Naked [Sleeping] Lunch

Just got a hankerin' for a few dozen popsicles and candy bars

The thing about drug-induced sleep eating is that it presents what could be considered a “golden ticket” of the Willy Wonka ilk that promises a lifetime supply of chocolate and definitive contact with a distant animal past. The article makes sure to mention that the drug’s side effect does not cause the usual psychological over-eating that Americans are all too familiar with, but a “primal” need for food that our culture is so foreign to it's ridiculous. This is part of what I identified earlier as the true attraction and joy of sleep-eating; that it in essence connects the advanced desire of symbolism and repetition of our current culture with an indistinguishable animal past.

Admittedly, my time with sleep-eating is most likely over. It was a constant and sticky companion throughout the years of my adolescence. When I found out Death Mask was afflicted with it to this day my initial and continuing reaction was bald envy. Therefore, the prospect of Ambien handing me a potential route by which I could relive the thrill of my somnambulant snacking gave me hope.

There is a problem, though, and that is the way that the “side-effect” of this drug is causing unbelievable weight gain. As the article claims, some woman in SoCal gained one hundred motherfucking pounds by sleep-eating candy bars and popsicles. Furthermore there were concerns that those who were sleep-eating would “choke” themselves in the process. This is not the re-enactment of awake eating that I remember so fondly, this is the action of a dog who destroys a rat trap and eats over three pounds of poisonous fucking rat bait because she is too stupid to know the shit will kill her. As Joseph K. exclaims at the end of Kafka’s The Trial, “Like a dog!”

This dog is so fucking stupid

The point is, perhaps the balance of modern to primal eating instincts when spurred by the drug tips heavily towards “primal,” making those foraging forays into the pantry a tipsy trip up the trunk of a prehistoric family tree. While this phenomenon may be just as interesting as the variation of sleep-eating we’ve been discussing up to this point, it is trivialized by the fact that it lacks a context in our society. I think the sleeping consumption of meticulously breaded shrimp preserved specifically for lunch in a Ziploc bag, or the unconscious preparation and consumption of a toasted PB&J resonate more clearly in the 21st century than the blind desperation involved in eating an entire bag of flour at 3 a.m. while your horrified teenage son looks on. In horror.

Coming Friday: Part 2, including interpretation of the following:

No cause has been found for sleep-related eating disorder, but Dr. Schenck says he believed that it happened when the brain confuses two basic instincts: sleeping and eating. "Those two become linked," he said. "In the sleep stage you eat. I think two instinctual behaviors become intertwined."

It's almost like there's an echo in here.

Et Tu, Mick?

From "Rocks Off," Exile on Main Street:

"I only get my rocks off when I'm sleeping."

I'm working furiously on that Ambien post.

Ineluctable Modality of the Awesome

I don't think this needs any further explanation

When the Mcsweeney's editors are ready for us to do our guest column the best way to reach us is by telephone:
Death Mask: (971) 219-1288
HC Earwicker: (503) 880-6890

Penguins Feed their Young

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE...after you spit it out.

The previous post raises the question that at heart I have been trying to dance around. That is, the context in which sleep-eating becomes more than a popular cultural phenomenon sweeping the nation and instead a subject for silent contemplation and the ever-further furrowing of my permanently furrowed brows.

Take, for example, a young JJ Rousseau rolling around in Mme. de Warrens’ bed like a dog scenting himself in the carcass of a jellyfish on the beach. The irony of Rousseau’s most amusing confession of the Confessions is that at the height of his effervescence his lust demands mediation—-even at its climax the participle orgasm is nothing more than the joy of watching a woman read a letter. The point is that as the romance loses its intensity--as Rousseau ages--the propensity towards actual physical contact increases. In other words, our sex drives work in counter to our capacity to love violently. Happy Anniversary.

Jean-Jacques also gives us the memorable episode in which his ebullient adolescent passions grow closest to the realm of the sensual; and unsurprisingly (for this blog, anyway) the moment is centered on a piece of food:

Sometimes even in her presence I committed extravagances that only the most violent love seemed capable of inspiring. One day at table, just as she had put a piece of food into her mouth, I exclaimed that I saw a hair on it. She put the morsel back on her plate; I eagerly seized and swallowed it. (Rousseau, Confessions)

The opportunity for interpretation is so large here I almost get dizzy trying to start. Of course, most want to wink and mention "Mamon," Mme. de Warrens’ maternal nickname. Most of these people are into role-playing anyway and should not be taken seriously. What I find most interesting is the transmutation of the desire for survival (food) into the desire for intimacy (sex): food and sex are often comingled but infrequently without the inane winking of the role-players mentioned above.


