Welcome (back) to The Teeming Brain! If you’ve stopped by at any time in the past two months, you’ve noticed that there hasn’t been much of anything going on around here. All TTB content — the blog posts, the interviews, the different pages — has been gone. For several weeks there was a stark placeholder announcement stating that everything was on hold. More recently, the announcement and the site itself have just been gone, vanished, disappeared, as those of you who encountered a “site not available” error can testify.
What happened was that everything broke back in September when I migrated TTB to a different host. At the same time, I myself was in the process of moving to a new house in a new town in a new state. And, well, I literally didn’t have the time and energy to look into picking up the pieces. I even seriously considered calling the whole thing quits. In mulling the matter over, I very nearly decided that the inner impetus that had motivated me to launch this blog back in 2006 had played itself out at last.
Since you’re reading these words, you can know that such speculations did not prevail. The brain still teems, and this will continue to be one of its outlets.
I thought I’d take advantage of the hiatus to create a short guide to top Teeming Brain content for those who are new here, or even for those who have been around awhile. See the “Start Here” link in the site menu. Fourteen years is a long time for content to pile up, and the archives here have grown deep. On this new page, I’ve brought some of the most popular and significant posts, articles, essays, and other items to the top, where they’re not only easier to access but indicative of what this whole thing has been about, the main thrust and focus of this blog as a sprawling, long-form brain dump about everything that moves and interests me, abetted by contributions from friends and colleagues whose drives and interests intersect with mine.
I don’t know if TTB has another 14 years left in it. In light of the complex disruptions occurring everywhere in the world right now, I don’t even know — nor do you, nor does anyone — what lies directly ahead in the next few months. But for now, it’s definitely still here.
Glad to hear – it’s an appreciated resource !
You’ll always be a valuable asset in my life—creative and otherwise! Thank you, Matt.
Whew! Thought the teem had ran our of steam. Glad you’re back!
Glad to hear that you will be sticking around a bit longer I really enjoy your site. I am looking forward to delving into your guide. Also I should mention your stories, The New Pauline Corpus, Chimeras & Grotesqueries, and The Stars Shine without Me are among my favourite short stories I have read in a long time.
All the best
Guy
So pleased you are back, since I just found your BRAIN. Thanks for your teeming thoughts.
Please don’t stop – every post since I found it about two years ago has brought me something fascinating and helped me as a writer. Always appreciated !
Rhonda, Grimalkin, Trott Guy, Chris, William, T.q. – Thank you all for the positive words! It’s good to know this project has been valuable and meaningful to you.
It’s good to have you back. I think I found out about you before TTB because I recall following your site before 2006, if my memory is correct.
Hi, Michael. Before The Teeming Brain I had a very short-lived blog that nobody read, so I doubt you were following me online before that. I did have a MySpace page for awhile. I don’t recall when I first got on Facebook (although I’ve now been there and done that twice, and have deleted my account each time after a few years). In any event, thank you for the good words.
I was glad to see the Teeming Brain return. I’ve found some useful and thought-provoking stuff on here in the past such as the pieces on autumn longing / sehnsucht. I like the mix of interlinked ideas. Thanks for keeping it going!
Thank you for commenting. I’m glad you’ve found something of worth in the blog.
Really looking for the post you wrote about Autumn; that was a transcendent, captivating piece of writing. I also purchased a copy of To Rouse Leviathan, and savored just about every story.
Thank you for the kind words. You can find my original post on what I termed “the autumn longing” here. If you’ll use the blog’s search field for “autumn longing,” you can easily find the rest.
I am in loss of words where is my experiences I was wondering if I could talk to an expert to see what this means my sleep paralysis episodes always have the same woman but nothing ever scary happens I am only frightened because I cannot move and I cannot talk or scream or breathe for hours I but I am fully conscious and awake
Richard: I’m unable to offer any substantial or helpful advice about the woman you encounter in your SP episodes (sorry), but I can direct you to a helpful general resource for managing and philosophically/conceptually framing the general experience: Ryan Hurd’s Sleep Paralysis: A Guide to Hypnagogic Visions and Visitors in the Night. Ryan is a friend of this blog, having written several articles for it a few years ago, and he’s a bona fide expert on the subject of SP. His book is both a guide to understanding the experience and phenomenon of SP and a guide to managing its practical effects on one’s life and psyche. It was originally published in 2010, but he published a revised and updated second edition late last year that adds new information and insights from the past decade. You might find Ryan’s practical strategies for dealing with SP to be helpful.