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Tuesday, 23 August 2011

I don't want to miss a thing - Aerosmith


 

I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
Watch you smile while you are sleeping
While you're far away and dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Well, every moment spent with you
Is a moment I treasure
I don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream would never do
I'd still miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
Lying close to you
Feeling your heart beating
And I'm wondering what you're dreaming
Wondering if it's me you're seeing
Then I kiss your eyes and thank God were together
And I just wanna stay with you
In this moment forever, forever and ever
I don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream would never do
I'd still miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
I don't wanna miss one smile
I don't wanna miss one kiss
Well, I just wanna be with you
Right here with you, just like this
I just wanna hold you close
Feel your heart so close to mine
And just stay here in this moment
For all the rest of time
Don't wanna close my eyes
Don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream would never do
'Cause I'd still miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
I don't wanna close my eyes
I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you
The sweetest dream would never do
I'd still miss you, baby
And I don't wanna miss a thing
Don't wanna close my eyes
Don't wanna fall asleep, yeah
I don't wanna miss a thing
I don't wanna miss a thing

Tuesday, 16 August 2011

File 5 B Counting Sheep - A Review


Dreaming of a peaceful night's sleep
Paul Martin takes a literary look at the science behind the pleasures of sleep and dreams in Counting Sheep

Counting Sheep: The Science and Pleasures of Sleep and Dreams
by Paul Martin
(Flamingo, £7.99)

Minnesota is a surprisingly barbaric place. Do you know why? School starts there at 7.30 in the morning. One feels like marching in and enforcing some kind of regime change. In one district of this hell-hole, scientists allowed teenagers an extra hour of sleep. They started feeling less sleepy and depressed during the day, had fewer days off sick, were more punctual, and were also taught by happier teachers.

You may think that this is hardly an astonishing conclusion to reach, and you would be right, but the fact remains that there are an awful lot of people out there who think that sleep is somehow wrong.

As Paul Martin puts it: "The puritans and dull, workaholic sleep-deniers of this world would have us believe that sleep squanders our precious time that should instead be spent in fruitful labour... Many annoying aphorisms, proverbs and sayings have been coined with the naked intention of making us feel guilty about sleeping."

Mrs Thatcher never slept for very long, or so she claimed. It certainly helps explain her behaviour over the past decade or so. Edison wondered aloud whether sleep was necessary at all; he claimed never to need it. This was an outright fib. He had a camp bed near his laboratory and cat-napped enough to make regular sleep unnecessary. On top of which, the frequent hypnagogic states he entered - that's the half-sleep where you mumble or visualise a surrealist stream - often helped inspire his inventions.

Churchill had the right idea about bed and sleep. Never get out of it before noon, and sleep during the day "and no half-way measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That's what I always do".

Dr Johnson said publicly that no one who slept late would amount to anything, but privately conceded that he didn't often rise before noon. The list is more or less endless. People who rise early and with a song on their lips are barely to be counted as human. The writer of this column, incidentally, is scarcely human until about 12.30pm, and is best avoided until at least then.

You learn all this - apart from that last bit - from this excellent book. Martin writes with more panache than we expect from scientists even these days, when it seems that a snappy prose style is as much an element of their training as the periodic table (cf the somewhat leaden efforts of many contemporary novelists). You will learn about the effects of sleep deprivation (madness and death, in a nutshell), what yawning is all about and narcolepsy, the alarming condition whereby people suddenly fall asleep in the middle of doing something else (often sex); researchers at Stanford have been breeding narcoleptic dogs to uncover the mystery, and would appear to be getting somewhere.

The book is particularly good on dreams, and generous with its commendation of scientists who worked in eras without access to ECGs, PET scanners and other machines that go ping. The Marquis de Saint-Denys wrote comprehensively about dreams in the mid-19th century and pioneered research into lucid dreaming, that state whereby you can influence the content of your dreams. The good news is that almost anyone can do it, and the first step is being told that it can be done.

Martin assesses the theories of Francis Crick and Graeme Mitchison, whose idea of overlapping memory storage in the brain is plausible, but whose notion of dreaming as getting rid of unneeded or unwanted information - reverse learning - "is not wholly convincing". Still, Martin quotes Thomas Nashe, who in his 1594 Terrors of the Night wrote that "a dream is nothing else but a bubbling froth or scum of the fancy... you must give a wounded man leave to groan while he is in dressing. Dreaming is no other than groaning, while sleep our surgeon hath us in cure."

And that's one of the nicest things about Martin's book: it is as keen on literature as it is on science. Most quoted writer: Shakespeare. Followed by Dickens. I am surprised not to see "myoclonic jerk" in the index, but you can't have everything.

File 5 B Counting Sheep


Used to
Used to do
We use 'used to' for something that happened regularly in the past but no longer happens.
  • I used to smoke a packet a day but I stopped two years ago.
  • Ben used to travel a lot in his job but now, since his promotion, he doesn't.
  • I used to drive to work but now I take the bus.
We also use it for something that was true but  no longer is.
  • There used to be a cinema in the town but now there isn't.
  • She used to have really long hair but she's had it all cut off.
  • I didn't use to like him but now I do.
'Used to do' is different from 'to be used to doing' and 'to get used to doing'
to be used to doing
We use 'to be used to doing' to say that something is normal, not unusual.
  • I'm used to living on my own. I've done it for quite a long time.
  • Hans has lived in England for over a year so he is used to driving on the left now.
  • They've always lived in hot countries so they aren't used to the cold weather here.
to get used to doing
We use 'to get used to doing' to talk about the process of something becoming normal for us.
  • I didn't understand the accent when I first moved here but I quickly got used to it.
  • She has started working nights and is still getting used to sleeping during the day.
  • I have always lived in the country but now I'm beginning to get used to living in the city.
For excercises click on USED TO