| float me |
[22 Jan 2009|08:50am] |
it was a busy day yesterday. work and running errands all the way till 10pm.
i was carrying bags and bags and walking long distances.
then i felt like i needed some silence. so i went to the kitchen with the lights off. took a piece of cake with me and walked to the window.
then like all idiots, i decided to throw the wrapper out the window instead of the dustbin.
what i'm about to say next may need a bit of imagination because i don't think i'd be able to do a good job in describing.
the sky was stark black and in the distant, the lighted ships on jurong island looked like bright stars. the cake wrapper floated like a lonesome snowflake.
at that moment, i had the urge to jump out of the window and float along with the wrapper too. thankfully, i did not.
but watching the wrapper float away and not descending had such a lifting effect on me. i couldn't help but let out a contented sigh and gentle smile.
these are one of the few moments that one realises.
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| longing |
[22 Jan 2009|04:23pm] |
we breathe the same air
we look up upon the same stars
we speak the same language
yet we're so far apart
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| tetris is good for me and maybe everybody |
[22 Jan 2009|07:16pm] |
6. Computer game could help prevent traumatic flashbacks
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The idea of fire-fighters, rape victims and car crash survivors being led
away from their trauma to play the jigsaw-style video-game Tetris is
surreal, but could soon become a reality. That's because Emily Holmes and
colleagues have shown that playing the game half an hour after watching
traumatic scenes on video, led people to experience fewer flashbacks of
those scenes.
We already have relatively effective treatments for post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD), such as eye-movement desensitisation and reprocessing
therapy and cognitive behavioural therapy. Holmes' team, however, wanted to
test a psychological intervention that might prevent the establishment of
PTSD in the first place. To date, most research in this area has involved
using drugs, like beta-blockers, to prevent the consolidation of traumatic
memories, but these obviously have side-effects and could interfere with
intentional memory recall, to the detriment, for example, of witness
statements. Moreover, other research has shown that existing psychological
interventions, such as debriefing right after a trauma, can actually cause
harm.
The new study takes advantage of the fact that the shape arranging involved
in the game Tetris requires the same visuo-spatial mental resources as
flashbacks, together with the fact that new memories are known to be fragile
for up to six hours before becoming fully consolidated.
Half an hour after watching scenes of surgery, drowning and traffic
accidents, 40 participants were split into two groups: half played Tetris
for ten minutes while the others just sat quietly.
During these ten minutes, the game-players reported fewer flashbacks to the
movie scenes. Even more importantly, they also experienced fewer flashbacks
during the whole of the following week, and also showed fewer clinical
symptoms of trauma, than did the participants who just sat quietly. By
contrast, both groups were equally capable of voluntarily recalling details
from the film.
The researchers dubbed their intervention a "cognitive vaccine" and
theorised that the game left conceptual processing of the scenes intact, but
interfered with the sensory-perceptual processing of the scenes that can
contribute to flashbacks.
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