The 6 Creepiest Places on Earth It doesn't matter whether or not you believe in ghosts, there are some places in which none of us would want to spend a night. These places have well earned their reputations as being so creepy, tragic or mysterious (or all three) that they definitely qualify as "haunted." Places like... Aokigahara is a woodland at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan that makes The Blair Witch Project forest look like Winnie the Pooh's Hundred Acre Wood. What Niagara Falls is to weddings, Aokigahara is to suicide. More than 500 fucking people have taken their own lives in Aokigahara since the 1950s. The trend has supposedly started after Seicho Matsumoto published his novel Kuroi Kaiju (Black Sea of Trees) where two of his characters commit suicide there. Also skulls. Besides bodies and homemade nooses, the area is littered with signs displaying such uplifting messages like "Life is a precious thing! "If you commit suicide here, bears will poop on your corpse." Winchester Mystery House Oh, bitch...!
Alternative Sleep Cycles: You Don’t Really Need 6-8 Hours! Most people only think that there is one way to sleep: Go to sleep at night for 6-8 hours, wake up in the morning, stay awake for 16-18 hours and then repeat. Actually, that is called a monophasic sleep cycle, which is only 1 of 5 major sleep cycles that have been used successfully throughout history. The other 4 are considered polyphasic sleep cycles due to the multiple number of naps they require each day. How is this possible? Well the most important of every sleep cycle is the Stage 4 REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, which has been shown to provide the benefits of sleep to the brain above all other stages of sleep. This way, you still get the benefits of 8 hours of sleep without wasting all of the time it takes to get to REM cycles, resulting in a much more efficient sleep cycle. Uberman Cycle: 20 to 30 minute naps every 4 hours, resulting in 6 naps each day. Everyman Cycle: One longer “core” nap that is supplemented with several 20-30 minute naps. Dymaxion Cycle: Biphasic/Siesta Cycle:
5 Ways Stores Use Science to Trick You Into Buying Crap A big chunk of the world economy runs on human weakness. Peer pressure, vanity, insecurity, the fact that we just cannot resist the sight of melted cheese -- all of these will make us fork over our cash. And really, we're fine with that. But what you may not know is that there are some other, much weirder scientific principles that factor into what you buy. You Move in Predictable Patterns You step in the front door of your nearest chain grocery store. This is the only sheep-based image we'll use this article. This is because, after years of analysis of how humans move in a store, they've found that we're as easy to predict as animal migrations. Grocery stores are laid out to lead you around a set path you didn't even know you were following. "Boy, those fresh carrots sure did help me forget that everything in this aisle has been dead for weeks." And sweet lady Boxed Wine. Remember, the goal is to keep you in the store as long as possible, and to make you pass as many shelves as possible.
Classic: 5 Mental Disorders That Can Totally Get You Laid We don't want to make light of mental disorders or its sufferers, but you have to admit sometimes a person can be just mentally ill enough to be cool. After all, chicks totally dig troubled guys. Now, when we say "troubled," we're not talking about that one naked dude on the subway who constantly masturbates and can only talk in machine code. No, we mean the complex and difficult soul, present in 70 percent of Oscar-winning movies, who spends two hours battling against his inner demons while being submerged up to neck level in pussy. You can be that guy, if only you're lucky enough to contract an inconvenient and traumatic brain condition. Here are 5 such disorders that might just be cool enough to get you laid. This very rare condition arises as a result of a stroke or head trauma in which the brain's speech center is damaged, causing the sufferer to regain consciousness with a totally different accent. Will it get me laid? Jesus. How do I get it? Is it worth it? Ok, don't go for it.
Pixar's 22 Rules of Storytelling These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist. Number 9 on the list – When you’re stuck, make a list of what wouldn’t happen next – is a great one and can apply to writers in all genres. You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.Once upon a time there was ___. 5 Surprisingly Easy Ways to Make Kids Smarter There is an endless debate about why school kids in the Western world are falling behind everyone else. Some say it's a shameful lack of funding; others say kids these days are too lazy and too busy Twittering on their iPads about the Justin Biebers to learn calculus. But there are actually things you can do to help kids learn that cost next to nothing. For instance, studies show that kids do better if you ... Start the School Day Later (By Just One Hour) Here's something every kid knows, and that parents have been ignoring since the beginning of time. Sneak a quick peek around your office/classroom/rodeo clown school. GettyAnd our emotional problems. And for those kids, particularly teenagers, sleep deprivation can mean failure at school. Getty"He's still terrible at art, but at least the cat's alive in this one." Why Does This Work? Because of a hormonal switch in the natural body clock, teens are often not sleepy late at night, unlike most adults and small children, so they stay up late.
