I'm really sorry to everyone reading, but I'm not really going to be checking back here too much. Hit me up on Steam if you have questions or crazy dreams no one else can interpret. Join the Steam group or something.
School's just becoming a pain already, I don't have much time to check FP between clubs and girls. Also schoolwork. And Minecraft.
Jake's more than capable of answering questions, and he's already written up an OP which is better than the one I attempted to write anyway. Just listen to him, I'm taking a backseat in this thread.
Sorry. :smith:
So, I've explained how this post will be updated [URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24970553&postcount=899"]here[/URL] so please read it if you're unclear.
I'll seperate the post in the format DAY -> Title, like a TF2 update sort of thing :v:
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[B]Day 1 - The Wraps Of Lucid Dreaming[/B]
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[U]What Is Lucid Dreaming?[/U]
Possible the simplest question of all, but no one properly knows the answer. By definition, [I]lucidity[/I] is to be conscious. Basically it's you walking, doing your thing every day. Now what happens when we stick DREAMING in front of the word? Well then we get the exciting, wraveling, and mysterious world of your brain at the palm of your hand. [I]Lucid Dreaming[/I] is the event in which your conscious, the person you HEAR when you reason with yourself, is awake and wondering "Why in gods name is that squirrel purple" or in better and more practical words, that you're dreaming. Your dream is a projected world of everything your subconscious creates in order to do multiple things at the same time. Most of us aren't aware of it but every dream has a symbol, whether it's blatantly obvious or hidden in the background. This symbol ultimately tells the scheme of the dream or why it's happening. So ask, what happens then? I'm sure everyone's heard of this part. You get to screw around in your dreams making skyscrapers come out your face or fly through the solar system, but there are more practical uses to it. Lucid dreaming can enlighten you and generally make dreaming a lot funner, it's why we do it, it's why you read about it and suddenly get interested.
[U]How Lucid Dreaming Works[/U]
Lucid dreaming works in a deceptively simple way. Basically, something in your dream is gonna seem amuck. You're going to be walking in a random sidewalk and the weirdest things will drive past you but it may all seem normal to you thanks to the wonderous thing we call [I]DREAM LOGIC![/I] Dream logic is the thing that keeps you from becoming lucid. It basically tricks your conscious in thinking everything is normal by using your subconscious' instinct to keep things in balance. What we want to accomplish in lucid dreaming is breaking that dream logic barrier and become more aware of our surroundings. There are multiple methods you can use to do this, and I'll get into that later on, but let me explain what happens when you become lucid. You're going to see something wrong, you're going to put 2 and 2 together and realize "This isn't reality." Your dream will begin to collapse. Everything will fade before your eyes and sounds from the real world will become a lot clearer than their occasional leaks. Now we need to prevent that. We do this by doing one of numerous things. I like to call these "Counter Measures" so bare with me if I refer to them as this. Below you'll have a list of things you can do :
[LIST]
[*] [B]Hand Rubbing:[/B] You just realized you're dreaming. Now you start panicing. Collect yourself and do the simplest of all counter measures, the hand rub. Straight forward, just rub your hands together. Why is this a counter measure? Well because you get a feel of friction. When you get a feel of friction you get a feel of warmth. As many people know warmth untenses your muscles and relaxes you, and thats exactly what we want when you realize you're dreaming. You'll calm down and gain control.
[*][B]The Rinse Cycle:[/B] Or, the spin. Your arms are full in your dream or you can't move them. What do you do? You close your eyes and spin in circles! No it isn't a downs method, you really spin. Spinning blends your enviornment around you. When you can't see what's going on behind you your brain doesn't have to process as much information as it should. When that happens you can collect yourself.
[*][B]Staring At Your Hands:[/B] Hand rubbing isn't really workng for you, you still wake up. That's okay, we have another method for you to use. Extend your hands and look down at them. Concentrate on them and try to let whatever is happening behind you not phase you. It's like the spin method, you want to calm yourself down by keeping your brain from overwhelming yourself.
[*][B]Grab Something!:[/B] You see a bottle of coke you like? Grab it! That girl in your dream have nice breast? GRAB THEM! Grabbing things in your dream gives you a feel of what's going on and most of the time calms you down as you become more familiar with what's happening around you. It's like when you go to a party and you know everyone, you start feeling comfortable and aren't afraid or panicy. That's the feeling we want you to have, I mean after all, it's your head.
[*][B]SCREAM!:[/B] Fuck everything around you, you're excited as shit and the best way to release all that excitement and testosterone is to scream like a mother fucker. Just yell out "I WANT TO STAY IN THIS DREAM" with any effect you want and keep yourself on it. Although sometimes it doesn't work, it's fun as hell. I don't think I need to explain why this one keeps you from waking up, but if I do you can feel free to
tell me.
[/LIST]
Two notes to say. The first is I've ordered each method from most effective to least. Find one that makes you comfortable and use it! Secondly, while you're doing each method what you want to do is tell youreslf "I want to remain in this dream." Obviously you do it with the screaming method, but with the others it greatly improves your chances of staying in the dream. Remember the Triple C's as I refer to them as : Calm, Cool, and Collective.
