Did you know that you have about four dreams that last 5 to 45 minutes every night but you just don't remember them? (1)(2) While the subjective experiences of dreaming are much longer, usually the process of falling asleep and waking up feels instantaneous.
To explain my point, I need to switch to some heady concepts about life for a moment.
Here is one tricky concept to grasp: experiencing and remembering are mentally equivalent. You will only assume you lived through something because you've remembered it; you feel that you’ve never experienced any moments that you’ve forgotten.
And here is a second concept. People spend a lot of time trying to expand the biological length of their life, i.e. they want to increase the number of hours that they exist on Earth, when really they should be focusing on something else. The notion of age is merely a socially inculcated concept of life's length. One can adopt an alternative perspective, wherein life's length is the number of moments that one has lived through. Using this metric, the life of an adventurer experiencing novelty every day is longer than the life of the routinized cubicle tenant.
Since experiencing and remembering are equivalent, an easy way to extend your life is to remember your dreams. I've been practicing dream recall on and off for the past two years, but have been really getting into it these past weeks. It's gotten so good that this morning I remembered five distinct dreams. Each dream was in a unique setting, with an odd assortment of characters from my past, and canvassed with bizarre events. As a result, as I'm sitting here typing this, and as I reflect about my life since 8pm last night, I feel like I've gone through a lot! Last night doesn't feel like last night, but rather maybe like last week. For in between last night and this morning I did the following: I went to a Stadium, I lived in a Monte Carlo villa, I took a final on Simpsons 101 in the rain, I took a lady-friend of mine to a luscious Miami mall, and I hosted a Reality TV show. And the best part is, I'm not tired, my wallet is not empty, and no important physical time was lost.
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The simplest method for dream recall is keeping a journal to write down your dreams. I have a little pocket notepad, pen, and flashlight by my bed for this purpose. Google "dream recall" or check the Lucidity Institute for more ideas.
I'm going to pundit for a second; the following is just an image of my experiences, not scientific fact.
The problem with dream memory loss is that right as soon as you open your eyes, there are scrubbers crawling around in your brain, erasing the active memory of your dreams. Getting into the habit of writing down dreams in the morning reverses this tendency. Every morning, just at least having the intention to recall tells the scrubbers to stop. In addition, struggling to remember the tiniest details adds new tools to your brain. You eventually develop instinctual skills at stringing dream fragments together to form a cohesive whole.
Ultimately I find that with managing dreams, and even lucid dreaming, intention and motivation are key. If your mind is set on dream recall or lucid dreaming, your self-interest will manifest itself while you are dreaming and when you awake, then making you do the necessary steps.
Good luck oneironauts! (3)
(1) How long do dreams last for
(2) Stages of Sleep diagram
(3) "oneironaut" is Greek for oneiros (dreams) + nautos (sailor)
This is what I'm talking about when I say "pursuit of passion."
I'm working on lucid dreams which are dreams that you can control.
Today, middle of Spring Break, middle-of-the-day nap, I had one of the trippiest semi-lucid dreams. I dreamt I was falling asleep in class, and that I was lucid dreaming, which led me to a new, nested level of dreaming. Then when I woke back up in the class, I start spreading the good word about lucid dreaming while skirting over topics of metaphysical goop.
More details follow, including side notes to fellow oneironauts (explorers of the dream space).
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The spaces I'm in have become more detailed. I'm in a classroom that, from the top-level, is like a rectangle of two squares with one square shifted to the right, similar to the S-Piece in Tetris. I'm sitting in the front square by the professor who looks like blog-buddy Michael Shanks (view his blog). We have the bigger desks in the front seats while as the back square of the room is just filled with chairs. There are blackboards on every side of every wall, the ceiling is high like a cathedral and in the front hangs a metallic rendition of Matisse's Icarus. I'm observing more detail in my dreams now that I've been diligent about dream recall.
