Vegetables

We've all seen or heard about comas and people being in a coma. It may have been in House M.D. or even someone you have known. Most people wake up in a month or so, and people who have neither died nor woken up after that are considered to be in a "persistent vegetative state".

Now, just like the brain is still a bit of a mystery, so are comas. There is not singular treatment that can awake someone from a coma. You can prevent further body and brain damage, keep the person from dying, but unless the cause of the coma is something that can be treated (like flushing the drugs out of someone who overdosed himself into a coma or removing a brain tumor), there is yet to be found a way to wake up the patient.

Now, while some people argue that the very definition of "coma" will imply that a patient is incapable of responding to external stimuli, like pain, or someone's voice, others will reply that the small twitches and reflex reactions are actually attempts at communicating. Since I have no idea what I'm talking about, I can't really give you a decent opinion on the matter, but I can (and will) state my opinion (otherwise this blog would be just plain boring).

Even if I don't quite believe stories like Geoffrey Lean's, I believe the brain is still capable of receiving external stimuli. I believe we can still hear a voice, just not process it. I believe we can still smell something nasty, just not identify what it is. And most of all, I believe it's possible to communicate with people in a coma. Maybe not have an actual conversation, but induce states of mind, increase the blood pressure by exciting them, shit like that. The method will, however, depend on the patient.

For everyone there is a sense that affects them more than the others. Some people are really visual, love sunsets and looking at stars and all that shit, others have their headphones on their ears all the time. I once met a guy that told me he could spend an hour a day just enjoying the smell of cut grass during the summer. Speaking for myself, my favourite sense is sound and that is why I, in a flash of brilliance, designed a playlist called "COMA" (so original), with around 20 songs that really move me, that get my heart racing, my adrenaline pumping or that soothe me into depression.

(My friends told me something like "I can't tell whether you're a genius or just retarded..." when I told them this, but well... It's worth a shot!)

Anyway, the playlist includes songs such as

• Maggot Brain, by Funkadelic; this has to be Eddie Hazel's best performance, imho. Really touches me
• Injection, by Hans Zimmer; my favourite song from my favourite composer
• Black, by Pearl Jam; it's what I hear in my mind when I imagine myself saving my family from zombies in the apocalypse!
• Arthas, My Son, by Brower and Duke; found this thanks to World of Warcraft and it had the best trailers I've ever seen in a videogame
• Warsaw Theme, by Jukka Rintamäki; the Battlefield 4 theme song ( i prefer the song to the game itself?)
• Mad World, originally by Tears for Fears, covered by Gary Jules ft. Michael Andrews; found this before watching Donnie Darko, but loved it ever since
• House of Cards, by Audiomachine; an epic among epics
• My Body Is A Cage, originally by Arcade Fire, covered by Peter Gabriel; found this in "House MD", in an episode where it seems like House is going to kill himself
• Isolated System, by Muse; brilliant song for the start of World War Z, really puts me in a chaotic state of mind
• Favorite Things, by Incubus; one to listen to just before getting into an argument :P

... and a few others. No need to link all of the songs, I guess, they probably won't mean to you what they mean to me. If anything can wake me up from a coma, I have to believe this would be it! If you had to find a way to bring yourself out of a coma, what would it be? Drop your ideas on the comment section down below =)

Cya around,

David