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[B]Day 2 - Induction[/B]
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[U]What is a reality check?[/U]
Reality checks are exactly what they sound like. It is a tool we use as lucid dreamers to distinguish between reality and the dream realm. When something seems to good to be true or just crazy, you do a reality check. There are so many reality checks at your disposal that If I described all of them this would never end. Here is a few though, that I believe are the best and easiest to do in reality without hurting yourself :
[LIST]
[*][B]Nose Pinch:[/B] A very common and easy reality check. Just pinch your nose so no air gets through, and breath. If you can breath through your nose then you're dreaming. The reason for this is due to when you sleep, your nose is never plugged and you usually breath through your mouth, so even if you held your nose in a dream you would still breath.
[*][B]Tongue Push:[/B] No you aren't pushing yourself with your tongue. It's very simple. Push your tongue against your teeth. That's it. If it goes through then you're dreaming. Becareful with this though, because once you realize you're dreaming and your tongue is still through your teeth, your brain may think something happened with your teeth and trigger pain. So when you do this reality check and it fails, open your mouth quickly after.
[*][B]Windows/Mirrors:[/B] In your dreams windows and mirrors are excellent reality checks. Mostly because they don't act as they should in real life. Windows will not stop you when you try and put your finger through it, and mirrors will have one of two effects. It will either show funky colors or show a scary image. This is only an alternative to those who want a more passive reality check.
[*][B]Electronics:[/B] 88% of the time electronics will not work in your dreams. That's why it's such a good reality check. If you look at your phone and it doesn't work, or your laptop just fried, you're most likely dreaming. The most famous reality check of this branch is the light switch test, which I'm sure everyone has heard of. Basically, when you turn a light on in your dreams, the light will stay off. The same is true in reverse, if you turn a light off in your dream, it'll usually stay on. Don't get cocky though, as you may have a bad lightbulb in your house :v:
[*][B]Nightmares:[/B] My personal favorite. Nightmares have to be the most blatantly obvious reality check there is. Think about it, I'm pretty sure that girl walking next to you didn't have her head in her hands [I]all[/I] the time. The most important thing with this reality check it to stay calm. Your nightmare may scare you, but if you convert your nightmare to positive energy by hugging it or kissing it, it'll turn into something nice. That fear will then no longer be your fear, and be deleted from that region of your brain, thus making you conquer one of your fears. Just remember to stay calm.
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You want to make a reality check part of your instinct or impulse. Eventually you'll do it in your dreams and make everything all the easier. However, if you can't get into the habit of doing reality checks, you can always INDUCE lucidity, which brings us to our next section.
[U]How do we induce lucidity?[/U]
Inducing lucidity requires training and a comfortable method for you to use. There are just as many alternations of induction methods as there are reality checks, but I will explain the two core induction methods and touch on a few of the alterations :
[B]|CORE| MILD:[/B] MILD stands for Mnemonic Induced Lucid Dream. Mnemonic basically means to repeat a phrase or mantra, and that's exactly what we'll be doing. MILD has the lowest success rate to ametures but is generally the best for those who want to get a good night's sleep. There are very simple steps to doing this technique. First, you'll want to find a phrase or mantra that's comfortable for you to repeat and isn't too lengthy. For example purposes, I will use "I will realize I am dreaming." The second step is to take this phrase and repeat it as you fall asleep. You can say it out loud or in your head and as many times as you want but remember, say it softly so you don't keep yourself awake. The reason we repeat our mantras or phrases is so that we get it stuck in our short term memory. When you fall asleep you'll keep this mantra or phrase in your memory and when you're dreaming, you'll ultimately remember it and the desired effect will come upon you. MILD isn't just used for inducing lucidity though, you can use it for a number of things such as dream recall, reality checks, dream schemes and even meeting your subconscious, although I suggest the last one be done when you've already had some experience with lucid dreaming.
[B]|CORE| WILD:[/B] WILD stands for Wake Induced Lucid Dream. It's pretty straight forward it's purpose. WILD usually has the highest success rate if you do it right but takes up some of your sleep time as it has to interupt your REM sleep. I'll be explaining two different ways to do this, as each one have different success rates. The first is doing it the original way. You'll want to set your alarm three or four hours after you think you're going to fall asleep, and I don't mean just lying in bed, I mean actually going into REM. What'll happen is the alarm will interupt your dream and wake you up (Hurp :saddowns:) You have to be dedicated to do this method as most of the time you'll just think "screw that I want to sleep!" When you wake up you'll want to get your memory jogging by remembering your dreams. Then what you want to do is ly down on your back initially, and keep yourself conscious. Note, conscious is not the same as awake. Usually people have different ways of keeping themselves conscious, you could count your breathe, imagine sheep, imagine stairs and count each step as you go up/down, or just imagine your blackness as a drawing paper and scribble some lines. Do whatever you like best. During the procedure of WILD you must resist all itches, and if you feel uncomfortable, you can ROLL. If you feel something crawling on you or your leg itches you do not roll for that reason, it is strictly if you're uncomfortable. If everything goes right you'll start seeing imagery and eventually go into sleep paralysis. You'll feel numb and you won't be able to move. You'll see funky shit flying everywhere. Just close your eyes and relax when this happens. Eventually you'll have some sort of power that you can just jump into the imagery you saw and poof, you're in your dream. Alternatively, you can also do WILD at the start of your sleep. This one has a low success rate naturally, but for some reason a higher on during naps. Basically you skip the first half of WILD where you fall asleep normally and set an alarm. You just have to continue the steps on from there.
