29 de abr. de 2022
Seth MacFarlane, Mr. Sandman.
Insomnia is one of the side effects of anxiety. It is estimated that 10 to 15 percent of the adult population suffers from chronic insomnia and 25 to 30% of adults have suffered from occasional or transient insomnia (SARRAIS, 2007). Me, I don't know where to classify myself, but my situation seems like one of those.
I don't know how it is with you, but what happens to me is that, in simple words, my brain doesn't turn off.
When I try to sleep, my mind continues to work, turning over problems and above all establishing disruptive thoughts; showing me catastrophic scenarios for things that maybe other people would say: Meh!
I’ve tried everything. Hypnotherapy, melatonin, which we, asthmatics shouldn’t take, because we feel like we are suffocating, I also tried Bach flowers, diphenhydramine, not recommended for asthmatics either, lettuce tea or so on. But then, if some of these methods helps, the nightmares come.
Has it happened to you that it seems that you’re the protagonist of one of the many Freddy Krueger movies? More or less so. Dreams are not pleasant.
And then, there’s Maude, I mean, Mr. MacFarlane, the dreams’ fairy, or Mr. Sandman if you like: Seth MacFarlane.
I’ve been Seth’s fan, for many years: American Dad, The Cleveland Show and especially Family Guy are some of the series I follow. And then, years ago, I went through a somewhat stressful situation, and the insomnia was worse than ever, accompanied by the presence of anxiety, who loves to visit at dawn. So, I started to watch Family Guy, which, at that time, when FOX still existed, broadcast it almost continuously during the wee hours of the night. I noticed that after a few minutes of watching the series I fell asleep, and instead of dreaming, in my mind I saw a perhaps mutated version of the episode that was being broadcast. The sweet and deep sleep lasted as long as the marathon of the series lasted.
It was then that last Christmas I received a sleep mask with integrated headphones and Bluetooth. So, connecting to the STAR+ channel app every night, I plug in my headphones, put on one of Seth’s series, and within a few minutes my brain is in a limbo, where Stewie and Brian are arguing because the latter used, without permission, the time machine of the first.
Why do I think this works for me? If I can guess, it's MacFarlane's voice. Many people criticize that his characters sound the same, with some changes in the accent, perhaps. Yes, possibly; Ted, the live, alcoholic, drug addict teddy bear from the movie of the same name sounds a lot like Peter Griffin, the overweight, alcoholic dad, especially when they sing. Maybe that's it. I'm not sure. What I’m sure of is that if I ever get the chance to meet Seth, I will thank him for the sleep. And I'm also sure that at that moment he will not understand.