This man wiped his ass with silk laced doilies.

And since Proust was already brought up and my coexistent desires to prove I have read him and weigh in cannot be contained, I find it prudent to mention the transmutation of desire is the same in Swann’s Way as it is in Confessions; yet the addition of the desire for sleep rewrites the whole equation. We are taken from the precocious desire for intimacy that causes insomnia in a child whose imagination cannot withstand the knowledge that his mother is among strangers to the practically blasphemous transubstantiation of cookie (note the inherent difference between pastry and wafer) to pre-pubescent girlfriend.

All of these examples are pointing to T.S. Elliot’s notions of the “objective correlative,” or the object that is more than its physical presence. The half-chewed morsel, the Madeline, the shiny packet of ninja turtle gummies—-all these present evidence both of the mutated role of food in our consciousness and the conscious acceptance of symbolism. Storytelling is affirmed in our very ability to express ourselves better through metaphoric memories than in our own invented languages.*

But here’s my final question: what if our nameless narrator had thought about his infantile infatuation, actually fallen asleep, and then sought out the madelines in his unconsciousness? What if li’l Jean-Jacques had grasped the morsel from Mamon’s mouth, hid it under a stack of magazines, fell asleep, and then devoured it in his dreaming state? Would that not constitute an affirmation that symbolism is not just a necessity in the society of man, but a natural state contained by the structure of human society?

Enough with the erudition for now. I’m coming back big time with a post on that Ambien article I put up a while back.

*Vico would argue that language comes into place only once storytelling is established, that in fact the natural urge towards storytelling (myth) makes language inevitable rather than vice-versa.

Food Order

Four months have passed since my first nocturnal feasting and I haven't been able to track a palatable pattern or system to their visits. My instinct was to look at my diet, mainly what I had ingested the evenings of my stirrings. But it doesn't matter any if I've had none to drink or quite a lot, nor does it matter if I went to bed hungry or stuffed to the brim. The cause of my sleeping appetencies must not be triggered by what (or the lack of what) I've consumed during the day. By and large what I've eaten during my sleep has been sweets--besides the shrimp from the other night. But nothing I've consumed reflects the cravings I have for mass quantities of food during the day; those cravings are almost always confined to the red-meat and potato side-dish variety.

The only commonality I can find in every case of my sleep-eating is the good or fulfilling day I'd had before the intermission of bedded sleep. Once a friend took me out drinking and desserting, on another occasion Mom let me order three entrées at The Horse Brass, and last week the Martin Lawrence look-a-like (who I hate) got kicked off of ANTM.

I made the shrimp the night I was taken out, my mom gave me chocolates the same night I ordered 3 dinners, and on the night of Stacey Ann Lawrence’s departure my roommate was eating Ninja Turtle fruit snacks. Maybe here would be a good place to mention the 3 things which make me the most happy: attention, excess, and the pain of others. My nighttime excursions to the kitchen are an acting out or emergence of Lacan's "objet petits a" or partial objects. In other words, I crave or desire not what I'm eating, but rather what those foods reference. What I sleep eat is a symptom of my desire, rather than the actual desire. While coming down off of the high a special evening, I seek out, as Zizek puts it, "the remainder of the real that sets in motion the symbolic movement of interpretation".

Not quite Proust’s auxiliary motives, but close. Think about that scene in 8 ½ when Guido sees the hotel owner’s thighs and remembers Saraghina. This is a perfect example of an “objet petit”. What sleep-eating is, or what I'm attempting to achieve when I eat unconsciously, is to re-enter the state of satisfaction I recently experienced.

Definition: Tonkatsu

This cute Japanese thing has gotten out of hand

From Wikipedia:

"...It was originally considered a type of yōshoku—Japanese versions of European cuisine invented in the late 1800s and early 1900s—and was called katsu-retsu ("cutlet") or simply katsu. Early katsu-retsu was usually beef; the pork version, similar to today's tonkatsu, is said to have been first served in 1890 in a western food restaurant in Ginza, Tokyo. The term "tonkatsu" ("pork katsu") was coined in the 1930s.