[B]WBTB:[/B] WBTB stands for Wake Back To Bed and is a better variation of CAT which stands for Cycle Adjustment Technique. What we're basically going to do is exploit your naturaly sleep schedule to allow you to induce lucid dreaming. The key difference between the two is that WBTB is immediate and doesn't require the dedication put in CAT. Your first step is to set your alarm 6 hours after you predict you'll fall asleep, like WILD. Once you're sure you fall asleep normally. The alarm will awake you. Unlike WILD, we're going to step out of the bed and wake ourselves up. Find something to occupy yourself as you slowly get your brain back in motion after it's slumber. The best thing to do would be read about lucid dreaming, which I have supplied some good exploits of my dreams at the end of this post to keep you occupied. Try to stay alert for 20 to 60 minutes. No longer, as you'll become fully alert and not be able to fall back asleep. Return to bed and fall asleep normally again. Try visualizing what you want your next dream to be like, making sure it's lucid. This will store in your SHORT-SHORT term memory, which will take into effect when you fall asleep. In your dream it should be the same as what you imagined and you should be lucid.
[B]RILD:[/B] RILD stands for Reading Induced Lucid Dream. I bet you can't guess what we're going to do here. Yep, we're going to READ. But what we're going to read about is lucid dreaming itself. The fact of the matter is you get a high 60% increase of chance to lucid dream when you read about lucid dreaming before you go to bed. It's true, just like I suggested in the WBTB method, this is a lot easier and doesn't interupt your sleep cycle. It's pretty simple really, just read some lucid dreams you find interesting, the OP, this post, it doesn't matter. Just something related to lucid dreaming. Chances are you'll dream about lucid dreaming and become lucid, in a way of putting it.
[B]CILD:[/B] CILD stands for Contemplation Induced Lucid Dreaming. In other words, Meditation Induced Lucid Dreaming, but because the M is already taken, we'll call it CILD. This method is fairly straight forward, all you need to do is meditate. Before you go to sleep, go into a state of meditation and clear your mind. When you reach enlightenment, simply tell yourself a few times a mantra or phrase (like MILD) and go to sleep. Your brain, relaxed, will store that phrase like a stamp to you. Then when you fall asleep, you'll have a lucid dream. It is similar to MILD but it allows you to relax and truly collect your thoughts, like a double purpose. There are many methods to meditation, but I will post below DOC H'S method. Please note though, that you don't have to listen to this specific method, just one that makes you comfortable.
[quote][highlight]Doc H's meditation guide. Please practice and be patient[/highlight].
Start with the typical meditation pose. Legs crossed. Then adjust them to how you are comfortable. Make sure you are in a properly lit room. If you need to lean against something if you have a bad back, you can. (I do) Keep your head up. Imagine a string attached to your head keeping it up. Hold all of your fingers together so each finger is on the other and rest your arms on your legs. Close your eyes and breath in from your nose and out your mouth. Use your abs, not your chest. After a while of that with every breath in think: "Breath in good, breath out bad" Imagine breathing in blue air, and out red air. The blue is good, and the red is bad. Do that for a while then think: "Breath in peace, breath out stress" Do this until you have a nice slow breathing pattern. Then imagine you in a long black hallway, at the end you see an outline of a door with white light coming through. In the hallway floating around are large bubbles. Look at your mind, and see what thoughts you have. Then assign a thought to each bubble. Then concentrate on each bubble and makes it fade to black. Once the hallway is clear walk to the door. Step inside. Its nothing but white. You feel a light warm breeze blowing through. You feel calm, you feel peace.
[B]DO NOT RUSH IT.[/B] If you dont feel the hallway is clear, keep trying. It can feel like it takes a long time. But just work on it. You may need to try this a few days in a row. But it will get better. Just practice.
Meditation is for relaxation. [U]NOT only for your dreams.[/U] Learn to meditate to relax and relieve stress before associating it with dreams. [/quote]These are the best induction methods in my opinion. You should pick one that makes you comfortable and fits well in your sleep schedule. You also want to remain in a positive state of mind and have positive energy with you. When you dream you have a higher absorbtion of energy then in your daily life and I will explain this later.
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[B]Day 3 - Sleep Times and Energy[/B]
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[U]How can I inject lucid dreaming into my sleep schedule?[/U]
I'm sure everyone wants to know so that they can get into the habit of lucid dreaming quicker. It pretty much all comes down to something that's comfortable for you, because no one wants to do something as if it's a job, it's suppose to be enjoyable. With that said I'm going to be stating some opinions and facts on the matter and answer this question to my best ability, because no one person has the same sleep schedule naturally.
