No indeed.

Then the cowardly and mean nature has no part in true philosophy?

Certainly not.

Or again: can he who is harmoniously constituted, who is not covetous or mean, or a boaster, or a coward-can he, I say, ever be unjust or hard in his dealings?

Impossible.

Then you will soon observe whether a man is just and gentle, or rude and unsociable; these are the signs which distinguish even in youth the philosophical nature from the unphilosophical. ”

Plato, THE REPUBLIC, 360 BCE

SUGAR VENDING SHARK MACHINES

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So which is safer, a shark or a sugar vending machine?

Choose the waves. The odds a person will die from a soda vending machine accident in a year are 1 in 112,000,000, while the odds that a person will die from a shark attack in a year are 1 in 251,800,000. This means that a person is more than twice as likely to be killed tipping a soda machine than to end up as food for a large toothy fish.  Admittedly these are both rare occurrences, but in the United States 2-3 people per year die as a result of being crushed by vending machines. It’s common, on the other hand, to have a year with no recorded fatal shark attacks in the US.

However, sugar-filled soda pop (and all other refined sugar products) contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths in 2007  alone.

Total prevalence of diabetes

Total: 25.8 million children and adults in the United States—8.3% of the population—have diabetes.

Diagnosed: 18.8 million people

Undiagnosed: 7.0 million people

Prediabetes: 79 million people*

New Cases: 1.9 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed in people aged 20 years and older in 2010.