The hag is astride...

Tweet Before I relate my experiences of sleep paralysis, I have a shameful food-related confession to make. I love vinegar so much that I drink it on its own sometimes. Some nights, when I'm alone, either in my flat or at home, I go for the vinegar and pour a little, just a little maaan, out on a spoon to sip. Last night, I had one of these terrible vinegar cravings and went straight for the balsamic and poured it into a teaspoon, smack addict style, for a quick hit. Halfways through pouring it into the spoon, I was caught by the swinging glare of car headlights pulling in outside. I panicked blindly (seriously I felt like a teenager caught wanking) and dropped the spoon on the floor, splashing aged balsamic vinegar all over my sock. Degrading. Pathetic. Christy Dignam himself never sank so low. It was some small consolation that the car in question belonged to my neighbours. Before anyone asks, I didn't drop to my hands and knees to lap the goods off the floor like when the Happy Mondays sucked spilled methadone off the tiles in Manchester Airport. I did, however, slurp another quick hit of the good stuff before shamefully returning the bottle to the shelf. Yikes, I just wrote a confessional blog. I now feel like 'Harmony' aged 42 from Idaho. Maybe I should rename my blog "Dance like nobody's watching...the life, love and dreams of a single mom and her cat destiny". Sleep paralysis. Look at that painting. Spooky as fuck isn't it? The painting is more famous than its artist (the little known romantic John Henry Fuseli) because of what it depicts, a terrifying night-time visitation that is shared across many of the world's cultures. While it may manifest itself differently according to the culture, it is always felt to be baneful, dreadful and somehow not of this world. The poor soul who suffers a visit from this presence remains paralysed in bed, unable to scream or move. Worse still, the presence, or one of its accomplices, sometimes sits on the victim's chest (like the creepy little gargoyle in the painting) constricting their breathing and weighing them down with all the dead weight of, well the dead. The overall experience can be so life-like and overwhelming that many believe they are actually visited by demons or aliens. Indeed, the most likely rational explanation for so-called alien abductions in the States is that the hallucinations were brought on by sleep paralysis, which is technically the mind waking up while the body continues to dream (dreams leak into reality and the body is paralysed as it is in REM sleep). Like I said, it's culturally specific. In Ireland, many people are paid a visit by an old woman who is known in folklore as The Hag. I suffer terribly with this condition. I've been paid visits by The Hag (she hovers at my window while sheet lightning flashes silently across the sky behind her), floating green children with sunken faces, luminous horses, a ring-ring-a-rosie of demented midgets wheeling around my bed, faceless eyes, mouths; the whole heeby jeeby phantasmagorical works. Each time it happens, the room around me is as it should be in almost every single detail. I can pick out tiny details that shouldn't belong in a hallucination. Except things are wrong. I can't move. The air is heavy and old. A sickly grey light clings to things, the hag watches keenly (sometimes whispering stale nothings in the frigid air) and my entire body is overcome by a feeling of the most unbearable dread. MP3: Patrick Kelleher-Finds You I think Patrick Kelleher's music fits well with my Autumn musings. There is something of the witching hour about his stuff the odd time. Especially this odd track from his 'Coat to Wear' EP. Which brings me to... Analogue's 1st Birthday! It's going to be in the Twisted Pepper (formerly Traffic) on Abbey Street at 9pm this Thursday 16th of October. I think it will be a great night because Patrick is playing, as are Spilly Walker and The Villagers. I'll be DJing fer a little bit too. See yis there!