Nothing to see here.

I just fear. This is something I overheard on a poetry workshop site:

As for spelling, that has never been my strong suit, but I've got a dictionary now so I don't have to learn how to spell, just put some time in on revision. And as far as punctuation goes I leave most of it out because I just think it looks more fluid, and adds a feeling of nervousness, but it's no skin off my nose to put them in.

a poem by Daniel Hall

The Beanstalk

for my father


Night shift freed you up for an afternoon
with me. Beyond the shades, the world
dimmed and brightened, but our dusk held:
your chest rising beside me, mountainous,
loud with booming passages, a heartbeat
truer than my own vowing to go on
and on. The boy's troubles would go on and on,
if he couldn't remember between one telling
and the next worth of things, the treachery
of strangers, or to do what he was told.
Curled against you, eyes drifting upward
and inward, I would struggle to the end
of every story. And if you slept, the tale
would continue, embellishments unfurling,
leaflets arranged according to patterns
lost on me yet, up and up, without ending,
without change. Your breathing slowed until
you were snoring a regular thunder; inside me
all of summer clouded over, the trees
lifting and twisting as we ran for shelter
under them . . . . And I was falling, half-afraid
of my love, of waking blinded, forsaken,
with nothing to lead me, hand over hand,
leaf by leaf, back to that dark place.

Trust no one (but your own brain)

Trauma Real For Alien Abductees

Abduction by imaginary aliens can be almost as traumatic as being caught up in real horror, according to US psychologists. The only difference is that when asked "would you go through it again?", most of ET's abductees replied: "Yes."

In one of the more out-of-this-world research projects, Richard McNally of Harvard University told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Denver, Colorado, that he had interviewed 10 of the thousands of Americans who claimed to remember being carried off by extraterrestrials.

The Harvard scientists measured heartbeat, facial tension and sweating on the palms as they played back audiotapes of the subjects recounting their experience. "Our question is: do people who have apparent false memories of trauma show the same psycho-physiological reactivity? The answer appears to be yes," Prof McNally said

"In fact, the heart rate responses and skin conductance responses were at least as great in the alien abductees, when they heard their memories of being abducted and molested by space aliens, and subjected to these experiments on spaceships, as for people with genuine traumatic events.

"The moral of the story appears to be that it underscores the power of emotional belief."

In his research, Prof McNally also identified the recipe for an alien abductee. Most of the subjects were interested in astral projection, tarot cards, telling the future, bioenergetic therapies and, of course, aliens. "So they had a whole set of new age beliefs to begin with," he said.

They were also prone to fantasies, and vivid images. Third, and crucially, they had had episodes of sleep paralysis and hallucinations upon awakening. Sleep paralysis is not imaginary: it occurs on awakening from the dream state marked by rapid eye movement, and is experienced by 30% of the population. Some victims of sleep paralysis also report hypnopompic ("upon wakening") hallucinations.

"It is part of the basis of believing in ghosts," Prof McNally said. "In the European middle ages it was the incubus and the succubus who were the agents of the devil. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, it is space aliens. During REM sleep, the body is fully paralysed except for the eyes ... Often elements of dream will intrude into wakefulness."

Such experiences were often terrifying. So, typically, his abductees would consult mental health professionals, who would suggest they had repressed memories.

"So when we piece together the new age beliefs, the hypnopompic hallucinations, the absorption, and sometimes a little help from the memory recovery folks, you have got yourselves an alien abductee."