Over-heated brain?

[purpletigron]

I've been accused of 'reading too much', and whilst I staunchly argue that it's better than the alternatives - sounds a bit like the idea that women shouldn't be educated because it only makes them hysterical - I do wonder slightly after last night's nightmare:

I was eating my cat alive.

I will spare you the very vivid (if unrealistically blood-free) details: at one point, it wasn't so bad, because I was eating a black-and-white candyfloss. But then it got bad :-(


I woke up at 05:55, feeling too nauseated by the recollection to sleep again. Cuddling my Flooger helped to calm me down ... mostly.

Comments

[major-clanger.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Either this is your subconscious saying "YES! GO VEGGIE!" or it is your subconscious saying "...if you go veggie, you will go insane with lust for meat and wake up on day and find you've eaten the cat. Or G."

Like most things your subconscious tries to tell you, this is thus ambiguous and unhelpful. That's why it's relegated to being a subconscious rather than being trusted with stuff that actually requires coherent thought.

MC

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Last night, I dreamed that I'd defrosted a 1500 year old Viking who ran amok around my friends, and then we were in a futuristic pseudo-Victorian era, sitting on an iron terrace taking tea and watching our friends' houses being bombed from zeppelins.

Were you stressed out? I was feeling crappy yesterday. Sometimes, a bad dream is just because you're upset and your unconscious just chucks random stuff at you (sometimes, really upsetting random stuff).

And I've never understood how anyone could think a person could read too much. Too much Mills and Boon, certainly, but too much in general??

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

The stress is gradually building up for my second teaching practice (D-Day Mon 11 Oct), now you come to ask! But I've also been mulling over how to handle the steak dinner planned for D's birthday on Friday... I think I've made progress, as I had a long chat with D's step-mum this morning, and she seems totally OK and unoffended with the health motivation for avoiding (red) meat. D's Dad is the one who will semi-gently rag me about reading too much ['and picking up silly ideas']: I've seen him rag D's uncles (his brothers-in-law), who are both vegetarian. He's of an age where he's not very receptive to changing his opinions. But I've already decided that if he asks me why I'm shunning steak, I shall say "Just to annoy you, and give D's uncles a laugh" which will be on the right level :-)

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a good plan! When my uncle asked me why I was bothering to make sosmix into sausage and burger shapes if I didn't want meat, I said, with a big grin, "I know it'll shock you, but meat doesn't actually come in those shapes, don't you? It has to be made into them by people in factories." Everyone laughed except for him. Then he decided it was funny, and everything was OK. But it was touch and go for a minute. I think, "Because it bugs you" would have been a better way to go!

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

It's not talking about lust for meat, I'm sure about that :-)

[crazysoph.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't put this imagery down to having a mind too full interesting facts.

It's an intriguing dynamic, though; but I don't think you'd want to be considering it very deeply at the moment, because of the upset.

Crazy(A dream exchange, maybe? Next upsetting dream I have...)Soph

PS that last bit was an attempt at whimsey. Hope it worked. *looks insecure*

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I'm managing to respond here without summoning up the images again. It's helpful to have a happy Flooger snoozing on the next-door computer chair :-)

It would be great to exchange disturbing dreams - they're such personal things, that mostly someone elses dreams will be far less disturbing that ones own, surely? :-)

[muninnhuginn]

It's annoying and distressing just how much impact dreams can have--not that that's much help, I guess.

Here's wishing you dreams of eating well-cooked cauliflower :-)

[mkillingworth.livejournal.com]

Well cooked cauliflower indeed. When i was an outrageous young hippy vegetarian my favourite junk food of all was felafels. You can eat some really cook junk food and not touch meat at all.

Unfortunately, then I became anaemic - really seriously anaemic, and I was pregnant. The nice doctor said I had to make a choice between this "silly vegetarianism" and my unborn child. I caved. So what did said child do when he was six years old? Came in and announced that he was never eating meat again, because it came from dead animals. Things go full circle, really.

Doctors don't get taught nutrition...

[purpletigron.livejournal.com]

I adore falafel!

As for the anaemia... I know it's all water under the bridge now, but these kinds of things are important to me, and I think that with a copy of Laurel's Kitchen (1976) you might have been able to convince your doctor that you can get plenty of iron even on a vegan diet.

Laurel recommends women intending to have a baby: Get your iron reserves up; Vitamin C intake is of great importance as it specifically enhances the absorption of iron from plant sources; take prune juice, beans, lentils, rice bran and blackstrap molasses; if you're still struggling to get 18 mg+ of iron daily, cook with iron pots, or take supplements.

Becoming Vegan (2000) recommends: Keep your iron intake sufficiently high throughout menstruation, pregnancy and lactation, and get your iron status tested; include a source of vitamin C at every meal; take figs, prunes, beans, lentils, quinoa, pumpkin seds and blackstrap molasses; if you're having trouble getting 50mg daily during pregnancy, use iron and steel pots or supplements; avoid tea and coffee.

So, no great breakthroughs in scientific knowledge, just changes in attitudes amongst medical practitioners perchance?

Is your son still vegetarian? :-)

Re: Doctors don't get taught nutrition...

[vgnwtch.livejournal.com]

A friendly aquaintance of mine "had" to give up vegetarianism while she was pregnant a couple of years ago, according to her doctor. So she did. I understand the panic-reaction of a pregnant woman whose obvious priority is the health of her unborn child when faced with a medical person telling her that if she remains veggie she'll be damaging the baby; it must be terribly distressing. On the other hand, it's frustrating that even in the 21st century, when good, reliable, accurate information is freely available about being a healthy pregnant veg*n, many people simply cave without researching. I suppose this is because my first reaction to any situation (once I've been peeled off the ceiling) is to look it up, and I don't understand why other people don't. Fighting your way through healthcare really shouldn't be necessary, though. Depressing that it still happens so often.