From White Nights to the October Revolution
I've lived in the north before--Seattle, England--so I thought I had a decent grasp on the phenomenon of "northern hemisphere." I didn't. I've never before experienced lack of night. Perhaps I'm unusually physiologically sensitive to light cues, and maybe it doesn't affect everyone quite so profoundly. But I'm astonished by the effect. I haven't really slept for about two days and don't want to sleep. No appetite at all. No fatigue, either. It's one of the strangest things I've ever felt.
I suspect that it can't be healthy to go without eating or sleeping, but when I try to lie down and close my eyes I just feel restless, and all the food on offer looks like some kind of sculpture--the bowl of fruit in front of me looks like nothing more than a collection of aesthetically pleasing objects.
If presented with these symptoms under other circumstances, I'm sure it would be called mania. It isn't just psychological. I tested it, out of curiosity. Despite having neither slept nor eaten, I can run further and faster and lift heavier weights than I can usually lift. The nightlessness has a real, measurable effect on my strength and endurance. No sense of fatigue, no matter what I do.
I recognize that this is a reasonably well-known phenomenon, but there's a huge difference, as always, between reading about something and experiencing it personally.
I note all of this because I now wonder if this may be more of a key to understanding Russian history than I'd ever realized. No high comes without a crash--and that would set in, obviously, in about October. How much might this explain? Has any historian ever posited this as a significant factor in the October Revolution?
Or is that the kind of question only a woman experiencing the symptoms of clinical mania would ask?
- Comment (29)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (2)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments :
Dec '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
As for your symptoms, I say ride the wave for it will likely, if not inevitably crest and mania such a pure and rapturous experience, that it ought to be savored. Conversely, if you develop the ability to see through walls or become impenetrable to speeding bullets, I'd see a physician.
Edited on Jun 7, 2011 at 3:28amMay '11
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Claire Berlinski, Wonder Woman. We knew it all along.
Feb '11
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
So it was a matter of no peace, no bread, no land, and incompetent SDs, SRs, etc. who can't make up their minds about anything -- and now we've got winter coming on us with no light, so let's have a revolution? Considering the manic quality of all Russian history, maybe you're onto something not only with the Bolshevik's revolution, but the personalities of all the tsars before and commissars after. But then, how would you explain Viking, Swedish or Norwegian histories? They would be experiencing the same phenomenon and I don't know enough about them to say anything.
Dec '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
When we were in Oslo & Stockholm during the month of May in '89 it remained light until about 11:00pm. Quite the experience --- even for a guy from Minnesota, but the winters...ugh! Dark by 4pm in December..not fun.
Glad you are enjoying your jaunt through the Baltic Wonder Woman! Hope you brought your cape!
Mar '11
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Johannes Allert
When we were in Oslo & Stockholm during the month of May in '89 it remained light until about 11:00pm. Quite the experience --- even for a guy from Minnesota, but the winters...ugh! Dark by 4pm in December..not fun.
Glad you are enjoying your jaunt through the Baltic Wonder Woman! Hope you brought your cape! · Jun 7 at 3:49am
Look, up there in the sky. It's a bird...It's a plane...it's Super Claire!
Be afraid, evildoers. Be very afraid.
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
It's honestly ... as a physical feeling it's more interesting than rapturous. It's not 100 percent pleasant. I'm curious and surprised, observing it in myself, but it's a slightly uneasy, "This is strange and it can't be healthy" kind of feeling. It just does not feel normal for the sun never to set.
It's unsettling to realize just how sensitive the body is to cues in the natural environment. I don't know why I should be quite so surprised.
May '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Relax Claire, you're just having your first-ever psychotic episode. It's only happening in your head.
Nov '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Interesting.
But is this the boom before the bust, I wonder?
Has someone been slipping Dr. Bernanke's stimulus pills into your drinks?
