Design - [verb] to form in the mind.: May 2011

Ever since I can remember I've been a terrible sleeper surviving contently on a few hours sleep a night. When I was a young child it always took me forever to get to sleep and I'd lie awake in bed listening to Pink Floyd, Animals on cassette until I finally dozed off.

It got so bad a few years ago that I spent a full Summer sleeping on the sofa because I'd fall asleep in the early hours of the morning watching nothing but rubbish on TV. It all changed when I got sick, just over a year ago now, I came down with tonsillitis which developed into glandular fever. With glandular fever came a whole load of other problems including what was thought to be anaphylactic shock from antibiotics, urinary tract infections and to top it off, what I thought would be the death of me, a fungal skin infection.

Supposed anaphylactic shock. Imagine waking up to this!

With all these problems and medications came the 16 hour sleeps (Which are in no way useful 3 months before exams.) and since then I've slept around 7 hours a night even though I've fully recovered.

I can't really remember my first attack of sleep paralysis but I know it was sometime during my recovery that it struck. Since then I've had it as frequently as every night and sometimes it only happens once every few months.

Sleep paralysis medically is explained as "a period of inability to perform voluntary movements either at sleep onset or upon awakening".

My attacks can happen at anytime, usually in the early hours of the morning, before I wake up or if I'm having a nap. It's difficult to explain what happens and just how terrifying it is without experiencing it first hand however, this isn't something I'd wish on anyone. It usually consists of me waking up, or thinking I've woken up, I'm in the same surroundings I fell asleep in, with the same people, at the same time of day but I'm still asleep. Imagine it like your head has woken up but your body is still asleep. You can't move, speak or shout.

Everyone has had those dreams where you can feel something isn't right but you can't explain it and once you've woken up telling someone else about it doesn't have the same horrifying effect. Well this is what waking up to sleep paralysis is like. There's a strange feeling in the room something that you know is not right one time I could have swore someone walked into my room spoke to me and left. Another time I woke up turned round and started punching a statue of Jesus (that's a different issue all together) even though I was still lying in my bed unable to move.

My most vivid memory of this happening was when I fell asleep watching TV with my boyfriend. I woke up, or at least I though I had, to the same surroundings I'd fell asleep in; my boyfriend lying next to me, Hollyoaks on the TV (again, my boyfriend watching Hollyoaks is another issue for another time) but there was something at the bottom of the bed that I didn't want to look at, it's presence made me uneasy and I began to panic.

I was getting really angry because I couldn't speak, my lips were moving but nothing was coming out. I was mad that my boyfriend hadn't noticed and I needed him to wake me up. In my head I was punching and biting him, doing everything I could to get his attention but in reality I was paralysed and unable to move. All this must have happened within a couple of minutes but to me it felt like hours.

Eventually I snapped out of the paralysis and woke up in horror. I think he felt worse than I did and ever since then he knows when I begin to breathe heavy and fast in my sleep it's just me giving him a sign to wake me up.

I went to the doctor about this issue because it was happening more frequently and I wasn't best pleased with the answer. Basically I was told there is no cure or treatment but if I find one I've to go back and let him know. Oh thanks I'll Google some symptoms and see what Wikipedia says. 7 years of medical school for that.

Turns out I did Google some information into sleep paralysis but ironically I have no recollection of doing it because it happened in my sleep. After waking up from punching a statue of Jesus I went back to sleep but apparently not for long because I woke up the next morning with over 40 tabs open on my computer to do with sleep paralysis.

Now I've just recently went to see the film Insidious so I'm not taking any of this too seriously at the moment.

There is loads of information on the net about people having attacks of sleep paralysis and feeling a weight on their chest which they describe as someone sitting on them. Hence why sleep paralysis is often referred to as Old Hag syndrome.

Now apparently, and I use the term apparently because I'm not even slightly convinced, sleep paralysis can lead to astral projection where the spiritual body leaves the physical body.

I know how this sounds and if I hadn't experiences sleep paralysis I'd have laughed this off as nonsense. I'm being open minded, if Dr "why don't you Google it" doesn't have an answer and the only other medical treatment is a course of antidepressants then I may as well listen to what other people who've experienced this have to say.

Without going into the subject in any great detail I am not in any way even slightly, never have been probably never will be, religious. However I do think having comfort and believing in something so much that you think it can cure cancer, make you live for eternity or just keep you safe is irreplaceable. It is for this reason (and lack of decent sleep) I will keep my mind open to anything, even if it is my new hidden talent to astral project to a parallel universe and return before my body has even woken up.

