(241-) Nightmares

A friend's teenage son had fever and woke up from a terrible nightmare with the image of having his legs dismembered and thrown over his head, the pain was sharp and he was frightened.

I am not any authority on dreams. After saying that the idea of the Boston Marathon came to mind. After the blasts many people had to have their leg or legs amputated. I saw the video images on International news repeatedly as I tried to make sense of the violence. If the teenage boy has been exposed to those images or even more explicit ones on the internet, it is little wonder that at night his mind tried to process and make sense of the blood shed.

One of my more sensitive daughters did have a vivid dream that she and her best friend were in line - those who refuse the mark of the beast would have their head chopped off. In her dream she was encouraging her best friend to go through momentary pain. In a sense that dream changed her world view, she now sees that her main purpose in life is to be encouraging her friend (s) to choose God. I am not trying to discount her conviction. But I see that our brain is like a Hollywood movie house, whatever goes through the brain during the day would be sorted and might be distorted in the night for filing purposes. Not all dreams would come true nor should every dream be taken seriously.

(236) Broken Children, Grown-up Pain by Paul Hegstrom

For my readers who have followed my blog, you would know that I have the privilege to listen to 4 women in pain for the past 19 years.

I primarily saw them as former sufferers of learning disabilities. Which probably was not too far off the mark! Well! In the above book the author proposes the theory that when children went through trauma before the age of 13, they might have what was called arrested development and then they remained as children in certain areas of their lives until their minds are renewed by God.

The first lady I spent a fair amount of time listening to did not want to change her paradigm, she merely wanted to keep looking for new people to pay her sympathetic attention. The second one came to accept her troubling marriage as something she would rather keep than dissolve, she also increasingly prayed about things and issues that bothered her. About that time I moved away from Silver City.

The third one was Zelda. It was marvelous how God was gracious to her. He was restoring to her the locust eaten years of girlhood. I guess she would have to delve deeper why she has an anger problem that seems somewhat disproportionate to the incident that trigger the emotion.

The fourth one was the one whom God miraculously reconciled with  her ex-husband. Well! I suppose they would still have issues and hurts to settle for a while more. But there is nothing God could not accomplish if they only allow Him to.

This is a book that every people worker should read. I think in our imperfect world there are many people who are walking around with crippling hurts that dated back from their childhood days.

(216) Popularity

I had a chat with my first cousin who works in advertising and is really into psychology. According to her, when we want to relate to the masses, it is really easier to be a little of an underdog so that many people would feel like they would give us helping hands. On the other hand, it is not really wise for a public figure to portray a perfect image.

For example, she asked me if I like Nicole Kidman. Well! I am not really big on super stars. I think she looks more than beautiful in some of her shows. Can't say I am a follower of hers but then again I have nothing against her. My first cousin said that while there are lots of people who adore her yet there is a group of people who dislike her and think she is stuck up. Apart from the media portrayal and the many movies, these people don't have anything else to judge her on. Therefore, it is all a matter of perception. My first cousin has this theory that because Nicole is near perfect, mortals cannot accept perfection. It may not be envy either, some very ordinary women may not even want to trade places with her.

Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting,  but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Proverbs 31:30

(182) Pragmatics

My friend and I have been attending a prayer meeting for almost two years. One day she asked me over dinner in an Indian Muslim restaurant, "I noticed you have been keeping silent even when a topic was raised that would interest you during the prayer meeting?"

My answer was I sensed that my contribution was not expected nor appreciated. I could neither justify nor prove it, but lingering feelings were there nevertheless. my friend, let us call her Kate here, said that she had not experienced it thus far.

Half a year later, she related her own experience during one prayer meeting when I was out of town. Kate opened her mouth and shared her knowledge about a new hand phone which she had researched when someone mentioned that she was not sure which type of hand phone to buy for her aged mum. Shortly after that sharing, a fourth person asked about some computer related subject, the youngest mother in the group refused to answer and smiled sweetly at Kate and said she deferred to the expert. Now that statement was laced with saccharin and the pointed stare was filled with venom. Kate told me that she felt like she was in a nightmare and something improbable was happening.