A healthy sleeper gets a certain amount of sleep a day. This number varies depending on age but in my opinion the best amount of time to get is eight hours on a REGULAR day. Whether you get more or less of this time will allow a greater or smaller selection of lucid dreaming methods. Do not worry if you get less than this amount of time. As the old OP explained, your body rolls over the sleeping time you've missed and puts them into times when you can regain them. Usually they are weekends, which is why people are prone to lucid dreams on weekends, for example a poster here [I]Hmn30[/I]. So what we want first is to find what your sleep schedule is, making this [B]Step Number One[/B]
Now that you know your sleep schedule you now know how much sleep you actually get per night. This allows us to, as I mentioned before, pick the best induction method for you. I was originally going to make an entire chart of every time a person could fall sleep and wake up, but seeing as there are 24 hours in a day and you could wake up and go to sleep at any of those 24 hours, it would pretty much be WAY too big. So for the pleasure of not gauging your eyes in, I'm going to simplify the sections into [B]LESS THAN 8 HOURS[/B], [B]MORE THAN 8 HOURS[/B], and [B]VARYING SCHEDULES[/B] :
[LIST]
[*][B]Less Than Eight Hours:[/B] If you sleep less than eight hours a day there are only so many options you have. We want to keep you from damaging yourself because that's not cool, so we have to find the method that takes up the least amount of your sleep time. If you look above at the breif list of lucid dreaming induction methods, I would like to call your attention to MILD and RILD. These would be the best because they require no extra time added or taken away from your sleep and are pretty easy to do. With RILD you can simply read an hour or so before you go to bed and keep that running through your brain to inspire you to lucid dream. Then you just need to fall asleep. Same goes with MILD, kinda. While you go to sleep you basically talk to yourself, which you do anyway, and it requires no extra focus and doesn't really take you away from sleep, depending on if you do it right or not. What you want to stay away from is WILD and WILD-Variations, even on weekends because if you do that, you'll cut out time from your rollover hours to regain the sleep, and then what do you accomplish. If you really want to do WILD because MILD isn't working out for you, then try to do the second version of it where you try and go directly into it. Vacation time is usually the best time to do WILD and it's variations if you get less than 8 hours of sleep.
[*][B]More Than Eight Hours:[/B] If you get more than 8 hours of sleep you pretty much have all the choices in your method. The better part is the have the choices that are more successful, but it's not good to think like that seeing as the induction method is to the comfort of the person doing it. Er, moving on. When you get more than 8 hours of sleep you can do any of the induction methods I've posted above as well as their variations. Why? Because you're above the average or reccomended amount of sleep and that's always a good thing. Of course, we don't want to damage your sleep schedule, so what I would reccomend is doing it inconsistently so it doesn't get you used to sleeping a little bit. Of course this is just a suggestion if you plan on doing it EVERY SINGLE DAY of the week. Even then, it will take weeks to change your sleep schedule so don't get paranoid or anything. If you like your schedule and like to sleep, do MILD. If not, WILD, as I said before, you have the ultimate choice.
[*][B]Varying Schedules:[/B] This is a tricky one. You may get enough sleep sometimes and then others you won't. The only induction method I can reccomend is MILD and it's variations. The reason for this is that it ultimately will remain consistent, even if you don't get enough sleep or get too much of it. Whereas WILD may not always be good because you may do it on a day that you wake up early. When in doubt, play it safe.
[/LIST]
Again, this is my educated opinion. You don't actually have to listen to any of this. Some people who don't get any sleep happen to have the most lucid dreams in some cases, it really depends on the person and since I don't know every person reading this, I can't make a definite answer.
[U]What's with this energy thing?[/U]
It's not some hippy thing you see them preaching about, energy exists everywhere, whether that be spiritual or not. Most lucid dreamers know this and try to become spirtually at balanced, trying to satisfy their subconscious needs. It's kind of the same situation here. First, I'll make an example. Scientists have done experiments where they have taken two beakers of ice, exactly the same, and put them in the same temperatured place. The only difference is one has a sticker of a heart on it, and the other with crossbones. When the ice melted, the one with the heart on it was frozen longer. This is a keen example of the energy I speak of. You have it all around you, whether that be you don't feel right in the place you're in, or that you really have a desire for someone or something else. Energy can come in both a positive and a negative form and that is the energy I am describing here. When you are asleep you are more prone to these energys and are sensative to them. Kind of like a radar detector. When you are conscious you need to focus more of your power on doing common things, but when you are asleep, you are able to train your absorbtion skills. I've had a first hand example of this, but due to me not wanting to drag my personal life into this, I'll leave that out. The energy you have before you go to sleep can effect whether the dream you'll have is a nightmare, or a normal dream. During your sleep the energy around you can also alter the dream you are having. You could be having such a great dream and then suddenly everything screws up, and visa versa. You could be in a nightmare and then suddenly rainbows everywhere. That's why earlier I talked about how hugging or turning your nightmare into positive energy can change your dream. It will basically amplify what you have done and counter the negative energy your nightmare created. Meditation is perfect when you have a bad day and negative energy is crawling up your bum. It clears your mind and usually expells the negative energy. Again, as much as this sounds like hippy stuff, it really is the truth.
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[B]Day 4 - Dream Recall[/B]
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[I]What is Dream Recall?[/I]
Kind of a dumb question, but a question none the less. Dream recall is basically the consistency at which you remember your dreams. This includes both how much of your dream you remember and how often you remember your dreams. As lucid dreamers, it is important to master and improve your dream recall, so that you know if you had a lucid dream and what went on in it. When we improve our dream recall we are able to not only remember our dreams but improve the detail at which we remember them. As you can see in my entries below, I remember things down to the clothes the person was wearing. Not only does this help you identify dream signs and consistensies in your dreams, but you will also gain the ability to replay your dream in real time like a memory. With enough practice, though, you would also be able to mimic the feeling in the dream, but this is EXTREMELY far down the road.
[I]How can I improve my Dream Recall?[/I]
An excellent question. I'm 100% sure everyone has heard of a dream journal. If you haven't, it's basically a place where you write down whatever you remember about the dream you had. It could be a picture, a letter, a diary format, whatever works for you. Recording your dreams is a diagnostic for you to teach yourself how to remember your dreams. For every entry, you gain a little more recall. It's like when you practice a sport. You're practicing for a reason, to get better, and that's the case we have here. What you can do is repeat a mantra before you go to bed, something like "I will remember my dream." Another example of how MILD can be used for something else then lucid dreaming.