Here are a few links I found. Some begin to make sense, some are totally ridiculous, some are scams and then there's the medical ones which are totally useless.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omzsLqbgRaU

This is a woman in severe sleep paralysis she has other conditions also and this is much more severe than what I go through.

http://www.erinpavlina.com/blog/2008/03/does-sleep-paralysis-lead-to-astral-projection/

This is an explanation on how to remove your spiritual body from your physical body and astral project. Yeah, I'll let you know how that goes...

http://narcolepsyrevealed.com/sleep-paralysis-symptoms/

"The science not the myth"

http://www.webmd.boots.com/sleep-disorders/sleep-paralysis

Trusty Boots.

If you have any experience with sleep paralysis, astral projection or any sleep/ supernatural experience let me know. @Claire128

Picture by Euan Quigley

Sorry this blog has taken so long to write been so busy with the end of semester and sadly the end of 3rd year.

At the beginning of April a group of 30 odd Product Designers, Product Design Engineers and Sports Engineers descended upon the wonderful Bavarian capital of Munich.

For a week we drank Augustiner beer in the various beer gardens and halls throughout the city including the most famous the Hofbrauhaus House and sat in the English Gardens under the sun.

I also managed to bring home an extra stone in weight. Which I blame solely on the beer hall menu. To put this into context I started on the first night with a quarter chicken and half liter of beer for dinner, by the end of the week I was scoffing half a chicken, a liter of beer and looking for dessert. Let's just say I was embracing the Bavarian culture fully.

We couldn't have had better weather the full week we were there with temperatures around 20 degrees everyday. Allowing us to laze about in the sun at every chance we could.

However, we were there for a reason. It was after all a university organised trip and we had some places to visit; Bulthaup, Bosch/Siemens, BMW and Stefan Diez.

Our first visit was to Bulthaup a kitchen and living space designer located in the Munich countryside. We had a short presentation describing the background of the company, a look around the showroom and a tour of the factory.

I highly recommend you take a look at their website and watch the short video about veneers. I'd watched the video shortly before heading out to Germany and I was really excited to see the technology working. Their attention to detail and the overall finish of their product was nothing less than perfection which was mirrored by their price list. Expensive to say the least but I genuinely feel that if you had the money and the right location a Bulthaup kitchen would be a worthy investment.

Their products weren't designed or marketed as kitchens but architectural advancements and social living spaces. My favorite of their range was without a doubt b3 because it blended the living space and functional kitchen area together seamlessly using floating cabinets and multi function walls.

It's difficult to describe just how flawless the veneers and finishes on every cabinet without seeing them for yourself.

We made a visit to Bosch/ Siemens to discuss with them branding and managing companies that all operate under the same umbrella company. As I was particularly interested in branding I was excited for this visit, only to be disappointed. Simply because they never really gave us any indications of interactions between the companies and how they distinguish themselves from one another within the home appliances market.

The morning was structured with different company representatives giving a short presentation into their company and I was surprised to find that the other company representatives where also hearing a lot of this information for the first time.With one representative in particular joking about applying for a job with Gaggenau after hearing their presentation. Gaggenau are the top innovators within the Bosch/Siemens group and their products are top of the range and top of the price list.

I was under the impression that the companies would work closely together to share resources and, to a certain extent, ideas and products. However, this didn't seem to be the case which would have been more logical for the companies to work together to help distinguish their product from one another and cooperate with ideas that may have been more suitable under different brands than their own.

It felt like quite a competitive atmosphere with an 'every man for themselves' approach which came across as more of a hindrance to all the companies involved. This became evident during the question and answer session where we were informed that if two companies designed products that were too similar only one company could release their version and the other's would be scrapped. In my opinion this seems like a large waste of time, resources and money that could be easily solved with the implementation of better communication techniques throughout the companies earlier in the design process.

Despite this it was interesting to hear some of the presentations and the lunch was free. So a bunch of 30 students were easily pleased.

For anyone visiting Munich I can't compliment enough the free walking tour around the city which we done on our fist full day in the city. It was about an hour and a half with two English speaking tour guides who were excellent. The tour included history, architecture, the war and the beer gardens plus the weather was glorious.

Sorry for such a long blog this time I just have so much to say and yes, a lot of it may be highly opinionated but I'm glad I never had the time to write this as soon as I returned because the beauty of hindsight has allowed me to balance the company visits with reality instead of being caught in the moment and hype.

Here are a few other pictures from the trip some from my camera, some from other students.