Kate asked me if she was going crazy? I laughed and said that it probably happened exactly as she related even if I was not there. I was not surprise at all! Personally I went through something similar, an equally sweet remark came from a demure, loving, proper lady who was actually the hidden leader of the group. There was nothing wrong with her suggestion, her body language nor any mannerism. But I distinctly felt rebuked for sharing my experience and hands on knowledge with a younger mother who needed help. We were told gently to form a new interest group for special education. In other words, the mother who asked the questions should not have taken everybody's time. I should not have consumed collective time by answering. That was the very last time I contributed in that group. I continued to attend irregularly and phased myself out gradually.

While I responded by slowly distancing myself from this group, I have joined another group where the agenda is on the table and everyone is free to keep quiet and speak his or her piece by choice. My objective is simple, I want to pray in a group, be encouraged and if possible I will encourage others.

There is really no need to be part of a group that involves not only group dynamics but where I have to deal with an unexpected set of pragmatics. According to my son, Michael, there is a small group of people who could neither sense nor learn these unwritten rules which no one talks about. Such a group of people would always feel like outsiders and would never be accepted by the normal folks. I wonder if Kate and I are marginally part of this group of "weird" outcasts? Why did I take two years to realize that there is nothing wrong with me? If the earlier of folks thrives on absolute control, then they would have to do it without my support. It may take Kate longer to decide to leave.

(181) News

My grand ma had a saying in Cantonese: even at a hundred years old, one still hears of something new.

Recently, I heard through the grapevine that a rather indulgent mother claimed that she was beaten by her eldest daughter. Since I do not personally know this woman nor her daughter, I cannot speculate further.

But I do know of another case. One rich lady adopted a female baby in the former's late forties. To the former's credit, she did bring up three lawyers and two accountants. Sad to say, she did not bring up this adopted child in a wise way. Instead, she indulged in the latter's every whim. For every sensible parent, we know what instant gratification leads to: the making of one big ego and an ongoing list of wishes.

Twenty years later, the adoptive mom was in her sixties. By then she was suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes. This sickly woman is the attention seeking type. She thought nothing of calling her working children with all types of pretext to get them to visit her during working hours. After a while, none of her children would answer her phone calls at work. Thus was her own downfall: one morning she was not feeling well but no help was in sight. When someone finally came after work, she sustained some brain damage because of a mild heart attack.

Soon after, more phone calls and sms deluge her children, this time claiming that the adopted daughter beat her and drew blood. Her children were at wit's end with this new tactic until they spent much money in installing CCTV in every room. Once images of the living area are on line, the SOS call stopped.

I cannot help but wonder if this similar technological solution would help in the first case. Would mother and daughter push and whack each other if they know fully well that full video would be recorded and other members of the family could access it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?

(179) retail therapy

I went to visit my childhood friend. She showed me four working shirts: two with long sleeves and two with short sleeves. They are lovely shirts: white, black, pink and purple. Each with different collars and minor variations in design. Come to think of it, when we first started to work we would go to look at shirts like that in Metrojaya (a departmental store popular many years ago) on Saturdays but could not afford to buy any of them.

Don't ask me why, she actually bought them a size smaller and after keeping them for a year in her closet she decided to give them to my daughter, Elizabeth. I was of course overjoyed as those were lovely clothes of high quality. As I was driving back, I wonder if this is a sort of retail therapy. You see, when we were that size, we were living from hand to mouth. It would be a good month if we could save one hundred dollars. Then we rolled into the land of becoming mothers. New mothers obviously could not fit into tight shirts. Then we quickly grow into practical women who wear clothes that required no ironing. Now that our children are off our hands, we finally have the extra time to go shopping to our hearts' content. For her, she has a high disposable income too, thanks to her inheritance from her mom.