Note: When I say that I observe more detail, what I really mean is that I remember more detail. There is massive information that amateur dreamers forget, and they mistake it for having not actually happened.
Sitting at the desk, I fall asleep and then wake up partially. My eyes are half-closed and I feel like I'm somewhat blind. I walk around, and bump into things. I see one thing, move toward it, see another thing, and then move thusly. It makes me look like an old man, and the other students are making fun of me.
There are two students that I remember from my past who are there. One is a chubby, goateed Indian, Sanjit, and another is my old roommate, Joel who is a military-buff, blond-haired, blue-eyed youth. Sanjit sits in the front next to me and is shaking his head the whole time as I explain to the class that I really feel like I'm blind. Joel is also laughing, and so he starts writing teasing epithets on the blackboard in the back square of the room, which gets a good laugh from the other classmates. The good professor is skeptical but doesn't doubt me completely.
Note: Afternoon naps have the highest yield of lucid dreams for me. (and by "have" I mean, "have and remember," because we most likely have these dreams but forget)
I fall back asleep at my desk during a lecture, and I find myself by a canal or a river, not unlike being by the Seine River in Paris, with these angled blocks that lead down to the water. There are cobbled stones and a moderate population of people roaming around on this sunny day. I bump into David Blatt who is having a bite with one of my friends about how happy he is that they are working together for next year's school elections. I nod a "wassup" to them, but internally I am disgusted that my friend is cavorting with these evil conservatives. Then, a short, energetic African-American kid, Tony from my freshman year at college, comes running down the slope like he always does. He's running away from me but then he decelerates, does a 180 and is like, "Phil! Dawg! Wassup!" We exchange small talk, and then I disappear back into my classroom.
Note: I'm starting to feel like an oneironaut, and it's exciting. Before my nap, I laid myself oblong on the sofa, and said to myself, "okay, it's time to visit this fantasy alternate dimension of mine." And I felt like I was slipping into an imaginary pod to slide through space.
When I return back to my class, I don't feel like I'm dreaming the class. I feel like the class is the waking life and that I'm having these wild dreams of Paris. When I return, I'm still partially blind. I explain this to others with the theory that I'm actually still asleep on some level and can negotiate both the dream life and waking life at the same time. This is telling because today, in the waking life, I had only gotten four hours of sleep and so I must be expressing a desire to somehow recover my sleep debt. Once again I'm treated with skepticism, and so I try to back to sleep and reach Paris to prove my "theory."
Note: The dream time felt like four hours, when in actuality, my nap was about forty minutes. Shows how disconnected our perception of time and the actual transpiring of time are.
My guess is that I actually return to the river-scene about five times, but only remember two of them. This is the second remembered time, but it could be the fourth or fifth, and by this time, my theory about lucid dreaming has expanded to include extra powers in addition to dual-dimension control that I initially suggested. Now, my theories are that my dreams are gateways to other quantum, alternate realities. And that by popping in and out, I'm actually jumping discontinuities in spacetime.
The way for me to test this theory is to return back to my classroom and find that the epithets that Joel had written were incorrect or not there.
Before I can test this, there is another visit from Tony, who comes running back again. Instead of small talk, though, I give the low-down on my metaphysical theory. Him, being the eager, open-minded type, keeps nodding his head up and down, sounding like he's digging what I'm saying. But then I tell him, "I'm sorry, I'm going to leave you now. You are just a figment of my imagination." He then looks at me like Kate Winslet looks at Jim Carrey before she disappears, or how Penelope does the same to Tom Cruise in Vanilla Sky. It's this half-puzzled, half-sad puppy-eyed look that questions, "What's next?"
Note: I've developed a muscle for waking up now. Its hard to explain how to invoke it, just as it's hard to describe how you can move your arm, but I akin it to shaking myself, or squinting my eyes until white stars from the stimulation coalesces. I expect to develop many new muscles as I improve.