There is also another way. Vitamin B6 is infamous for increasing a person's dream recall. Who knows, but it works, so we can use that to our advantage. Now normally I would say not to go get a vitamin supplement for it, but if you truly need to, please consult a few things. First of all you want to know how much of it you're having per day. We don't want you to overdose on this vitamin as it can hurt your body. Secondly you need to pick the right time to take the supplement. You can't have it directly before you go to sleep because it won't digest properly and you'll end up having the vitamin when you're asleep, and it is most likely to cause stomach pains. What I suggest is to take the supplement with food. It minimizes the chances of upsetting your stomach and it supplies you with a supper for the night. Now that you've taken your supplement you can go to sleep.
For those who DON'T want to take a supplement, I have two things to say. You want to make sure the food that has the vitamin in it doesn't infuriate your body (AKA, You're not allergic to it) and you want to pick a food that you enjoy eating. You won't enjoy eating a food that tastes like shit JUST for the sake of dream recall. It's as stupid as keeping a dream journal if you don't give two shits about it. Banana's are a great source of B6, so if you like banana's, you're in the clear. Just mix it with a bowl of dry cereal or a nice pastry or something before you go to sleep and you'll enjoy it. If you're wanting something more than your average banana, you've come to the right place. I'll tell you some of my favorite recipes that includes banana's and one that I bet nobody saw coming:
[LIST]
[*][B]Banana Smoothie:[/B] You're in the middle of the night and you're craving a good drink. Well, a banana smoothie is delicious and it's cool and refreshing. It's pretty simple to make too. You'll need a blender, some ice, bananas, milk, and optionally vanilla icecream. Peel the banana and chop it into pieces. Insert pieces into blender. Pour some milk in it, enough to cover the banana cuts and a little higher. Now put an icecube in there. So far so good. If you wanted to put vanilla icecream, put as many scoops as comfortable. Blend everything together and pour in a bowl, and boom, you have a banana smoothie. The best part about this is that you can make it in large amounts and leave it in your fridge. Then every night drink a little bit of it. Feel free to personalize it with your own favorites. I like to put whipped cream over the top and swirl it with dulce de leche hersheys syrup. Mmmm.
[/LIST]
[LIST]
[*][B]Banana-Toast Sandwich:[/B] I'm sure you've taken a look at this in the previous OP. It's pretty straight forward too. Take a piece of bread and toast it. It can be wholewheat or white, it doesn't matter. Now cut up a banana into slices. When the toast is ready, you have a lot of options. What I do is smear it in nutella, then put the banana slices on top of it. You can put peanut butter, jelly, honey, whatever floats your boat. Remember you want to enjoy this food. If you really want to go for a double whammy, you can use banana cream. Again it's all up to you. The benefit of this particular snack is that it also improves your lucid dreaming chances due to the vitamin in the toast (B12)
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[LIST]
[*][B]Watermelon:[/B] I know what you're thinking. "Watermelon? Is this a joke?" It isn't. Actually, watermelon is another fruit that is a quality source of Vitamin B6. Now it's not as plentiful as a good old fasioned banana, but it's still got a good amount. Plus it's cool and refreshing. A little word of advice though when eating a watermelon. Cut it in slices, and try NOT to eat the seeds. Spit them out if you have to. Your local supermarket should sell watermelons both seedless and regular. You'll also want to get an adult watermelon, not a baby one. Adult watermelons have developed more and are more likely to include a more plentiful amount of vitamin B6.
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Be creative with your combinations. Try things out that you enjoy the most and release the inner chef within you. There are a bunch of foods that include vitamin B6. You can go [URL="http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=nutrient&dbid=108"]here[/URL] for a list of some of the foods that include vitamin B6, and also learn a little more about the vitamin itself.
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[B]Day 5 - Conscious and Subconscious [/B]
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[I]What is my conscious?[/I]
Your conscious being is a part of your brain that is "awake" during your life. This is the part of your brain that is responsible for working and processing as well as executing actions. By definition, to be conscious is to be aware, so as an easier way of putting it, your conscious is your awareness center. Right now you are listening to it as you read what I am writing. Like this. And this. Oh and this too. I think you get the point.
[I]
What is your subconscious?[/I]
I figured this question would be asked. Your subconscious is basically the other half of your brain. The half that isn't swayed by influence or bias, at least. It's still you, and it knows just as much as you do, so don't think that you could ask it anything in the world and it will know it. When you meet your subconscious and ask it a ridiculously impossible question, expect a nonsensical answer that WILL make sense to you thanks to dream logic. Your subconscious knows answers that pertain to it's realm, dream realm that is. Sometimes the answers to your questions will not be in words but in dream signs as well. Other times it may just not tell you or lie to you under the circumstance that you just aren't suppose to know the answer yet. You should respect any decision your subconscious makes as it knows more about you do than, well, you.
[I]What does my subconscious do?[/I]
That's a great question. Your subconscious is responsible for many things in reality and in the dream world. I'll start with the dream world since that's the one I can explain best. Your subconscious basically creates all the dream "stages" and scenarios you go through when you fall asleep. It also goes to help problems you are facing with in life by creating these scenarios in your dreams. But of course the main purpose of these scenarios is confronting the problems you have in your life. Of course these scenarios are going to happen again in your life. You CAN summon your subconscious with enough practice. I say this because summoning live bodies takes some practice, especially because as an amateur closing your eyes for too long could make you wake up, whereas with practice it's essentially different.