Well, I happen to have all I need but not much else to burn. To date, I have not bought things that I don't wear or use. But I wonder, suppose I have an extra $300,000 cash in the bank, would I become a wishful shopper too?

(177) Young adults chose to be unemployed

Many years ago I heard my husband the amateur sociologist telling everyone who would listen that there was a trend for young folks in Japan who stayed home, did not work and chose to remain single while waiting to inherit the parents' wealth. My hubby spent a few months as an exchange student in the fair country of cherry blossoms.

A few years ago his former boss' son failed to finish his degree and ended up being a trust fund driver and companion to his wealthy parents. Today I heard that a rich couple has a middle daughter who graduated from a reputable university in Australia, worked at a local college for a few years and then sat at home for one and a half years twiddling her thumbs. At the same dinner table there was a lady whose son stayed in New Zealand for more than a year looking for some specific job but was not successful. The said young man has been in the country for many years and has obtained permanent resident status.

The young lady mentioned above spent her nights clubbing with her gainfully employed friends. She seemed to be rather happy with being unemployed, not really applying for jobs. The young man in question spent hours playing tennis with juniors in his university. They certainly are not bored at all!

For my generation, I don't remember ever hearing a single case like that unless the person involved has some physical or mental disability. Perhaps we were too busy climbing out of the extreme poverty we grew up in. The sudden wealth my generation acquired may yet turn out to be a curse for the next generation!

(169) Working hard in the shadow areas

When I was teaching remedial English, I normally keep mum about my 6 years of elementary Chinese education. Once I built the rapport and earned the students' respect, I would choose the right time to reveal my background.

Usually when one student complaint that he was sent to a Chinese medium school while all his sisters were sent to National schools, I would tell them it was so with me too. All my brothers were sent for English medium education because they would have better prospects in getting well paying jobs. It was very hard to break into the English speaking world, especially when all my neighbors and close friends then were dedicated Mandarin speakers.

To all the incredulity displayed on my students' faces and their claim that I was talented in languages, I would reveal my failures in English and the National language in Grade 5 and 6. I admit I was talented in Chinese essay writing. But until today I have not picked it up since I dropped that in college. My command in English came from close to 40 years of sheer hard work.

Since I was 12 years old I started a discipline of doing something every day to improve my English. For instance on Monday I would write an English letter to one of my pen friends. On Tuesday I would read aloud the newspaper article I chose and worked on understanding on Sunday. On Wednesday I would make use of my Interact Club (a school affiliation of Rotary Club) friends' good language skills by saying out sentences made with new words I learned that week, their laughed their heads off more often than not. But usually among three of them they corrected my few sentences for conversational use. On Thursday I would visit my neighbor and watch an English TV program, probably a movie or a serial. On Friday I would read a simplified classic not more than 100 pages. On Saturday I would keep my transistor radio on throughout the afternoon and night listening to Australia Broadcasting, BBC or the Voice of America. Finally on Sunday I would force myself to read the two pages of New Straits Times where the editorial was printed. It would take hours as I need to check the dictionary many times.

The rationale behind all that goal setting is:-
Monday --      writing
Tuesday --     oral (reading aloud)
Wednesday--  Verbal (using words in the correct context)
Thursday   --  video (image and audio)
Friday       --   reading
Saturday   --   audio (exposing myself to accents of foreigners)
Sunday    --    increasing vocabulary from a serious publication

To this program of improvement I studiously stuck to for at least 8 years. Of course there were days that I could not do what I was supposed to do because of scheduling. I would make a note and cover the shortfall on a public holiday if possible. Otherwise I added what I neglected to my time-table during school vacation. Through these years I was active in the library, the literary and debating club as well as the student government.  

(163) Flattery pays

A good friend of mine revealed her home background to me when I by chance met both sets of her parents. Interestingly her biological father divorced her rather beautiful biological mother and married a short and fat woman 26 years his junior.