When I wake back up to the classroom, I twist backwards to check the blackboard, and unfortunately there the epithets are, unchanged and mocking. Sanjit is still scratching his chin, smirking at me, and Joel's got a grin in the background, as if to say, "gotcha." There appears to be a guest lecturer who is also there, whose lecture I must have slept through. Professor Shanks then lifts an excerpt from my blog to repeat to the class, and the whole entire dream starts to wind down.
Before I finally wake up to the real waking life, I have a view from the ceiling, looking down at the hanging Icarus statue. The statue then lets loose and falls in slow motion to the ground, crashing into shards and making a sound like in The Matrix: Reloaded, when the street lamp falls apart. It's a sound that's a part-synthesized, part-reversed shriek. What was neat was that the sound was of a high-resolution that I haven't heard in my dreams before. (once again, I have heard it in my dreams, I just don't remember it). So in other words, I'm reaching new levels of resolution. Eventually all my dreams will be vivid or lucid ones, vivid being ones that are recalled with the same resolution that we can recall the waking life, and lucid being the added benefit of dream control.
Note: I'm only an amateur oneironaut, so my tips may be shoddy. Check the Lucidity Institute for more info. I may have also slightly dramatized certain aspects for emotional appeal; the Icarus, for example, makes for a convenient symbol. However, I won't fabricate technical details that relate to the scientific analysis of the extent of the dreams; for example with the Icarus, I did hear that sound from a hanging sculpture that did fall down and shatter. If this bothers you, let me know, and if enough people complain, I'll be 100% faithful as opposed to 98%.
update: techincally what I just had is not a lucid dream as I wasn't aware that my classroom scene was a dream. I was aware that Paris was a dream, but I didn't control it in a detailed way that you would normally in a lucid dream.
I'm trying to improve my ability to recall dreams as a prerequisite to lucid dreaming.
The following note is from an afternoon nap where I dreamt an old acquaintance telling me about his new f**k-buddy he found in London.
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I meet either indie Noah or raver Dayv. Noah's ichabod-like while Dayv is a snarky-runt. (1) Either way, I barely knew either of them, but had a sub-conscious enimity with them because neither of them would get close to me.
I find out Noah is commenting on my blog, which is surprising since he hates my guts.
Later he calls me from overseas, London perhaps, with some good news: he's seeing a hot aristocratic girl. The story alternates back and forth between being about love or just being friends with benefits. (2) The summary at the end is that it was friends with benefits, which makes me oddly relish in his happiness--usually I'm a jealous guy.
The phone conversation is tricky because for some reason I'm also trying to simulcast the conversation into my blog, which makes for a tangle for me to handle. I'm busy with my computer, trying to edit his comments on my blog, a cumbersom process which transforms int ome inserting psychadelic-colored excel rows. I also discover that there are easter eggs on my site, that if you click and drag you find big blocks of vertically oriented text that are invisible (3). The cumbersome continues and I end up like I'm in a straight-jacket with my red shirt. (4) I also have the phone upside-down, with the speaker at my ears--which doesn't make sense cuz otherwise he couldn't hear me.
A clicking sound emerges from the phone telling me that someone else is trying to call, and so I say goodbye to Noah. I press the phone's button and its my mom, dah. I don't want to speak to my mom, but anyways she can't hear me cuz the phone is still backwards. I press the clicker again so she can hear me (subconsciously I'm trying to end the conversation) Then she says, "Tell David we're going to eat at IHOP" tonight.
I then wake up to find myself really happy. It's not certain why I'm happy, maybe its the Mazzy Star that's in my playlist. Her song "Into Dust" is a soothing echo of a female's voice set to a light lyrical guitar, which is kind of how I felt upon waking up. My suspicion is that I'm either missing some juicy detail from the conversation with Noah or that I'm excited to eat at IHOP because I'm hungry. I could also just be stoked that I took a nap in the middle of the day and I have no finals no responsibility no nada. aah.