[I]How do I summon my subconscious?[/I]
Simple. There are many summoning techniques you could use and I'll leave that up to you to find your favorite, but for the sake of having an example in this wall of text, I'll BREIFLY touch up on one. In the technique where you must close your eyes and spin you want to you want to focus on the object you are trying to summon, in this case your subconscious. If you don't know what your subconscious looks like, it works to just say 'when I open my eyes, my subconscious will be in front of me.' Alternatively, you don't actually have to spin. The spinning is really just to stop you from waking up. You don't have to use this particular method. As I said before there are a lot to choose from.
[I]So my conscious is pretty much useless in my dreams?[/I]
Anything but! What your subconscious does is stress test your conscious for observation and behavioral changes. In your dreams your conscious is acting through the dream in the way it would in real life. The objective behind a dream varies on what you've gone through as I've mentioned before. Sometimes you need to change the way you respond to something, and so a situation will recur until you've changed the response. That's not to say all dreams are negative in their origins. Although a hefty part of a dream will correspond to fix a conscious problem. As lucid dreamers, we want to fully be conscious in our dreams, and not be on "autopilot."
[I]What shouldn't I do with my subconscious?[/I]
Well first of all don't shoot it. Any attempt to harm or kill your subconscious will result in you waking up. Not to mention that's pretty much the same as shooting yourself. Besides, why would you even want to do that? Your subconscious does everything to benefit you, even lie or create nightmares. The same applies for arguments. Your subconscious will always win these arguments because it knows exactly what you want to hear. You also don't want to ask what your greatest fear is. From experience you WILL NOT be able to sleep properly for a good amount of time. If you truly want to know, ask your subconscious that you want to know it VERBALLY. I'm not sure how this particular method works but I know enough to conclude it won't mentally scar you.
--------------------
And for the people who want to a little inspiration, here is the exploits of my subconscious and I :
[quote=Jake's Campaign]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24176596&postcount=1725"][B]Chapter One - The Week Long Dream[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24198872&postcount=1760"][B]Chapter Two - Self Control[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24230390&postcount=1877"][B]Chapter Three - Question and Answers[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24277848&postcount=2059"][B]Chapter Four - Going Deeper[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24300994&postcount=2153"][B]Chapter Five - Doing A Favor[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24306926&postcount=2186"][B]Chapter Six - Eye Of The Storm[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24333658&postcount=2298"][B]Chapter Seven - Enter Rapture[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24355479&postcount=2421"][B]Chapter Eight - Redo[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24368457&postcount=2571"][B]Chapter Nine - The Event[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24379505&postcount=2715"][B]Chapter Ten - Redo Part Deux[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24427589&postcount=3062"][B]Chapter Eleven - The Unveiling[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24450576&postcount=3143"][B]Chapter Twelve - Deja Vu[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24481798&postcount=3416"][B]Chapter Thirteen - The Switch[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24525878&postcount=3911"][B]Chapter Fourteen - Untied Ends[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24540733&postcount=4179"][B]Chapter Fifteen - 'Anti-Jake'[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24652814&postcount=4897"][B]Chapter Sixteen - A Nice Dream[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24677369&postcount=20"][B]Chapter Seventeen - The Event : Continued[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24678731&postcount=46"][B]Chapter Eighteen - When We Were Young[/B][/URL]
[URL="http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24743922&postcount=263"][B]Chapter Nineteen - Long Nightmare[/B][/URL]
[/quote]
fuck, that should be "Megathread". Mods, help?
[editline]11:49PM[/editline]
or i guess thread works, i don't really know.
Double click near the name of the thread in firefox, it should let you edit it
[editline]11:50PM[/editline]
Or multi click I forget
[editline]11:50PM[/editline]
Thar we go :wink:
woah.
that seems easily abused...I will remember that in the future.
dammit zin.
[editline]06:54PM[/editline]
Well, I'll post my dream in a while.
best ending to the last thread
[QUOTE=Ghost_Zero]Next thing you know, this entire thread is a dream. [/QUOTE]
ever
What if I'm dreaming and this is all an incredibly complex dream. I bet if I jump off a building I'll live.
Hey! NEW THREAD!
By the way, I made a little mark with pen on my hand, and keep inking it over every day. Why? Whenever I see it, I must hold my nose and try breathing. It's my reality checker.
[QUOTE=Chezhead;24676835]Hey! NEW THREAD!
By the way, I made a little mark with pen on my hand, and keep inking it over every day. Why? Whenever I see it, I must hold my nose and try breathing. It's my reality checker.[/QUOTE]
But what if you don't have it in your dream?
[QUOTE=Sottalytober;24676409]What if I'm dreaming and this is all an incredibly complex dream. I bet if I jump off a building I'll live.[/QUOTE]
Oh god inception... who else has seen this movie?
[editline]07:41PM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zackin5;24676942]But what if you don't have it in your dream?[/QUOTE]
Good point, but it's not the mark, it's more of trying to get used to the entire reality check thing.
Had the weirdest dream of my life a week ago, sec.
Edit:
From MSN convo about a week ago to help me re-call it, pictures coming later.