Five Weird Facts About Your Wife's Brain | Why Men Don't Listen To Women in Marriage Communication June 18, 2011, By Steve Kissing Men and women are equals in the grandest sense of the word, yes. But just as our bodies are undeniably different, so, too, are our minds. 1) She Remembers More. Lesson: Don’t argue with your wife over details about something that happened months or years ago. 2) There’s a Reason She Cries. Lesson: If you wish your wife cried less, work harder at paying attention to the small ways she’s telegraphing her feelings. NEXT: Her Instincts are Solid
The 5 Least Romantic Keys to a Happy Relationship Any old talk show psychologist can give you the business about date nights and fetish gear to keep the spark alive. That's Talk Show Psychologist Tips For Romance 101. But it takes a ballsy renegade to have the guts to let you know that saving a relationship might be about imagining the most romantic solutions possible -- then doing the opposite. That ballsy renegade is us. #5. Spend Less Time Together So it's been a long week at work, both of you are stressed out and when you do see each other, you end up fighting like rabid monkeys. GettyNo line to the women's toilets will ever come between you! Or not. Wait, What? This one sounds painfully obvious when explained, but we'll be damned if we can't think of a couple who doesn't make this mistake. Studies show that it is actually better to keep your fun time separate, especially when it involves a hobby that one partner likes and the other just tolerates. GettyLike sleeping with other people. Getty"Wait, how did I get on this boat? #4. #3.
The 5 Creepiest Urban Legends (That Happen to be True) The best creepy campfire stories are always the ones that end with the words, "...And it’s all true, because I have the damned documentation here to prove it!" In that spirit, we've tracked down five of the creepiest tales and urban legends that really happened to real people, proving once and for all that nothing is more terrifying than everyday life. The Dead Body Under Your Freaking Matress The Legend: A couple checks into a hotel and have to put up with a foul odor in their room all night. Now, there's no way that scenario is going to have a good ending. The Truth:This actually happened, in Las Vegas. It makes sense if you think about it. The strangest part isn't that the bodies wind up in such a terrible hiding place (killers often aren't the type to plan ahead). Most people we know will complain if they detect that someone might have smoked a cigarette in their room four months ago. Or, at least we hope sleeping is all they did on that bed. The Funhouse Mummy The Truth: Buried Alive
The 5 Most Extravagant Ways Cities Have Been Wiped Out Every city will eventually go away. Usually they'll be abandoned or paved over to build a professional sports stadium for the bigger neighboring city. And then there are the cities that die hard. Ubar -- The Atlantis of the Sands Deep in the recesses of Islamic legend, there was once a region so corrupt that God smote it, not with fire and brimstone, but with sand. "Anything but sand. It wasn't until the 1980s that archaeologists, using NASA satellites and super-radars, located a network of camel roads leading to the remains of Ubar situated deep in the Rub' al Khali desert in the Arabian Peninsula. And then one day, all the hippies flocking their for their sweet frankincense fix returned saying the roads leading up to the city just sort of ... ended. The Horror: Sometime between 300 and 500 AD, the city collapsed into a sinkhole, which then collapsed into a cave. Getty"Well at least there's plenty of Fraggles to eat down here." Just saying. Pirate City of Port Royal Via awesomestories
The 7 Craziest Things Ever Done to Get Laid King Henry VIII Started a New Religion For His Penis In the year 1525, King Henry VIII had a problem with Anne Boleyn's pants -- specifically, whether or not he could legally get in them. See, even though he was married to Catherine of Aragon, he wanted to nail Anne Boleyn. Who would want to divorce a woman with such angular hair? Thing is, divorce was not a legitimate answer to anything in 16th century England back in the day, since marriage was considered holy and indissoluble by the Catholic Church -- best case scenario was an annulment, which could only be procured if the marriage had been entered into improperly. Pope Clement VII, here pictured giving exactly zero shits. Henry, however, was kind of used to getting his own way and decided to just go ahead and marry Anne anyway. Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII, hunting Irish Catholics on his private estate. A Kenyan Peace Was Brokered Over a Lack of Sex Apparently, Lysistrata was pretty damn true to life. No kidding. Getty