Footnotes as to potential real-life dream-generators:
(1) I just saw Good Will Hunting and Matt Damon looks like a combination of Dayve and Noah, arrogant, snarky, and white
(2) Also in Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon is divided over this girl. So take that image and layer on top Robin Williams image of a woman who was his "everything" and you get the back and forth above
(3) I do have easter eggs on my site and at one point this was possible. I also created excel blogs at one point.
(4) In the music video from Chemical Brother's "The Golden Path" the lead character is escaping into his shirt.
Lucid Dreaming is when you become aware that you're dreaming which then allows you to control what happens in those dreams. One of the strategies for becoming an expert in iniating lucid dreams is to become good at recalling dreams--you likely have lucid dreams but forget them! The Lucidity Institute's suggestion for this is to keep a dreamlog. Hence, hence, hence...
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At around 3AM I woke up in the middle of the night, trying to make sure I didn't forget my latest dream. It was an uneventful dream, and by the time I finally woke up, the only detail I remembered was that I was waiting in line somewhere.
My next dream involved a lecture on nihilism while in the snow.
Upon arriving at the ski resort I find my minivan not suitable for the snow. Immediately it transforms into my mom's beige-golden Acura MDX, a more suitable vehicle. This is an SUV though, which makes me lament the environmental impact of the vehicle. (1) "screw it" I think. and then I keep on trucking.
The slope of the mountain leads to a plateau area on the right-hand side of the mountain. There are a few things arranged there like a village. I enter one building to check it out as a house (2). I'm in the business for real estate I think, and am impressed by this one for some reason.
I leave and go home, but then bring someone with me to find the place again. It takes us twice as long driving, and we end up in another house. We're in there chilling, and there is an Chinese lady with her HapA (3) kids. While we're appreciating the house and watching the kids I begin discussing nihilism. (4) At first I hesitate because I'm not sure the kids should be overhearing such depressing philosophies. So the scene repeats itself in a few instances with me either censoring my speech, or the mother scooting the children away, or everybody just happily going along.
I don't think I bought the cabin.
The third dream finds me in McDonald's with an Indian acquaintance (5). The McDonald's was rectangular shapped with a row of chairs on one side of the wall and the counter on the opposite, and we're sitting at a table across from the cash registers so that I can lean back and turn my head to see the menu. We are discussing the menu and my guest starts whining about how we sould've gone to a Mexican Restaurant which is supposedly a few blocks away from my house.
It's still snowing though, so there feels like some continuity.
// Footnotes from my waking life...
(1) On Thursday I was explaining to staiolz on the sin of driving a SUV
(2) I embarassed myself last Friday by suggesting that this friend of mine move to San Diego because the real estate is good. She laughed at me for assuming that she was that rich.
(3) HapA means half-asian half-wuteva. my HapA neighbor said he hated the Matrix because of Keanu Reeves. Since I'm a fan of the film, I was about to defend it by claiming he hated the Matrix because he had some latent jealousy of Keanu (also a HapA)
(4) I mentioned nihilism twice yesterday--and I didn't explain it
(5) I was hitting on this same acquaintance's ex-girlfriend last night booyah!
Lucid dreams are dreams where you are aware that you are dreaming. Below is a journal entry about a recent weak lucid dream. More lucid dreaming information can be found in my Lucid Dreaming Archives or from the Lucidity Institute
I was half-awake, half-asleep for a noon nap, and I was fading in and out reality. I became aware of this, and so I tried controlling my dream.
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First I glanced to the side of my bay window outside and onto the pavement by the construction site. There, the pavement floor transformed into what looked like a mosaic of broken glass designs. This was inconsistent with what the floor was in reality, and so I knew I was dreaming.
