Post #4-Sleepy Night Terrors''s (Revised)

I woke up on Thursday morning,  alarm clock blasting and it was 107.7 the End talking about the new horror movie that was coming out this weekend. Apparently, it was the third of a movie series going on about paranormal activity. I didn’t pay much attention to it as I grudgingly slammed the snooze button on the alarm. Driving to school that day I also heard on the radio again that a new movie called Paranormal Activity 3 was debuting this weekend and it was supposed to be a hit. I slowly started to recall the previous films of the series which received high praises for engrossing large amounts of money on such low budgets. I remembered how I had trouble sleeping and the eerie feeling I was being watched while I was sleeping.  I got chills run down my back just thinking about how the third film might turn out, and instantly I was captivated into going to the premier. 

The announcer was talking about how the first movie was filmed in only a week and had a 15,000$ budget but produced over 194 million dollars worldwide.  I could only imagine what they would do with this film which had an 8 million dollar budget, the possibilities were endless.  The films were based on the story surrounding Katie Featherston, (which is her name in real life) and her interactions with a paranormal entity. The third film was about the lives of Katie and her younger sister Kristi, and their experiences dealing with the entity. I planned to go to the midnight show with a bunch of friends, and the adrenaline was already kicking in when I was bought the tickets for the show.

Reviews were somewhere on the extremes, either you really liked the movie or you thought it was complete garbage. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an average rating of 6.1/10 through critics, and a 3.8/5 for the general audience. Even though it didn’t get the best ratings in the world, it was still easily the most money making movie to premier this weekend. A lot of critics refer to the Paranormal Activity series as the Saw killers. What they mean by this is that the general horror movie in the past 5 years has been about blood and guts, and how a psychotic serial killer decides to kidnap you and put you through obstacles to see if your worthy of living. While numerous individuals thought this was entertaining, not a lot of people could connect and identify with the film, as they could with Paranormal Activity 3.

The movie overall delivered a terrifying performance, but it didn’t seem to be much different than the prior movies. There were scenes that just petrified me, and one of my friends even started praying in the middle of the movie. After the film I found out that the movie made 54 million dollars on its opening weekend, which completely obliterated any other opening movies that weekend. Paranormal Activity 3 made the most money opening weekend since Planet of the Apes came out, which made 54.8 million, except that movie had a 94 million dollar budget cut.

The setting is in a typical everyday house and how out of the ordinary things seem to take place when everyone goes to bed. Everyone has once thought what might be happening around them while unconscious, but Dennis, (Katie and Kristi’s mother’s boyfriend) decides to start putting up cameras throughout the house. What have people learned from the previous films? That crazy, unexplainable occurrences take place once someone thinks it’s a good idea to start putting cameras all over the place. This all started because in the beginning of the film, an earthquake occurs and dust falls off the ceiling and it seems as if it falls onto an invisible figure. Then, all of a sudden Kristi has a new best friend, whose name happens to be Toby. She’s such good friends with him that she sometimes gets up in the middle of the night just to converse with him, often times leading into arguments. This would be all fine and dandy, except for the fact that Toby is imaginary, and a lot of odd things seemed to start happening once he came into the picture. As the movie went on, I saw how real Kristi thought Toby was, often not being able to answer her parents pleading questions because she says, “Toby won’t let me! Why don’t you just ask him yourself! He’s right there!?!”

One thing that seemed to bug me about the movie was how this suburb guy in the 80’s could afford to have 5 cameras, which were all pretty decent size. I’m not familiar with how much the average camera cost back in those days, but if it’s similar to prices now, then how would he have enough money to purchase all those cameras just to catch on film what he thinks is a ghost?

Post #3-Sleepy Night Terrors

Waking up on a Thursday morning, my alarm clock would go off and it was 107.7 the End talking about how the new horror movie that was coming out this weekend. Apparently, it was the third of a movie series going on about paranormal activity. I didn’t pay much attention to it as I grudgingly slammed the snooze button on the alarm. Driving to school that day I also heard on the radio again that a new movie called Paranormal Activity 3 was debuting this weekend and it was supposed to be a hit. I slowly started to recall the previous films of the series which received high praises for engrossing large amounts of money on such low budgets. I remembered how I had trouble sleeping and the eerie feeling I was being watched while I was sleeping.  I got chills run down my back just thinking about how the third film might turn out, and instantly I was captivated into going to the premier. 

The announcer was talking about how the first movie was filmed in only a week and had a 15,000$ budget but produced over 194 million dollars worldwide.  I could only imagine what they would do with this film which had an 8 million dollar budget, the possibilities were endless.  The films were based on the story surrounding Katie Featherston, (which is her name in real life) and her interactions with a paranormal entity. The third film was about the lives of Katie and her younger sister Kristi, and their experiences dealing with the entity. I planned to go to the midnight show with a bunch of friends, and the adrenaline was already kicking in when I was bought the tickets for the show.

The movie overall delivered a terrifying performance, but it didn’t seem to be much different than the prior movies. There were scenes that just petrified me, and one of my friends even started praying in the middle of the movie. After the film I found out that the movie made 54 million dollars on its opening weekend, which completely obliterated any other opening movies that weekend. Paranormal Activity 3 made the most money opening weekend since Planet of the Apes came out, which made 54.8 million, except that movie had a 94 million dollar budget cut.