Edited on Jun 7, 2011 at 5:03amRe: From White Nights to the October Revolution
I've still got (I think) what the shrinks call "insight," in that I recognize this as an abnormal mental and physiological state. I still know it would be a very bad idea to corner other passengers on this ship and launch into a long, excitable lecture about how I've discovered a new Great Theory of Twentieth Century History. I'm not taking any of it too seriously. But it's sufficiently weird that I'm not taking your comment entirely as a joke--after this long without sleep, I'm slightly concerned that delusions of grandeur, a shoplifting spree and a half-naked photo shoot involving an albino python are the inevitable next stages.
Nov '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
On a less flippant scientific note:
Effects of daylight not so clear after all:
http://conditioningresearch.blogspot.com/2011/05/no-variation-in-sleep-patterns-during.html
The fascinating internal clock that controls it all:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/14/circadian-rhythm-math-technology-breakthroughs-brain.html
Staying awake makes you fat:
http://shine.yahoo.com/channel/health/women-who-sleep-less-eat-more-2468091
Nov '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
I've still got (I think) what the shrinks call "insight," in that I recognize this as an abnormal mental and physiological state. I still know it would be a very bad idea to corner other passengers on this ship and launch into a long, excitable lecture about how I've discovered a new Great Theory of Twentieth Century History. I'm not taking any of it too seriously. But it's sufficiently weird that I'm not taking your comment entirely as a joke--after this long without sleep, I'm slightly concerned that delusions of grandeur, a shoplifting spree and a half-naked photo shoot involving an albino python are the inevitable next stages. · Jun 7 at 5:10am
Do you find yourself having more ideas, of an interesting variety, that come more quickly to mind?
Sep '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
All threads on Ricochet lead back eventually to Sarah Palin. If you read here, the change in light affects circulating melatonin in birds which affects the circadian system. I assume the effects are similar in humans.
Short answer: you're on medication. Enjoy the prescription. Birds taste good, too.
Sep '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Oh and I almost forgot the long neglected topic of Jewish law in the polar regions.
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Yes, but part of that can be ascribed simply to seeing new things. A change of scenery always does that to me. And I can see now that yes, I'm tired--even though I don't feel tired--because I'm having a bit of trouble stringing a grammatical sentence together. (The one you just read didn't come out in English on the first few attempts.)
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Interesting. I'm wondering, too, if some part of me is simply too unconsciously Protestant (in a Jewish way) to sleep during the daytime. It just feels wrong, bad and lazy. I mean, it's light out. You shouldn't sleep when it's light out.
May '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Insight? There's an easier way for Russians to get that. It's called vodka.
This could explain the general weirdness of Scandis as a breed and Swedish film in particular. Most recently Zombie Nazis, Little Girl Vampires and Lisbet Salander. Now that girl had some insight. Also a tattoo (which I recommend you avoid; girls often get tattoos under the influence of insight).
Sep '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
Interesting. I'm wondering, too, if some part of me is simply too unconsciously Protestant (in a Jewish way) to sleep during the daytime. It just feels wrong, bad and lazy. I mean, it's light out. You shouldn't sleep when it's light out. · Jun 7 at 5:28am
That's uptight, rather than insight, but I stand by my earlier advice. You need to read more Josef Pieper. And -- the latest cognitive science and Winston Churchill prove -- controlled daily napping (15 minutes or so) boosts productivity during the day.
Oct '10
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Pseudodionysius: All threads on Ricochet lead back eventually to Sarah Palin. If you read here, the change in light affects circulating melatonin in birds which affects the circadian system. I assume the effects are similar in humans.
Short answer: you're on medication. Enjoy the prescription. Birds taste good, too. · Jun 7 at 5:18am
[This dust-up in prospect has been redacted by an editor, whose judgment is still good enough to see what's going to happen here from a mile away. Or ten thousand miles, as the case may be.]
Edited on Jun 7, 2011 at 6:11amRe: From White Nights to the October Revolution
Oh, yes, of course: Russians+vodka=insight. Everyone knows that.
Re: From White Nights to the October Revolution
It's still bad, wrong and lazy.