Jetlag and the Creative Mind

Luckily I don’t have a job because: 1) I have a problem with authority if it doesn’t make sense in what it is demanding. 2) I wouldn’t be able to keep saying “I am going off to the states for a month, again, see ya!” 3) It takes me over a month to regain any normal kind of sleep pattern when I get back to Ireland.

I have given up trying to force myself into Irish time and people simply ask me how lagged I still am no matter how long it has been since my trip to the states – they know me well enough by now here. (It doesn’t help that late-night TV is really good on the east side of the Atlantic Ocean either.)

When I go to the states I pretty much fall into regular hours immediately. (Meaning: awake during most of the day and asleep most of the night.) No effort needed. I have heatedly argued this with several people and had several others absolutely agree with me that going west is easy and going east screws you over severely. Who’s with me here? So I tend to be a night dweller in Ireland and a day dweller in the States.

When I am working on an art project, I get most creative after midnight no matter where I am. There is an interesting and cloistered energy working when it is dark and quiet outside and you know no one is going to interrupt. When you have a creative flow going there is nothing, absolutely nothing, worse than to have the flow broken. It can be so hard to get back. It is hard to start in the first place, for me anyway.

I have a few things that have happened in my life that have subconsciously enforced this work pattern. One was an architecture design class in college. It was more about design as a concept than architecture per se’, but during that semester, I found myself working feverishly in the a.m. more and more often. It was the most demanding class I have ever taken and the most interesting. I lost 14 lbs. Another student got a divorce, and several had to drop out because of the pressure. (tears in class happened on several occasions)

I only took the class as an elective but I got into the spirit of it, got an ‘A’, and an invitation to join the Architecture Department. (which I declined…one semester of that I could handle, but no more. There was a 24-hour restaurant near the college and if you went in after 1:00 a.m. basically the only people in there were architecture students and drunk students who were hungry.) No way! ‘Ambition’ is not my middle name. The woman who got a divorce did take them up on the offer but I don’t think she stayed in the department for more than a year. Who knew you had to live like a med student to design a building?

The other thing that happened was I set up a jewelry studio in my garage a few years later (I have training in several kinds of media but was a jewelry/metal-work student when I finally got my degree) and had a neighbor who didn’t understand boundaries. How many ways can you say “Leave me alone!”? A hundred ways. A thousand. When a person thinks they are more important than your ‘little hobby’, it is devastating. I ended up hiding in my own house. I stayed out of the garage, didn’t answer the phone or door after a month of constant interruptions.

That was actually scary looking back. It was quite a while ago, but it stays with me even today. I am fiercely territorial and my time is my own now. Many people think of me as a hermit for my lack of social interactions which is fine with me. I am actually very friendly and can talk to absolutely anyone about almost anything (except sports…don’t even bring sports up), but my extroversion is by choice.

I understand completely when artists become reclusive or writers cut-off contact. Creativity is a ‘job’ for some, but for most I think it is ephemeral. It doesn’t come easily to throw yourself into a project, even when it is in your blood, if you have to think and rethink and brood and consider before you know you will spend a lot of effort on something. Once you have made the decision, it takes over your life till the particular project is done. When you are in ‘the zone’, only the pizza delivery guy is welcome.

I have to have a little rant, then maybe a little 'lie-down'

I am an American who married an Irish person, and though I had no intentions of ending up in Ireland until retirement (or just perhaps a nice cottage somewhere for summer vacations), I ended up living in Ireland 18 years ago quite suddenly. It has been 'interesting' -- often not in a good way. At any rate, about 5 years ago when economic times were better for everyone, I extorted a small house in the states (in Portland Oregon) out of my husband.

I needed a part of the states I could call home before I completely lost my mind and just left to save my sanity. Portland is where my mom lives and I love that city! I spend about 4 months through-out the year in Portland, but the rest of the time I am in Ireland.

One thing that drives me up the wall more than anything about Ireland: broadband is rare, and as I live about 5 miles from the nearest town, (17 miles from the nearest city), I don't have it. I can't get it. I have fantasies about torturing what ever politician is keeping Ireland a second world country this way (all of them probably). I am on dial-up most of the time. (can you tell I am now throwing things and screaming?)

In Portland, I have the fastest broadband outside of a commercial line, the internet is always on and it is cheaper than what I pay for my dial-up time on the internet in Ireland. (sigh) In Ireland, I give up on any website that takes too long to load if I don't know that it will be worth the wait (any page where the words aren't showing after 2 minutes and doesn't promise to be really "interesting"...bye-bye.) A 1 minute video takes 10 minutes to show the whole way through! I know I am whining and I don't care. When I say Ireland sucks, take this into consideration.

When I put up pictures or artwork, understand this is why the size or resolution isn't the best. 200 kb takes 5 minutes to attach to blogspot for some reason. On the plus side, my blog loads really quickly.

For now, that's about it. If I continue I might pop a vein or start drinking (might do the latter anyway...)

What or who is a "Hypnogogial"?

It is nearly impossible to come up with a unique username (just mine, no one else's) that also fits me personally in some way that matters to me. After switching my blogger name around several times, I am going to stick with Hypnogogial because I am tired of trying to be clever and googling possibilities that invariably are taken by some other clever wit.

What I've chosen doesn’t quite make sense because it isn’t a real word. It is hypnogogia with an ‘l’ stuck on. Now you (might regrettably) ask, what is hypnogogia? Adjective: Of, relating to, or occurring in the state of intermediate consciousness preceding or coming out of sleep: hypnogogic hallucinations. (That definition is a bit of a lie, it is only preceding sleep but I use it for both, and it used to mean both.)


Yes, but WHAT is it? You go to sleep...you wake up, and see something in the room that shouldn’t be there. What a laugh-riot that is let me tell you. It took me decades to learn to stop immediately screaming. Now instead, I tell off whatever I see. (I will sometimes have long rants if I keep being awoken, because I am fed up and really really tired)

After about 20 seconds the spiders, the fuzzy balls of light, the hooded figures, the robot thingamajig, or rats running upside down along the rafters, (what ever craziness is confronting me) fades away, but that is long enough to completely freak out (thank you so VERY much adrenalin). Fortunately it doesn’t happen that often...anymore. It has given me an interesting outlook on what reality is though, and as an artist it has given me more than a few of my darker ideas.

Once again let me apologize to all those I have woken up in such a fashion. At least now my sister laughs about it, especially after the one night when I told her I was screaming because there was a pixie sitting on the foot of the bed.

I wonder(land)...

It has been pointed out to me that my favorite word is "interesting". It's a judgment call of course, one person's 'wow!' is another person's 'what the hell is that?' -- but I use it often. Colorful to perfectly dark tones, wonderfully insane, wickedly awesome, dream-like or meta-reality, eye-catching confections that are out of place, tastes weird but nice, sounds odd but strikes a chord you want to hear more of, it is a positive downer or a twisted saccharine teaser...it's strangeness that isn't completely comfortable or overly threatening. "Interesting" is something I head toward, even if I have no idea what is around the corner.


The first book I read on my own, picked up and started reading without any prodding, was "Alice in Wonderland" and I personally see a connection. I wonder how the first chosen books of others relate to them as adults -- what their favorite word is or what they seek out. [Discuss amongst yourself]