I wont link any of the sites, you can google "sleep paralysis" or "lucid dreaming" etc if you want to find the ones I'm talking about, but why, oh why, oh why? There are "support groups" out there for people who suffer this condition! These are, I assume, perfectly normal, reasonable, intelligent people who experience lucid dreams and their related phenomena, yet somehow think this is a problem that must be solved. Welcome to the dark ages... if we don't understand it, it must be evil and abolished!
Their message forums are repleat with youngsters, still children or young teenagers trying to comprehend what is happening to them when they go to bed at night. Their families think them strange for not sharing (or more accurately perhaps, not remembering...) their experiences and, well, as if the between of childhood and adulthood is not confusing enough as it is!
During the Easter break from work today I had the opportunity for some recreational sleep, and recreational sleep permits recreational dreaming. The 'presence' that grabs your ankles and tries to drag you off the bed in sleep paralysis visited. It lay upon me, pressing me to the mattress, trying to oppress me with its weight. We grappled, it clawed at me, as for me it so often does. I applied 'Aikido' - "the compliant way"... I know I am dreaming, who are you and what are you trying to achieve? What harm can come to me, this is a dream! The entity had no answer but to cower foetally - "I don't know why I'm here".
It is a creation of my own imagination, demonstrably perhaps an effect of a particular part of the brain receiving stimulation - but still a dream, not real. The lucid dream and it's associated phenomena are tackled with the intellect and not medieval superstition. To know the boundaries in the betweens, to recognise their transitions, to embrace them.
My beautiful niece Lucy, 6 years old, has reported to her mother, my sister, that she can do whatever she chooses in her dreams. My sister is deeply experienced in the practice of dream control and so I am certain that my niece will have an ideal guide through her nocturnal adventures. But where does one turn when their family has shunned this experience for fear of phantoms?
Friday, April 10, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Progress...?
I've been about changing my nicotine addiction for six months or so now, time to take stock.
Around Christmas / New Year I couldn't much be bothered with the fight, having the whole world taste like mint, the constant jaw-aching chewing. I was smoking more, but still less than before.
Around January I took a new tact, and started buying lighter cigarettes, half strength 8mg, although I was still using the gum too. This turned out to be a little pointless as more often than not I just cut the filter off so I could take a decent drag without doing myself an internal injury.
Now I use three-quarter strength, 12mg, which is just acceptable but the taste is lacking on a real cigarette. A packet will last two days so I suppose we can calculate the outcome as a reduction of 1/2 * 3/4 = 3/8 of what I used to smoke before all this began.
The 3/4 is a bit misleading, I stand by what I've said earlier that lighter cigarettes aren't less bad for you (please do not misconstrue anything I say as medical advice!). It's the smoldering plant matter that's carcinogenic, whether the cigarette is 1mg or a yummy 16mg.
The last couple of weeks I've been having a couple of smokes at work again, still not so many as before but it's a backward trend. This week I've been sure to be well stocked with gum, but I dislike walking around the place all night 'chewing my cud'.
The best motivation for smoking cessation (again, this is not a medical opinion...) is concern for one's own health, and cold turkey is the most effective method. I have noticed some minor detremental effects of smoking and felt improved health within a week of constant chewing - but it is not to the point of 'concern'.
Physically, it seems I've succeeded in restabilised the addiction at a somewhat lower level. Psychologically, if I were trying to "quit", I failed some months ago and would have simply returned to my old habits. I ain't no quitter. The Kampf continues...
Around Christmas / New Year I couldn't much be bothered with the fight, having the whole world taste like mint, the constant jaw-aching chewing. I was smoking more, but still less than before.
Around January I took a new tact, and started buying lighter cigarettes, half strength 8mg, although I was still using the gum too. This turned out to be a little pointless as more often than not I just cut the filter off so I could take a decent drag without doing myself an internal injury.
Now I use three-quarter strength, 12mg, which is just acceptable but the taste is lacking on a real cigarette. A packet will last two days so I suppose we can calculate the outcome as a reduction of 1/2 * 3/4 = 3/8 of what I used to smoke before all this began.
The 3/4 is a bit misleading, I stand by what I've said earlier that lighter cigarettes aren't less bad for you (please do not misconstrue anything I say as medical advice!). It's the smoldering plant matter that's carcinogenic, whether the cigarette is 1mg or a yummy 16mg.
The last couple of weeks I've been having a couple of smokes at work again, still not so many as before but it's a backward trend. This week I've been sure to be well stocked with gum, but I dislike walking around the place all night 'chewing my cud'.
The best motivation for smoking cessation (again, this is not a medical opinion...) is concern for one's own health, and cold turkey is the most effective method. I have noticed some minor detremental effects of smoking and felt improved health within a week of constant chewing - but it is not to the point of 'concern'.
Physically, it seems I've succeeded in restabilised the addiction at a somewhat lower level. Psychologically, if I were trying to "quit", I failed some months ago and would have simply returned to my old habits. I ain't no quitter. The Kampf continues...
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Lucid Dreams: A Note On False Awakenings
There's a lot to be said about false awakenings, which are most commonly associated with the pre-lucid state; as I'm jotting these notes on lucidity as they occur to me for now I just want to mention this...
When a lucid dream ends in waking up, you should do a lucidity check. It often happens (to me in any case) that a lucid dream ends with a false awakening and a new one can be begun if this is identified.
Which perhaps should lead to thinking about "lucid consciousness" in terms of a bell curve for the purposes of applying the rating scale previously discussed, or maybe some sort of twisted bell curve with respect to the previous post.
When a lucid dream ends in waking up, you should do a lucidity check. It often happens (to me in any case) that a lucid dream ends with a false awakening and a new one can be begun if this is identified.
Which perhaps should lead to thinking about "lucid consciousness" in terms of a bell curve for the purposes of applying the rating scale previously discussed, or maybe some sort of twisted bell curve with respect to the previous post.
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