Then I embarked on imagining things. The first thought in my mind was that I was a fighter pilot, as I was sitting in a chair with my head against a wall while I was napping. This thought prompted a flight into the mountains. I went through gray cloud upon grey cloud, until I reached the apex of the mountain. Then around the side of the mountain, a cliff opened up like a doorway that led into a wooden enclosure. Inside was sand and dirt, which bored me. I left and curved around to the other the side of the mountain, until I imagined another more interesting destination, a harem room with couch and lady. She never materialized as I was about to wake up at this point. The scene switched back and forth between my dream state and my bedroom.
I gave up and then the dream scene faded to black. That's when I knew I was coming off.
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Lesson:
After having done about ten lucid dreams that lasted less than a couple of seconds, I have learnt to remain calm upon discovering lucidity. In the previous times where I was anxious to do play around, my mind became alert and soon I was back into the real world. This time around, since the novesty of lucid dreaming has worn a bit, I gradually eased my way into dream control.
The nap lasted about ten minutes, but the experience felt like thirty.
I'm experimenting with Lucid Dreaming. Lucid dreams are dreams in which you become aware that you're dreaming. In that state you can control your environment and retain a memory of the dream that carries on into the waking life. A prerequisite of becoming an oneironaut (as lucid dream travelers are wont to call themselves) is establishing consistent dream recall. Being able to remember your dreams assists you in becoming aware that you're dreaming.
I'm also experimenting with different ways of dream story-telling and elaborating on curious dream happenings.
Below is a strange happening in today's first morning nap.
I'm holding in my hand a piece of paper with numbers from 9 through 12. These represent the various hours in which I have class. There is one entry per line, such as 9 - Biology, 10 - Physics, etc. However, there are two number 11's and next to the second 11 is a 12 scribbled out. This makes sense, though, since we have rotating schedules each day. So this indicates my 11 o'clock switches between the two classes.
The curious part is the scribbled-out 12. Somehow my dream knew that I would be hastily jotting down my schedule and would put the wrong number for my rotating class. However, I never went through this process in my dream. I just opened up the paper and there it was, my mistake reflected.
I felt weird because I was seeing evidence of something I did, yet had no recollection of having done so. It was simultaneously familiar and surprising. My thoughts were both, "Oh, how funny, I do that all the time" and "But how odd, I don't remember writing down this schedule." The "I" in "I do this all the time" was like I was referring to myself in the 3rd person, such as "Phil does this all the time." It was almost like I had inserted myself into the timeline of a Doppelganger Phil from a parallel universe.
This strange discordance, should it occur again, can maybe remind me that I'm dreaming. This can now serve as a trigger to assist my entrance into lucidity.
I'm experimenting with Lucid Dreaming. Lucid dreams are dreams in which you become aware that you're dreaming. In that state you can control your environment and retain a memory of the dream that carries on into the waking life. A prerequisite of becoming an oneironaut (as lucid dream travelers are wont to call themselves) is establishing consistent dream recall. Being able to remember your dreams assists you in becoming aware that you're dreaming.
I'm also experimenting with different ways of dream story-telling and elaborating on curious dream happenings.
Below is a synopsis of a dream I had during today's third morning nap.
Think anime noir. Think plastic people and locations. Think silent brooding action.
Cruising down a dank alley, hand in my pocket, I exit the shadows. The sight of fanfare at a major intersection overwhelms me. This is a metropolis it seems, but not one in America. This place and pace is too relaxed to be America.
I take a quick left out of the alley, hop over a small sweaty street, and enter a gargantuan building teeming with people. This place must be a train station as it reminds me of Victoria or Grand Central.
I walk inside this populous cathedral and gauge the crowd. Everybody is packed and sprawled all over booths and chairs that riddle the floor. The people are chewing gum, reading magazines, lifting up babies, and churning time. Their races are multi-ethnic, their gist sub-cosmopolitan, yet their attitude pleasant.
There is a faint glimmer of dustiness enveloping this whole scene. The sun is shining straight down and bouncing off the beige floor. The rays then reflect back in the same exact direction. This bathes the dust in double the amount of usual light plus illuminating it from all directions, hence the faint day-time glow. This informs me that it's high noon.
