Well, the Grey Cup is on in Winnipeg. The Montreal Alouettes — go team! — are playing rain-soaked British Columbia Lions. And so far it looks like B.C. will win (currently it’s 16-0 in the second quarter). But I don’t care much about that…here in Barcelona it’s 1am and time for bed…after all, I start my advanced Spanish class tomorrow!
Speaking of sleep, I recently heard a fascinating podcast, actually a web version of the great CBC radio show Ideas. This two-part series dealt with sleep and dreaming. Really, really fascinating stuff. You can find Part One of “While You Were Out” here, and Part Two (which deals more with dreaming) here. Over the years, I’ve heard and read a lot about (lucid) dreaming, but I found the Part One especially interesting, since it deals mainly with sleep itself. It’s interesting that so little research has been done on sleeping, at least compared to dreaming. Perhaps in January I’ll try the same month-long experiment they talk about on the show, where you basically go to bed when it naturally gets dark — around 4pm in Montreal in winter — and get up at dawn (around 6h30). You sleep for as long as your body wants to, naturally, which (once sleep debt is paid up) tends to average around 8.25 hours (often split into several sleep sessions). It’s the old-fashioned way, without that new-fangled electric lighting nonsense, just the way (some of) our ancestors used to do it.
At the very least, be sure not to turn on any lights if you get up to go to the bathroom at night!
Today was a beautiful day — in fact we had a beautiful weekend here in Bcn, with clear blue skies and warm sun. Hiking, yesterday, in Montseny park, and today off to the graveyard on Montjuïc to see the vertical walls of tombs (photos to follow at a later date).
Sleep well!