The root cause of the divorce was he desperately needed ego boosting hourly and his well educated, cultured wife refused to say what was not really true 100% on demand. His second wife who was seducing him while he was still married could replay not very sincere compliments by the minute to inflate his overly big ego. Sure, he was a CEO at a relatively young age; heck! He certainly was not born royal nor was he a dictator who happened to be the Chief of All Armed Forces. Wrong position and wrong station in life to expect to hear constant ego boosting lies. Thirty years after adultery and divorce, he was in his seventies and he was being treated like an old man with one foot in the grave. The fifty year old wife resented him for being bald, hard of hearing and being house bound : the curse of incontinence! The old man's two sons and wives have to bite their tongues hard trying not to ask:"What did you really expect when you seduced someone's husband who was 26 years your senior??" But being civilized and tactful, they stayed as little time as possible to hear her woes.

Just yesterday I heard from another friend that her youngest sister married the latter's high school sweetheart. The couple built a multi-million industry from zero and have five children. Before the children were grown, the husband moved out with a mainland China doll acquired on his business trips. He somehow paid his wife off and booted her out of the office. To be fair, my friend said that her sis was not entirely in the right. She heard with her own ears that her sis put down her husband in a house warming party. A guest was singing high praise of her husband's business acumen when she said her husband would not be where he was without her. While the statement could actually be true to a certain extent, it was tactically the wrong time and wrong place to say such a thing! It would have been smarter to hear other people say it or wait until all the guests were gone.  

For my readers who are female and single, if you lack beauty, brain, attractive personality and breeding, perhaps all you need to develop is to learn to say the right words to boost men's ego at the right time. Should you be able to meet such a man's inner needs, you would be the best wife he could get in this life.

(112) this book will save your life by a.m.homes

My niece bought this book as a teenager. I read it once many years ago. Until recently, I thought of it as a rather unusual book.

A week back, I decided to read it once more. This time, I have plenty of time for reflection. After all, the last of my chicks has flown away. I begin to see the purpose for Homes to write this book. Personally speaking, I am the exact opposite of Richard Novak. He had millions, I have a few hundreds in my bank account so the bank cannot charge me for service. Any extra I lavished on my children, I gave to missions. He lived in an expensive hill top house, I live in my tiny house in a cheap part of town. He chose to leave his wife and son, I hung onto my husband and children. He was totally independent, I am totally dependent on my husband now and I will be dependent on my children if I live longer than my husband.

Yet I see his dilemma: What is the point of gaining the world (much wealth) but losing your very soul?

(105) Bullies became friends

Recently I read that a fourteen year old boy was beaten by two school mates(both male) to death in a bus stop. According to the columnist who commented on the tragedy, it was a case of bullying carried to excess. The deceased was the only son of his parents, he was being picked on because "he walked funny".

This piece of news brought to mind Kenneth's(my eldest son) brush with two bullies when they were nine years old. At that age, Kenneth was over weight and rather shy. He came home complaining that his two classmates took his water bottle and forced him to run after them while they threw the container one to the other. I am normally optimistic, while not agreeing to giving him extra money for drinks( thus dispensing with bringing plain drinking water); I did allow him to start using a disposable mineral bottle.

A week later, they did the same with an exercise book that Kenneth had to hand up after recess. While I still thought positively that they were trying to rouse Kenneth to play with them, I set about preparing goodies for him to bring to school. I baked some scrumptious short bread and packed extra, encouraging Kenneth to share with his friends, including those two playful boys who gave him a hard time. Kenneth returned with an empty food container and told me that one of those boys took some pieces of short bread but the other refused. Other classmates finished the lot.

The next day, I took the trouble to drive out of my way to buy a loaf of delicious banana bread. I cut a third of it into bite size and packed them attractively into two disposable containers. My instruction was for Kenneth to eat from one while offering the other to the friend who enjoyed the short cake. At the end of the day, Kenneth came back reporting that his friend took the small container and persuaded the other to try one piece. Quite a few of his classmates came over to help them finish the rest.