I find what seems to be the only vacant seat. I wedge between some groups of people, and lean forward, shoulders on knees, so as to give extra room to breath mentally.
My equipose is hammered by a dour interruption of yelling and clanking. A young asian man is being wrestled and chased through the station. He is carrying a music CD and the general idea is that he is committing theft. A few people join to help bring him down, but for the most part, people just kind of observe calmly.
While this cloudy tussle approaches the exit, it slowly cruises my way.
Should I act? Why not? I get up join the wrestling as a way to solve this problem. This is not so easy, and in the process a piece of my hat gets torn off. Frustrated, I grab the man and yell, "Just download the mp3s!"
He then immediately, and silently, releases the stolen goods, and scurries out the exit.
The noise and activity settles and I sit down back into my seat. I'm half expecting an applause from the crowd, but instead, I speculate that I'm receiving silent respect. Either way the silliness of what just happened makes me smile.
I lean back, feeling semi-champion-like. Unfortunately, this fades as I realize just how tattered I am. My hat is ripped, and my ankles and elbows are sore. I then murmur that I'm going to leave, and so I get up and go.
I exit the Station, and the sun is still high. The bright outdoor light pierces my eye. I then cross the intersection.
(Progress on my attempts at lucid dreaming (LD). You're reading in reverse order. WILD == Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming. Also, attempting to find creative and more appropriate ways to relate dreams--i.e. stories and narratives aren't exactly fitting, esp. given the large deficit of clarity)
After writing down the previous dream around 9AM, I tried again with the same techniques, same position, same everything. And, as would be fitting of repetition, I got the same results, no WILD, but still, a dream that I could recall
The back of the kitchen area was damp and grey. Two steps and a guard-rail provided the stage for Steve, or Jose, or a generic Mexican. He was handling girls, guys, bus-boys, workers in a jovial manner and seemed likeable. People would go, "Aye Steve" in the way that they likeable people tend to get.
I thought he was retarded. No really, I did. You never know these days. He was happy, but possibly too happy. He had on the happiness that one could only get if they enjoyed the legend of "ignorant bliss."
He wasn't retarded. Or rather, he wasn't as retarded as I expected, but still relatively dumb. His mental incapacities and capacities seemed to arrive and depart like the disturbance and calm of a secluded pond.
I left this corridor for the sunny day. Next stop was a cafeteria bench with my best friend from high school, Chris Khosravi. Chris was like the opposite of a politician. So, to refresh your memory, a politician is like the social frat-guy in college who says, "yeah, yeah, yeah, totally let's meet up" and never follows through. Chris was the opposite in that he would rarely smile, or look you in the eye, but would help you out if you needed it or support you in times of distress.
Sitting next to an anti-politician, then, reverses the order of feelings one gets around a politician. At first, I sit there, appraise Chris's poker demeanor, as he fails to look at me, and feel frustrated that there sits my best friend. This is how one feels after realizing the politician was just putting on a show. Then, after I start talking to him, I feel comfortable and calm and realize that indeed, all is well, and that Chris is solid. Following with the reverse order of a politician, this would be the feeling you get from seeing Joe Senator's glowing initial "hello."
I leave and come back, and then Chris tosses onto the table a plastic bag of what looks like wet clothes. The bag lays there and oozes into a flatter shape like I assume a bag of fish would do. I ask him what is this show, this package. He says, "Here's the stuff I borrowed."
"Ugh" my interior monologue goes. It's kind of disgusting. Is this my underwear, shirts, and pants that Chris borrowed that he is returning back to me all nasty and sweaty. Yuck. Well, that's Chris for you.