There was this strange planet express thing and people decided to move there and stuff
they had tracks, houses etc
but people had to scan whereever they went for certain germs with this tool thing
some guy fell off the track onto this concrete thing and people were scanning it and they found this germ thing and left the guy
and mum decided to move there, I didnt know what was going on and mum showed me my room, people were partying everywhere and mum kind of just forgot about me
I went to go sit down at the food hall and 4 people started talking to me
I got to get up and they wouldnt let go of me
so I ran back home and tried to get to sleep
But half my room disapeared and people were looking at me
They all had glow sticks and stuff
then I found out that earth sends stuff back and forth
I saw the guy still trapped on the concrete thing
so I ran over to help him
and like, I fell through the concrete into some water thing
and I fell down the stream to a safe area, then I swept down to the bottom and found out that there were plants udnerwater
I somehow knew they were germish and that they would kill me
I felt my face puff up and I it was eating me
then I woke up D;
It was really really really weird
Editx2:
I also recall going back down to earth really quick and I saw a friend with glow sticks and shit so I went to talk to him but he ignored me and went in the elevator to mystery planet with his scanner.
Dream still gives me shakes when I think about it.
Detailed version.
[quote]The dream started with my in a small room in some wooden shack house, which was huge.
I could hear people walking past outside and I saw that all my belongings were in my room and that everything was in boxes on top of a small bed.
I opened the door and walked out when I saw waiters in our huge ass kitchen doing something, but I ignored them and asked my mum what was going on.
She told me that we decided to move to *speach slurred* because she wanted to.
My mothers boyfriend nor my brothers were in sight, so I decided to go for a walk to the corner of where my bedroom was outside, there were walkpaths everywhere and I saw a man screaming.
He was stuck in some cement-quick-sand thing until he yelled once more, noone had expressions on their faces, they faced their scanners around where the man was stuck, looked down on their scanners and then kept walking.
People we dancing, partying, everyone with glow sticks, most people were topless.
I went in the oposite direction, ignoring the yelling man, thinking it was too dangerous when I went to a huge food court with no food on the tables.
They were very long tables, so I sat down.
3 men walked up to me and sat down, 2 accross from me and 1 to my left, they were talking but I was ignoring them.
I got up to leave but they grabbed me, I yelled out, people scanned me with their germ scanners, kept walking, still no expression.
The men looked like hobo's, I managed to get up and slide away on my feet somehow, kind of like rolerblading but with no rollerblades.
I walked back to the corner, the man still yelling, I ignored him and found an elevator, so I got in it.
Some people hit buttons and it zoomed up, it felt like it was going down as I saw planets and stars fly by.
The elevator door opened at a type of airport with crowded people, I went down some stairs when I a friend I recognised.
I went to talk to him, but he ignored me, he was wearing glow sticks with a scanner in his hand.
I followed him to the elevator and catched the one to his left.
I went back to the planet and saw the man still screaming, so I walked over to help him.
I fell through the ground to some underwater pipe area, there were some plants and it was safe, the a strong current took me down to some dirt water area with ugly plants.
One grabbed me, so I shut my eyes and I woke up.
It was very real and it still gives me shivers when I think about it.
[/quote]
Editx3:
Also, it wasn't one of those "Black and white, I hardly recall shit in it" dreams, it was very real and remember 90% of it.
Type it type it
[editline]12:44AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Chezhead;24676996]
Good point, but it's not the mark, it's more of trying to get used to the entire reality check thing.[/QUOTE]
It's a good thing to get used to it, sort of.
The reality check itself may become looking at your hand, otherwise you won't do a reality check.
These shock dreams are keeping me up at night
had one I was slammed in the face with a sledge hammer and woke up hard
Woh double post what the fuck
A while ago I had a dream where I was telling my brother the story of Sam & Max season 3 and then meteors fell on the city, and they contained toys. Everyone was assigned a set of toys to assess them and then somehow it was about making TF2 characters out of magnets to win a magnet hat.
[QUOTE=Chezhead;24676996]Oh god inception... who else has seen this movie?[/QUOTE]
:colbert:
[editline]12:53AM[/editline]
and jake, where are your dreams
Typing, typing.
Ill whip out my tablet soon and draw up a few sketches of mine.
This dream is from 9/6
[quote=Dream Journal]Today I had a dream that continued off of another.
I woke up in a bathtub. I was fully clothed and wasn't wet. After realizing where I was I pat my clothes down and check if anything was stolen off of me. Everything checked out. I got out of the bathtub and checked the mirror. I looked normal, nothing wrong. I sighed in relief. The bathroom door was closed. I took a better look at the bathroom before I left, it looked familiar.
I opened the bathroom door and peeked my head out. It was a hotel room by the looks of it. I walked out the bathroom and shut the door. I saw my subconscious putting pants on. I realized I was dreaming. I rubbed my hands together. She looked up. "Oh there you are" she said. She went to a wardrobe and did her makeup. I waved hello and sat down on the bed. I realized where we were. "So what is this, like a continuation dream." I asked her. She finished putting lipstick on her and turned around. "If it continued where you left off you would still be freaking out." she said smiling. She kissed my cheek. I rubbed the lipstick stain off of it. She laughed.
She grabbed my hand and started walking me out the room. When we got out it was exactly like the hotel I was previously in for vacation. We walked for a good while, not saying much just looking around. We passed the pool, beach, reception, and buffet before me stopped. She stopped us on top of a little wooden bridge that connects the villa's to the main land. There was a pond below. I leaned over the edge of the bridge and looked at the water. The fish that were swimming there had wings. I thought for a minute. I imagined some bread in my hand and closed my eyes. When I opened them I had bread in my hand.