Thereafter, I would either prepare or buy some goodies or others at least once a week and let Kenneth take more than he needed to school. In this case, those two boys became his friends eventually. For it is difficult to have children partake treats from another and continue to be mean to him. Many years have passed, Kenneth found out from Facebook that the boy who ate his short bread will be a qualified medical doctor next year.

(72) Being attacked by a "best friend"

I have a friend who trusts me enough to tell me her difficulties: over her divorce, her learning disabilities even as a middle-age adult and her problems with her old friends.

We will call her Barbara here. She has an old friend from her child hood days who has stuck to her through thick and  thin. Lately Barbara has been taking lifts regularly from that old friend, let us call this second lady Dorothy. Dorothy has two girls, one of them is definitely having some learning problems or other. Now, as a former tutor for such children, the first question I would ask is from which parent came the learning problems? It seems that even though Dorothy is a full time home-maker, one could not normally find a seat empty and ready in her sitting room. Each seat is either covered by newspaper, magazines or dried clothing that came back from the lines outdoor. I mean one may find such a state of disorganization in anyone's house once in a long while. But it seemed that it is the normal state in Dorothy's home. Looking at that, my bet is on for Dorothy to be the transmitter of those genes that her special daughter has received.

Interestingly, Dorothy began to attack Barbara for all her weaknesses: being not very co-ordinated in driving, poor directional recognition, inability to remember a sequence of steps that number more than three ... Since they have been best friends since childhood and stayed close, I doubt the attacks are personal in nature. I think Dorothy is in denial about her own shortcomings that she has more or less overcame. While her husband's millions added to what others expected of her, she resolutely refused to have a live-in maid. It does not help for others to pressure her to force her special daughter to shape up - some people thought that money could improve anyone. She herself foolishly chose to get involve in a church base charity teaching poor children with special needs. Well, actually she should have concentrated on helping her own child and achieve a certain measure of success before dabbling in other children's affair.

On top of all this, Dorothy chose to be with another mother whose young son has all the same symptoms as Dorothy's daughter at the same age. Dorothy's daughter is about five years older than this third woman's son. It is possible all these circumstances added up and pressurized Dorothy to a near breaking point. Barbara's proximity and her ineptness really irritated Dorothy and that could have been the last straw on the camel's back.

There are seven million people in our part of town. Barbara would be wise to meet Dorothy less under such circumstances. We vote with our feet where we want to go, whom we want to spend time with and what we want to do. For Barbara who has just attained a certain amount of peace and may be experiencing God's healing balm, she should not even allow a "best friend" to attack her just because the "best friend" happens to be having a raw deal. Temporary withdrawal seems to be the best policy at the moment.

(39) Challenge

This article is about the same teenager in 791. Through the many months of faithful follow up and a firm but kind approach, the pent up ball of energy in the body of a 13 year old girl has taken to my daughter, Elizabeth.

The young girl came to a group activity of much older girls. She came prepared with a design all mapped out on a piece of A4 paper. Elizabeth was very impressed with the serious approach. After all, none of the other older folks made any such preparation.

This time, the crisis came when the young girl took exception to a grown up spelling her name wrongly. Of course, the mistake was not intentional. The girl's mother chose to spell her name in a rather unusual way. Let's say she is called Yvonne. But on her legal documents, it is spelled as Evon. It would not be unusual for others to spell it the former way as a matter of convention. Yet we must also see the matter from the point of view of an underdog who has been teased all her years in school for this very fact!

Elizabeth was very taken aback when Evon went to tell the "culprit" directly that the latter had hurt her feelings. In doing so, Evon did not consider that the person she confronted was twice her age. Neither did she realized that this person was volatile in character. Elizabeth chose to intervene and made peace between the two. Although she did restore order and somewhat resolved the matter, she was looking to me and other more experienced people for wisdom.