(Progress on my attempts at lucid dreaming (LD). You're reading in reverse order. WILD == Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming. Also, attempting to find creative and more appropriate ways to relate dreams--i.e. stories and narratives aren't exactly fitting, esp. given the large deficit of clarity)
Around 8AM, I had woken up, wrote down the above dream, and then I went back to bed. This time, in addition to affirmations, I flooded my mind with random visual imagery. This was hard beecause I was tired, but it did start to carry itself forward. I was laying flat on my back with some blanket, and I was trying to have a WILD. I lost a little bit of awareness of my space, but I think I fell into the abyss of sleep before I ever met an aware state of transition.
The sun is beating down like a wild horse. I park in a park, and encounter my best friend. He is in the side of the parking lot opposite of me, while as a BBQ is going on to the left of me on my side. Apparently te BBQ is for a political rally, and the main guy is listing off various things in a manner:
"We used $ money for this building" and that building and so fort. Chaz and I are laughing at this guy, "what is this guy" kinda... simply because we feel that way toward politicians in general.
Then there is some talk about space programs and I walk over to the grassy area behind Chaz, and then I get into a spacesip.
For a second, I thought I was Luke Skywalker, or I was in that Star Tours ride in Disneyland. There was some physics concept that upon take-off they have to keep pushing some jets on one side to keep it away from hitting rocks or something, and so you'd be making a parabolic shot out of the atmosphere. I did this, and it was kind of cool, don't remember too much. Eventually I landed. Then I think I was either floating or hung out in the trees, where I saw one of the most beautiful things ever:
Imagine a hummingbird-butterfly combination with wings and a body that form the shape of a Spade in a deck of cards. The colors were the shimmering emerald green border and crystaline azure that you find in the eyes of peacocks' feathers. A swarm of about 35 of these characters snaked together like a magic carpet. The sight of these cascading around the trees from which I was perched filled me with butterflies of the stomach, and pleasure.
Somehow, these wondorous, docile creatures became associated with the dull and irritating windows icon. This is the icon of the flag-like red-green-blue-yellow window that may start cascacading across your screen in various screen savers.
(Progress on my attempts at lucid dreaming (LD). You're reading in reverse order. WILD == Wake-Induced Lucid Dreaming. Also, attempting to find creative and more appropriate ways to relate dreams--i.e. stories and narratives aren't exactly fitting, esp. given the large deficit of clarity)
I started trying to sleep at 3AM. To induce a LD, I repeated affirmations such as, "I will wake up in my dreeam."
I'm driving toward five half-way constructed housing projects. The houses are cookie-cutter 2-storied buildings staggered upon a hill like the hills on the side of I-15 in Mira Mesa. From afar, I can see the lattice-like wood beams already ready, waiting for the roofs to be installed. My mom and two construction workers are at the foot of a building site. They're actually underneath the shade of possibly an empty parking garage or other construction project. They're making fun of me, and I'm unsure why. I had come back with a long piece of wood for the building, and I take it withm y right hand, and toss it onto the dirt ground so as to give it to them.
They continue laughing. I look at the wood and the white paint has chipped off from it. I ask them why, and they make some hand-waving explanation about teen-agers and their hands being a certain way that makes it easy for paint to chip off.
I take the car that I was in away from the construction zone. The place was overcast. I end up toward a parking structure on a steep curve, similar to a part of Grand Teft Auto III with a hill, and some streets on the side. I take a left turn and give the car to a valet..
Somewere I brought cookies to my mom.
Lucid Dreaming, for those who haven't seen the movie, The Waking Life, is a special kind of dreaming where you're aware that you're dreaming. The obvious benefits of lucid dreaming are obvious: potential to control your dreams thereby achieving greater fantasy, the potential for transcendance, the ability to alleviate fears, etc.
I'm currently trying stuff out some of the techniques and I'll report back on them later. So far though, practicing the techniques for lucid dreaming helps to cultivate your imagination. This is good for many things, such as art, strategy, and creative thinking. It's also good for positive imagery. If you can truly imagine yourself as a certain kind of person, then your body reacts and supports that image of yourself. I knew a kid at Stanford who never got sick and he said he secret was that he alway had a positive view of himself as a strong, healthy person.