Legend has it once a chef has created a Tonkatsu dish, the chef and the dish share an unbreakable psychic bond. Those who prepare tonkatsu should be prepared to be manipulated by the dish. This frequently results in the sonambulent consumption of the tonkatsu by the chef, a phenomenon known colloquially as "sleep-eating." Why the tonkatsu desires so strongly to be eaten in the night is a mystery to this day..."

Captured 4/21, 1:03 p.m. PCT

Effecting interpersonal relationships

(BIG MISTAKE TYRA!)

I’m sure a large percentage of sleep-eaters became so because of some rupture in their relationship with food, like me: I’m terrified of becoming fat but can’t commit or affiliate myself with any of the conventional eating disorders. Nevertheless, I obsess over food so often it’s spilled into my unwaking hours. My favorite activities are centered on eating: ANTM dinner night, dating, trivia night. I even get giddy putting things other than cheese in my cheese platter.

There is a direct relationship between the quality, quantity and pacing of my food intake during my day and my ability to enjoy my day. Last week I sealed three entire bags full of Katsu-breaded, coconut shrimp and set them aside for my lunch, then ate them in the middle of the night, woke up and accused my roommate of eating them. It went something like this:

Me: I can’t find my shrimp, and you and I are the only ones who eat meat in the house.
Roommate: I don’t know where they are. I saw them yesterday but I didn’t eat them. I wish I ate them but I didn’t eat them.
Me: Well, they’re not in the fridge.
Roommate: I don’t know.

(Five minutes later)

Me: Hey, Elly, I found the Ziplock bag the shrimp were in in my bed. I’m sorry for accusing you of eating them
Roommate: How did you forget eating a whole bag of shrimp?
Me: I’ve been sleep-eating. I’ve been meaning to tell you guys but I was hoping it would go away.
Roommate: That’s really weird.
Me: I’m ready to talk about it now.

Admitting to my roommates that I have a problem with sleep-eating is more embarrassing than forgetting lunch in elementary school and being forced to eat the free PB&J with water for drink. To top it all off, it's breaking me. If I eat my lunch at 4a.m. everyday, I have to spend an extra $5 on a replacement lunch.

Elitism and PBJ

The thought of Peanut Butter and Jelly in a sexual relationship kind of makes my stomach turn

The greatest and most interesting feat in my personal history of sleep eating was constructing and devouring a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while completely zonked out. The fact that I cannot remember this event, and that the only evidence I have to support its accuracy is eyewitness accounts and the uneaten quarter sandwich presented to me by the eyewitnesses, makes it no less miraculous in my mind. Firstly, how did I know which jars in the refrigerator were Peanut Butter and Jelly? Was I not just as likely to make a Mayonnaise and Jelly sandwich? Thought provoking, to say the least.

Finally, though, the piece de la resistance, so to speak, was the fact that the bread was toasted. Now, I don’t want to embarrass myself more than I have already, but when I’m awake I never toast the bread for PBJ. Why? Simple: because I’m fucking lazy as shit, that’s why. When I want PBJ it’s because I’m starving and don’t have time for the frills of toasted bread. That kind of superfluous horseshit is for stuffed-shirt types.

This begs the question: am I more patient in my sleep? Am I more of an elitist?

Here’s a link to an article about Ambien and sleep-eating. But don’t think this won’t come up again. In a big fucking way. There’s a lot left unsaid.

The Sleep-Lust Parabasis

Dagwood's effrontery to "work" and its participle "product" (mown lawn) suggest an alternative to the vilification of sleep-lust as "play."

Whether or not we are willing to openly admit it, sleep becomes social capital the second we hit high school. The structure of social functions allows for braggadocio surrounding both the limitation and the indulgence of sleep. Whereas sleep on the one hand is a sign of bourgeois privilege and laziness it is alternatively a symbol of class struggle and rebellion. Sleep is both the limiting liminal structure of economic hierarchy and the means by which such a hierarchy is in theory attacked. To understand the paradox I am attempting to illuminate, consider that it is appropriate to bemoan the lack of sleep one gets at night whilst crediting one’s ability to sleep through lectures, meetings, etc. To this end, the yawn is in itself totemic of both ends of scapegoating structures in a cyclical sense. A yawn is challenge during the day, surrender during the night.