I personally think that she did the best she could under the unusual circumstances. Of course she could bear in mind in future that such conflict came from years of suppressed emotions. Logic alone could not solve the entire problem. I am not saying that Evon did right by confronting, but I suppose it is a step forward  for her to assert her rights after being boxed in by severe school discipline for six long years. Like it or not, it is a healthy step forward for her. We would do better in moderating the seething emotions and teaching her how to express herself in a socially acceptable manner. My days of working with such children are over for good. But it is interesting that Elizabeth has started her season when God sent Evon to stretch her group in learning to love and deal with individuals who required a lot of tough love and patience in the healing process. Definitely I am more than grateful that I can continue to write about this topic through listening to Elizabeth's experiences.

(34) Microbes

A group of people were sitting around a table, eating and chatting. The topic of conversation turned to how one person chose not to take any antibiotic so as not to destroy the useful microbes in his gut.

It turned out that another person had experience with wild life in captivity. When a young calf was isolated from its parents because the keepers feared the father harming the calf, the vet immediately injected the mother animal's blood under the young calf's skin. As the blob of blood was gradually absorbed, the young was protected with the mother animal's antibodies.

But how does this young animal derive the protection of useful microbes since it did not suckle the mother animal's milk? The answer shocked some of us: just dab a bit of the mother's dung into the young's mouth! Now, we would rather not do that for babies who do not suckle, would we?

(23)Tempting Fate by Nora Roberts

This is the Caine half of The MacGregors.

I have read my share of love stories in my teens. Yet no other romance author brings interesting side issues to life like her. If you have been reading the notes I have written on Roberts’ books, you will realize that I pick them not for her talents of describing what happened in between the sheets.

As I read about Diana Blake, I was comparing her at the back of my mind to a young lady who has a gift with words (we’ll call her Leela). For my readers who have not read Tempting Fate, Diana’s parents died when she was six. Her brother, who was sixteen, took her to her aunt and left her there. For twenty years he did not see her, not because he did not want to. It was the aunt that made the condition. He quietly sent monthly checks until she graduated from law school. She grew up suppressing her love and need for the only brother she had, thinking that he abandoned her. It seemed that the in-grain habit of operating on logic had severed her emotions until she could no longer be comfortable with her feelings.

On a few occasions I met Leela. She is a young mother of three, managing on her own in a foreign land. After I listened to her mother’s struggles, I began to see why she had a problem in her childhood. A short summary would be her own words: by choice, she separated her emotions from logic to survive the pain many years ago. Now, she is surrounded with four males, her husband and three sons. It would not be unusual for at least one of her sons to take after her father, who seemed to be the source of her painful childhood.

It is probably unlikely I will see Leela in the near future. I am glad of that. I wish her well, of course. Since I am not a psychologist, I cannot be of help to sort out the tangles in her heart. Now, a few days ago I was asked to pray for a lady, she was so concise with her statement of prayer point that I confessed I did not know how to ask God to help her. Then and there I resorted to praying in tongues for perhaps forty seconds as that usually help me to pray when my mind was a blank. To be honest I cannot remember even one phrase out of the prayer I uttered on her behalf. It must have been reasonable as those around the table took what I prayed in their stride. After I prayed, both in tongues and in words, it became clear to me that this lady has a similar problem like Leela (As the days passed, this conviction deepened). Now, you must be wondering if I am going off my rocker!

Let me explain, since young I have been periodically having flashes of insight that I cannot command nor explain. They often came when I did not expect nor want them. It helps me to see people for what they chose not to reveal to others. I might blurt out the precise thing my conversation partner was trying to avoid. Some people thought I was mediumistic. But I have checked, there was not a single medium on both sides of my family lines for 4 generations.

