by May Sarton

The days are cold and brown,
Brown fields, no sign of green,
Brown twigs, not even swelling,
And dirty snow in the woods.

But as the dark flows in
The tree frogs begin
Their shrill sweet singing,
And we lie on our beds
Through the ecstatic night,
Wide awake, cracked open.

There will be no going back.

From an article in the WSJ:

Jumping Frenchmen of Maine Disorder. The typical response to being startled – muscles tense, heart pounds, senses go on alert – lasts only a few seconds. But in this disorder, first observed in 1878 among French-Canadian lumberjacks in the Moosehead Lake area of Maine, the reaction is greatly exaggerated. Sufferers jump, twitch, flail their limbs and obey commands given suddenly, even if it means hurting themselves or a loved one. It’s also been observed in factory workers in Siberia and Malaysia. Some experts believe it’s a genetic mutation that blocks glycine, a neurotransmitter that calms the central nervous system’s response to stimuli. Others think it’s more psychological than neurological, and perhaps part of a heightened defense mechanism from living and working in close quarters.

Paris Syndrome. This variation of Stendhal Syndrome primarily affects Japanese tourists; about a dozen a year experience a psychiatric breakdown in the City of Light. In the 1980s, a Japanese scientist theorized that the disorientation is brought on by the combination of exhaustion, the language barrier and difficulty some Japanese have reconciling their idealized vision of Paris with the modern reality.

Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. Named after Lewis Carroll’s famous novel, this neurological condition makes objects (including one’s own body parts) seem smaller, larger, closer or more distant than they really are. It’s more common in childhood, often at the onset of sleep, and may disappear by adulthood. The prevalence and origin are unknown, but it sometimes accompanies migraine headaches, epilepsy, brain tumors or the use of psychotropic drugs.

I saw this mentioned on John Crowley’s blog, which is quite fitting, as Alice in Wonderland syndrome immediately brough to mind a passage describing an episode one of his characters suffers in the Aegypt quartet.

I also remember coming across an old drawing mapping the body based on importance (similar to the world maps we see with countries scaled to show population). Unfortunately, I have no idea where I saw it or in what context.