To the individual existing without the collective boundaries of hegemonic sleep social customs, sleep is still an object of desire made taboo by repetition of the cultural construction of “sloth”; the realization of communal fear concerning what the indulgence of sleep-lust may cost the continuity of human relations. In this animated opposition of good and bad, the holy office belongs to "work"—-not intended in the scientific sense—-but as a whole; itself attached to some ethereal notion of "product" that will only come about through an oblique exertion. Although this "product" may at times be represented in something expressly palpable (such as a mown lawn), the existence of the “product” is entirely arbitrary in that any perceived advantages of its advent demand to be immediately forgotten in lieu of the establishment of a new and more demanding “product.” Should any “product” bring with it the actual promised satisfaction its presence claims the aforementioned satisfaction would prove conclusive the core lubricious nature of “work.” In this scenario—-admittedly impossible—-understanding of “sloth” would be put into question, our damning of sleep-lust with it.

Therefore, the position of sleep in our waking subconscious understanding reflects the complexity of our physical actions in sleep. Our maneuvering with sleep in conscious hours sculpts our feelings towards ourselves in our sleeping moments. Traditional dream analysis fails to comprehend how our collective attitude towards sleep must be understood in order to approximate any psychological claims on our dreams, themselves property of our sleep-lust. The most telling evidence of this relationship is our intriguing and indulgent habit of physically acting out the dealings of our waking moments in sleep. To this end, if you throw food-lust into the mix, you are served one of the more compelling and complicit phenomena one can hope to examine.

Midnight at the Moonstruck Cafe

Like all of my worst habits, sleep eating is my mother’s fault. She and my step dad each bought me a box of candy for Valentine’s Day. Hers were really nice chocolates in a little box and Jim’s were shitty chocolates in a box so big it looked like a movie prop. Every day after Valentine’s my mom would call me to ask “Have you eaten all your chocolates yet?” (She does this every year and not just for Valentine’s Day chocolates, but Halloween candy and Easter baskets too.) When I’ve eaten all the chocolate, no matter how long it takes me, she always says something like “WOW, you ate ALL of those chocolates! There were TONS of them. WHOA.”

This year I tried to make the candy stretch to the apocalypse so mom couldn’t pull her regular bullshit, except I should have known better because she always gets her way. I started devouring them in the middle of the night. There were mornings when I’d wake up with chocolate smudged on my face, coconut in my teeth, and sticky residue on my fingers. Fucking disgusting. I decided that if I hid the chocolates in a drawer, under a grip of magazines and papers, they would be too hard for my sleep-self to get too and she’d give up and go to bed. Turns out I’m about 100x’s more ambitious unconscious and would get into the candy anyway- the sole difference was the mess of magazines and wrappers I woke up to. I ate my Valentine's chocolates in record time and since I used up any enjoyment derived from lying to my mother by the time I was 16, I came clean and she was giddier than the time she argued with herself about Christina Ricci's "beautiful and youthful skin" over dinner*.

Either way, this ghost ship is making me fat and all I know is that I didn’t move to the city and get a job at a bookstore to look exactly like the fatass from my high school still works at the Kaady Carwash in Hillsboro.

*"Some people think it's because of Botox, but I think it's a combination of her being really lucky and moisturizing. But a lot of it could be Photoshoped too".

First Bites: 10 Years Old

We ARE hungry!

When I first reached puberty I underwent a slew of embarrassing changes that I like to believe were more dramatic and humiliating than any that anyone else could have possibly endured. Part of my conviction in the superiority of my suffering is the fact that puberty started for me in the fourth grade, when most kids were still concerned with not having to play the blue power ranger during recess. My feet ballooned out to a size twelve while I still stood a measly 4’8” and I grew an Adam Morrison moustache before anybody knew who the hell Adam Morrison was except maybe his parents and his siblings if he has any. I’m no Adam Morrison biographer; he’s just the most recognizable person who had a moustache like my fourth-grade one.

These physical changes were rough enough, especially on my athletic aspirations (the clown feet threw off my coordination a bit), but of course the quasi-sexual psychological changes were the ones that completely crippled my social skills and had me making sour-warheads-candy faces every time I finished talking to a girl.

The ultimate manifestation of these tumultuous pre-pre-pubescent pubescent changes was the fact that every night I dreamt I was a hungry pregnant woman. This is apparent given I began my habit of sleep-walk-chowing, or sleep-eating as it is colloquially called, at this age. Unlike others who have suffered this affliction (gift?) throughout adolescence I ate only the most absurd combinations of food usually reserved for pregnancy clichés on terrible sitcoms. My dad came downstairs one night upon hearing a noise to discover me craw-deep in a jar of pickles and some strawberry preserves. Oops, I think my water broke.