After I became a practicing Christian, folks said it is the gift of knowledge. An unbelieving family member said it is what was described in Blink by Ted Dekker (I hope I have the correct name down). Whatever you call it, I am stuck with it. Part of it was probably in born: the ability to see patterns where others fail. God could have sanctified the natural talent to become a gift of the Holy Spirit to serve others. What remains is if I have a chance to speak to this second person alone sometime in the future, I would have to thicken my skin to tell her what I heard while praying. If it is indeed from God, then that could be the root of the problem to her Eczema.   

(20) Nikita

This is a French film by Luc Besson.

Nikita killed a cop in a failed robbery. After her trial, the authorities faked her suicide and took her to a special school for operatives. After three years of training, she was set free to be an agent. She found love and did well for quite a while. Then an assignment involving getting espionage info from a foreigner went awry, she had to run to save herself.

That led me to think, not every person could live a double life. One could pretend to be someone else successfully for a little while. But how do you keep the one nearest to you from knowing anything long term? Perhaps a male who is few with words and usually behaves like a loner might be able to pull it off with a good and discreet woman as his wife. Nikita certainly could not do it. Her fiancee found out about her secret life before the botched attempt at the embassy.

(16) Forgiveness

In a short article on page 133 of the March 2002 Reader's Digest I find what Marilyn Elias wrote in USA Today being summarized.

Elias was quoting Stanford University psychologist Carl Thoresen: Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting or condoning offences, or reconciling with the offender. It means giving up the right to be angry.

In the group treatment Thoresen's team built, they emphasize:
- Shifting rigid personal "rules" for how people should behave to "preferences," and accepting that no adult can control another.
- Seeing the hurtful incident from a neutral viewpoint.
- Moving from blame to understanding, then moving on.

I personally have not seen a better definition of forgiveness than this in the past 22 years.

(4) Blur versus being sharp

While talking about our children, one mother said that she was not about to let her son(Hugo) spend one month vacationing in Melbourne unless a close friend's elder daughter, Betty, goes along. She went on to say that Betty is sharp and capable of getting by on her own as well as looking after others. The other girl (Jenny) is about as blur as Hugo. To let these two go without Betty is liken to one blind leading another, that just won't do.

These three young people are childhood friends from three families. We will look at the children from each family. Betty has a younger brother, while Betty is sharp and street smart; her brother is rather blur. Hugo has an elder sister who is an exact opposite of him. It would not be too difficult to pull wool over Hugo's eyes. Hugo's sister could probably back pack round the world without bringing much worry to her parents. Jenny has an elder brother who really has his act together. Mind you, three pairs of siblings who are exact opposites of each other even though they have the same natural parents and similar upbringing. It is rum, isn't it?

(2) Sleepwalking

As the conversation in (1) developed, we went on to talk about sleepwalking. Apparently, our friend who sleep talks has a cousin who successfully walked downstairs, unlocked and opened the front door before his mother physically bundled him to bed. There after the house keys were hidden in undisclosed location for the safety of the eleven year old.

Each of us chipped in and added what we read about: people who would sleep walk and cook, those who could drive in that alternate state of consciousness. When a person who is asleep driving caused an accident, is he or she liable to be punished? What about a person who commits a crime while in the sleep walking state, what will happen to him or her? Prison sentence or psychiatric care?

(1) Sleep talking

A few days ago someone mentioned that she was a sleep talker. When she was little, she lived on the first floor of her parent's noodle shop. Forty over years ago in a tiny town, no one lock their house during the day. One evening she was tired out, she went to bed early. Her little play mate came up and looked for her, she started talking and they carried on a conversation.

The next day, the playmate reminded her of what she said the night before. But she had absolutely no recollection of it. Now I can relate to a part of it: when Elizabeth was stressed up, she used to talk in her sleep. The only difference I can see is that Elizabeth talked to someone in her dream but my friend could actually answer questions from a live person right beside her bed.

I am not qualified to know the fine differences between the two phenomena. But it seems that these are different states of consciousness: awake state, asleep state, coma, under hypnosis, talking in dreams, carrying a conversation while still asleep ...