Reviews were somewhere on the extremes, either you really liked the movie or you thought it was complete garbage. Rotten Tomatoes gave it an average rating of 6.1/10 through critics, and a 3.8/5 for the general audience. Even though it didn’t get the best ratings in the world, it was still easily the most money making movie to premier this weekend. A lot of critics refer to the Paranormal Activity series as the Saw killers. What they mean by this is that the general horror movie in the past 5 years has been about blood and guts, and how a psychotic serial killer decides to kidnap you and put you through obstacles to see if your worthy of living. While numerous individuals thought this was entertaining, not a lot of people could connect and identify with the film, as they could with Paranormal Activity 3.

The setting is in a typical everyday house and how out of the ordinary things seem to take place when everyone goes to bed. Everyone has once thought what might be happening around them while unconscious, but Dennis, (Katie and Kristi’s mother’s boyfriend) decides to start putting up cameras throughout the house. What have people learned from the previous films? That crazy, unexplainable occurrences take place once someone thinks it’s a good idea to start putting cameras all over the place. This all started because in the beginning of the film, an earthquake occurs and dust falls off the ceiling and it seems as if it falls onto an invisible figure. Then, all of a sudden Kristi has a new best friend, whose name happens to be Toby. She’s such good friends with him that she sometimes gets up in the middle of the night just to converse with him, often times leading into arguments. This would be all fine and dandy, except for the fact that Toby is imaginary, and a lot of odd things seemed to start happening once he came into the picture. As the movie went on, I saw how real Kristi thought Toby was, often not being able to answer her parents pleading questions because she says, “Toby won’t let me! Why don’t you just ask him yourself! He’s right there!?!”

One thing that seemed to bug me about the movie was how this suburb guy in the 80’s could afford to have 5 cameras, which were all pretty decent size. I’m not familiar with how much the average camera cost back in those days, but if it’s similar to prices now, then how would he have enough money to purchase all those cameras just to catch on film what he thinks is a ghost?

Post #2-Mystical Shrooms are Life Changing

Ever had the urge to experiment with psychedelic drugs? No? what if they had the possibility of putting you in a better mood better than any other kind of anti-depressant? Throughout history psychedelic mushrooms have been a part of many cultures as a way of changing there mindset. For instance many Indian tribes in South America would take such mushrooms as a way to bond between families. They thought they could "elevate to a higher plane and have a better overall understanding of life."  Studies have shown that psychedelic mushrooms have a permanent personality change if taken. Scientists have found out that the active ingredient in the mushroom is an ingredient called psilocybin. The mushrooms have proven to change someones personality in such a way that show "increases in the key personality dimension of openness — being amenable to new ideas, experiences and perspectives — more than a year later." Katherine MacLean is the research lead in this study, who is a  postdoctoral student at Johns Hopkins University. 




The study was given to 52 patients, which had an average age of 46 years old. These subjects were given personality trait test prior to actually taking any psilocybin. They were then given two-to-five doses of the drug during numerous sessions. These tests were all done under highly controlled conditions at a hospital. They were then given another personality test in a year or so, the results were usually very different. The patients expressed more feelings of happiness, kindness, and calmness. There were even many reports by family members that were identical to some of the expressed personality tests.


The study suggests that as people age and grow older, they become less open to try new things, and didn't want to experience anything out of the ordinary. The drug supposedly makes the patients more open and susceptible to ideas which made them feel decades younger.


During the study, your either given a placebo or a high dosage of psilocybin, depending on which patient you were. One patient reports that they didn't feel the change the first time. They were given the placebo and had headphones on and listened to classical music. After about four hours goes by and nothing really happened. After another session, and receiving the drug, he describes the experience as, "There was this point where, basically, I forgot about anything Brian-like or who Brian was. I was really in touch with all experience: whatever happened was part of me. I was not observing — I was whatever was happening. The other thing that was so memorable was that everything was so beautiful and it made me cry because the beauty was so exquisite. And then I'd remember how painful and how messy it all was. I was laughing and crying for like three hours straight.

I was absolutely that certain that everything was just the same thing, just different flavors and tastes of one underlying reality and being so grateful to be alive and able to experience it." Brian reported being more tolerant and more compassionate, saying that perspective determines your experience, and how seeing more than one perspective can change your perception on reality. 

Not all the patients reacted so calmy their first time taking the drug. A patient by the name of Maria Estevez had what is called as a "bad trip". She was one of the first random subjects to receive a high dosage, which ended up being the worst thing that ever happened to her. She describes the experience as, "I was slammed,I was inundated, I felt like I was drowning. I was knocked around and tumbling beyond all sanity." But during one of her more successful sessions, she expressed a feeling of a "god-like" presence with her. She reports that after taking psilocybin, she is much more forgiving of family and friends. 

The research hasn't shown any permanent or long lasting negative effects to the drug treatment. However, there are cases where people can get negative effects such as fearfulness or anxiety problems. But these problems are short-term and go away quickly. The study is even moving towards testing this on high anxiety or depressed cancer patients to help improve their mood. 

http://healthland.time.com/2011/10/03/want-to-feel-younger-more-open-magic-mushrooms-trigger-lasting-personality-change/