Osakatomebaby

There always seem to be earthquakes in the morning. I mean, I know there's no relationship...unless there's some tidal effect for magma I don't know about. More likely it's because that's when I'm still enough (in full contact with the ground) to notice.

This morning there was a little one...have you ever had a lucid dream? There are two kinds of lucid dreams (in my vast experience). The first is the kind where you are aware that you are dreaming, but you have no control over external events. Kind of like living an enlightened life...which makes me think of all kinds of other questions but will save you from them.

The other kind is where you have control over external events. If at any time you realize you are dreaming, the best way to determine what type of lucid dream you're having is to think to yourself, "well then, if this is a dream and I have control, I must be holding a cabbage (or tomato or eggplant or whatever)." Then look at your right hand. If you're holding a cabbage you're good. Otherwise you're just along for the ride, but it doesn't matter because lucid dreams aren't scary. Lucid dreams happen when you feel in control of your life anyway.

So you have the cabbage. Cabbages are good because they're easy. And even if you have one it doesn't mean it will be easy to control circumstances. But if you can't produce the cabbage it's going to be hard to do bigger stuff.

The other thing about the cabbage is that, you know, it's a cabbage. Of all the things you could want, why would you want a cabbage? I guess because it's not something that you want or care about, and probably doesn't have a lot of emotional associations.

This is important because once you start bringing emotional issues in your dream will go all haywire. Not that bad things will happen for the most part (well, not that they absolutely won't), but that once you flip that switch by say, wishing for your ex-girlfriend to be there holding your hand instead you'll start to lose control, because you're brain is smarter than you and it knows your ex-girlfriend. You can call her up, but I'm here to tell you, if she didn't do your bidding before, she's not going to now. She's defined, she's got her parameters, and the more you try to fix things the more your lucid control is just going to slip slip slip away-ay-ay.

Besides that you'll start wanting things that you wouldn't normally want. Actually that will probably happen anyway. I don't think I ever consciously wanted Madonna to teach me how to play the harp or to sing Christmas carols with penguins around a burning tumbleweed or to learn to manage a controlled fall down the side of a mountain while levitating 5 feet over the surface. If I did, I don't recall. Regardless you'll wake up wondering where this stuff is coming from...and you know, you don't want to know. All the more reason not to call on that ex-girlfriend.

The trick to lucid dreaming is...

Nah, I can't tell you.

Okay fine, the trick is simple. Live an easy life. It wouldn't hurt to be a little bored either. Get enough sleep. That means 5 to 7 hour-and-a-half cycles. You sleep in cycles of about an hour and a half. It's not exact obviously, but more or less. Trust me. (So by the way if you want to wake up more easily, try to time your sleep to this--the alarm clock is more bearable if it doesn't come right in the middle of a cycle). It also helps to believe in the power of suggestion, aka hypnotism.

So if you believe what I just told you about the hour-and-a-half cycles just because I said it, that's cool. If you got all cynical and started thinking, what the hey do you know, that's cool too. But, if you thought, well, that's rather dubious information you're putting out there and you aren't particularly an expert nor have you cited a whit of scientific research, but it sounds good...okay I'll give it a try, then I think you have a better chance. If you don't think you can be hypnotized you can't, right? You have to be willing.

(Why am I suddenly having a flashback to being hypnotized to believe I'm a chicken. That wasn't me right? It was a movie...with Woody Allen? Was it a dream? Aw heck).

So another thing about hypnotism is that you can do it to yourself. Like you can say, I'm going to keep a glass of water by the bed, and if I don't wake up at 6:00 I'm going to throw the water on myself. Or to be less literal you could say if I don't wake up at 6:00 the bed will catch fire. You'll be more likely to get up as long as you maintain the belief.

Admit it, you wake up a minute before the alarm because you hate it so much that you just can't stand to hear it. But you don't turn it off because it's your responsibility to obey the alarm you set. But! Once it goes off, it's not you you're disobeying, it's the damned noisy thing disturbing your sleep and why did I set it so early anyway because I can get ready in half an hour even though I was late last week because I set the alarm way way early and that was dumb and...snoozzzzzzzzze.

Okay, so I'm not always in control. That's why getting enough sleep is important because if you do it means you've got stuff under control and your priorities in order and as a bonus, you'll get lucid dreams which rock. Seriously, cabbage may not be that exciting, but instant out-of-nowhere-just-because-I-thought-of-it-cabbage is pretty satisfying.

The other trick is to try and remember your dreams. Well, you'll probably be too busy in a lucid dream to remember anything after the cabbage. But whether it's lucid or not, there is a trick to remembering your dreams (hypnotize hypnotize). As far as I can tell, if you wake yourself up slightly about an hour before you're supposed to wake up, you'll be more likely to remember.

So if, say you want to do this subtly and you wake up late enough you could leave the shades open or something and tell yourself you'll wake up a little at sun-up. Or just set an alarm and plan to turn it off.

Earthquakes? That started this? There was a tiny one this morning. If you can sense a 1 than I guess this was that...if not then 2. You get the idea. So I'm on the inch-and-a-half thick futon on a wood floor and I'm half awake. I'm not dreaming, but there's still this wish, it's like a dream. The first wish was that it be an earthquake. It was. The next was as it started to subside that it be a prelude to a bigger one. It was. That's where lucid dreaming and those unknown wishes and the control factor get all mixed up. I wanted a bigger earthquake. I wanted panic and terror. What does that mean first thing in the morning? Am I naturally morose? Do I have some destructive instinct? Maybe I need to get more sleep. And how can I control this Lucid waking state? Waking life?