I ripped a piece of the bread off and tossed it in the air. 4 little fish jumped up at the bread and flew to get it. One got it and dragged it into the water. I looked at her. She was looking at me smiling. "What" I asked her. "Mm nothing" she replied. She took a piece of bread and tossed it far up it in the air. A lizard grabbed it with his tail. "Haha what the fuck" I said out loud. She giggled. "You know this is the first time I've seen animals in my dreams." I said to her. "Not really" she replied. "You've seen your dog before" she said again. "Okay let me rephrase that" I said throwing another piece of bread in the water. "This is the first time I've seen strange animals like this in my dreams" I said again. A turtle swam to the piece I threw and ate it. "Except for him" I said pointing at the turtle.
"Technically that's not true either" she said. "Oh shush" I said to her. I pushed her a little bit to the side. She laughed and shoved me back. She grabbed my hand again and started to walk me through the resort. I still had a piece of bread in my hand. I took a bite. It tasted delicious. "My god call me fat but I would just gorge everything if they taste this good" I said to her. I ripped a piece and fed her one. "One could say, the food of your dreams" she said laughing. We stopped in the middle of the walkways that lead to the rooms. A large bang occurred and I woke up. My brother dropped something heavy on the floor.
[/QUOTE]
Now to type the one I had today
[QUOTE=solid_jake;24677369]This dream is from 9/6
Now to type the one I had today[/QUOTE]
Thats def gotta mean something, who was the girl?
My subconscious mate
[quote]Last night, I had a dream that I was in Boston in the USA, on a holiday trip with my family. We were wandering downtown, surrounded by tall buildings. It was extremely quiet, which when I woke up thought was stange, however I can understand why it was now - I had a trip to Boston the week before with a friend, and one part of downtown was unusually quiet. Must have been recalling that somehow. Anyways, all of a sudden, I heard this strange gibberish echoing through the building, which soudned like they were being read over a megaphone. Looking up, it had suddenly turned night-time for some reason, and the sky was flooded with missiles, flying overhead into distant buildings and areas, luckily not hitting any buildings we were stood near.
We feld out of town, and for some reason the outskirts became a quiet desert-like area, however large aftershocks and sonic-waves could still be felt from where we were. We looked off into the distance only to see missiles exploding in the distance. For some reason though, I saw no US marines, planes or helecopters, like you would imagine would appear to help in such a scenario. From there, my parents were somehow no longer present with me in the dream. They'd gone, however for some reason such a fact hadn't registered with me in my dream - it was like they hadn't been there the whole time.
I was left to fend for myself, wandering the desert at night, until eventually I found an area filled with large broken metal pieces sticking out of the sand, almost as if a plane had crashed there a long time ago, and had never been recovered. A shack was also present, which had someone inside, however they were far from friendly. From what I can recall it was an old man bearing some kind of pump action shotgun, but what was wierd was that it was really small, almost like a toy shotgun. After yelling at me he shot a spray of bullets past my head and the scare must have jolted me awake. [/quote]
Quoted to make it easier to read (and take up less space)
Strange yes, but I can promise you, I haven't edited it to make it sound any better, or like some kind of war story. It was all so wierd...yet felt so real.
The odd thing is, usually I have [b]extremely simple, undetailed dreams[/b], yet this one was really different from my usual ones.
I'm gonna rewrite my dream in detail, sec.
[quote=Jake's Campaign]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24176596&postcount=1725][B]Chapter One - The Week Long Dream[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24198872&postcount=1760][B]Chapter Two - Self Control[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24230390&postcount=1877][B]Chapter Three - Question and Answers[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24277848&postcount=2059][B]Chapter Four - Going Deeper[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24300994&postcount=2153][B]Chapter Five - Doing A Favor[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24306926&postcount=2186][B]Chapter Six - Eye Of The Storm[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24333658&postcount=2298][B]Chapter Seven - Enter Rapture[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24355479&postcount=2421][B]Chapter Eight - Redo[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24368457&postcount=2571][B]Chapter Nine - The Event[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24379505&postcount=2715][B]Chapter Ten - Redo Part Deux[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24427589&postcount=3062][B]Chapter Eleven - The Unveiling[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24450576&postcount=3143][B]Chapter Twelve - Deja Vu[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24481798&postcount=3416][B]Chapter Thirteen - The Switch[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24525878&postcount=3911][B]Chapter Fourteen - Untied Ends[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24540733&postcount=4179][B]Chapter Fifteen - 'Anti-Jake'[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24652814&postcount=4897][B]Chapter Sixteen - A Nice Dream[/B][/url]
[url=http://www.facepunch.com/showpost.php?p=24677369&postcount=20][B]Chapter Seventeen - The Event - Continued[/B][/url]
-Chapters to Come-
[/quote]
Have fun reading
[QUOTE=solid_jake;24677456]My subconscious mate[/QUOTE]
Your subconscious is cooler than mine. :(
Okay, so any big things I should need to know before attempting WILD tonight? Just lie in my bed, relax, close my eyes, and try to retain consciousness?
I thought you said something about a ring...
Yeah, look at the things developing in the darkness of your eyes.
Resist itches, move if uncomfortable.
[editline]01:13AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Zinayzen;24677671]I thought you said something about a ring...[/QUOTE]
That was the dream I had yesterday, I need to type the one I had today
So what's the best reality-checker?
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