The summer holidays are officially over for me. Now I have all of high school ahead of me. Not much happened today. The tutors showed us the school (though having gone to junior high in the same building, the tour wasn't very informative for me) and we got our schedule. Apart from that, all we did was play some bizarre games with the tutors. I can't say much about my new class yet, but they seem to be generally nice people.
And now for something completely different. I'm sure most of us have had trouble sleeping every now and then. Surely you recognize the feeling of lying in bed trying to fall asleep, but you just can't because of all the thoughts going through your head. Sometimes they might be important matters, other times so trivial you can't even remember what it was that kept you awake for so long. The latter is what happened to me last night. Now, you might be thinking it's just because I was going to start high school the next day, but I'm fairly certain that isn't it. I admit I can't remember what it was that was bothering me last night, but I really don't think that was it. I also woke up in the middle of the night and had trouble getting to sleep again and I know that time school was the last thing on my mind. All I really cared about then was falling asleep. That's about it for this blog post, I suppose. I guess what I wanted to say was that even a mild case of insomnia can be very annoying. I'm definitely going to bed early today.
Over and out.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The bizarre workings of the mind
If there's one thing that's always intrigued me, it's the human brain, and more specifically, the most astonishing product of the said organ: the human mind. There's always been a little scientist inside me, so to say. I was always (and still am) eager to find out more about the world around us, but also what goes on inside our heads. You also can't blame me for having a bad imagination: as a child, I'd often transport myself to a completely different world in my head and admittedly, I still sometimes do, particularly if I can't seem to fall asleep. Nowadays, I often ponder philosophical matters. As much as I enjoy learning more about our objective reality, subjective matters are just as important, if not more so. I've always had strong opinions about things, but I'm not blindly defending my stances. I've often been forced to change my stance on matters I first found obvious before realizing I hadn't really given those things much thought.
As much as these things interest me, there's always the adventurer inside me, which brings me to the real topic of this post: dreams. Dreams have always fascinated me. To think that our brain can create whole worlds inside our head - worlds with their own laws and places; it's truly astounding. Though dreams are but a figment of our imagination, the sensations we feel in them are real as anyone who's had a really terrifying nightmare can probably tell you. Dreams are our own little playgrounds were literally anything can happen. I've been on an interdimensional roller coaster ride, gone down with a sinking ship, fought of mummies in a fantasy world, been stuck in the middle of the desert in a fly suit, met giant chickens in business suits and eaten so many buns (it's this sweet kind of bun which is a traditional Finnish pastry) that I woke up feeling physically sick, all inside my head and it all felt as if I really was there. Some of these things are from years back, yet I still remember them as vividly as any memory of my waking life. It's a shame that the majority of people don't remember most of their dreams, including me, but I've noticed that the more attention you give to your dreams, the better you'll remember them.
As some people who know me might know, I've been really into lucid dreaming for a while. For those who don't know a lucid dream is a dream in which you are aware of the fact that you're dreaming. (not necessarily in control - control and awareness do not go hand in hand, unfortunately) A few days ago, I got interested in the subject again and tonight, I had my first lucid dream in 4 or 5 months, which inspired me to practice my dream recall again and to try achieving more lucid dreams. There are various techniques people use to improve their chances of becoming lucid, the one which I use (I generally stay away from using these techniques as for me, most of them just seem like a waste of time) is basically about noticing the brief wake up between each dream and staying aware during the time it takes to enter the next dream. This is exactly what I did last night. I dreamed about being in a forest with my dog. She went after a bear with a stylish hat and a suitcase and as I tried to call her back so she wouldn't get hurt, I realized how absurd the situation was and just then, the dream ended and I "woke up" in my bed.
Basically what happened after that was that I jumped down from our balcony, onto the stone wall separating our backyard from the street and down from there and after that, I did one of the most fascinating things I've ever done in a lucid dream: I summoned a thunderstorm. I simply did a sweeping motion with my hand stretched toward the sky. At first, the clouds actually subsided, revealing the sun, but soon the whole sky was covered with dark clouds and it started to drizzle. After that I tried entering a submarine on the beach, (which I managed to summon because I wanted to go somewhere else) but I woke up.
This has been another look into my bizarre mind. Have a nice day.
As much as these things interest me, there's always the adventurer inside me, which brings me to the real topic of this post: dreams. Dreams have always fascinated me. To think that our brain can create whole worlds inside our head - worlds with their own laws and places; it's truly astounding. Though dreams are but a figment of our imagination, the sensations we feel in them are real as anyone who's had a really terrifying nightmare can probably tell you. Dreams are our own little playgrounds were literally anything can happen. I've been on an interdimensional roller coaster ride, gone down with a sinking ship, fought of mummies in a fantasy world, been stuck in the middle of the desert in a fly suit, met giant chickens in business suits and eaten so many buns (it's this sweet kind of bun which is a traditional Finnish pastry) that I woke up feeling physically sick, all inside my head and it all felt as if I really was there. Some of these things are from years back, yet I still remember them as vividly as any memory of my waking life. It's a shame that the majority of people don't remember most of their dreams, including me, but I've noticed that the more attention you give to your dreams, the better you'll remember them.
As some people who know me might know, I've been really into lucid dreaming for a while. For those who don't know a lucid dream is a dream in which you are aware of the fact that you're dreaming. (not necessarily in control - control and awareness do not go hand in hand, unfortunately) A few days ago, I got interested in the subject again and tonight, I had my first lucid dream in 4 or 5 months, which inspired me to practice my dream recall again and to try achieving more lucid dreams. There are various techniques people use to improve their chances of becoming lucid, the one which I use (I generally stay away from using these techniques as for me, most of them just seem like a waste of time) is basically about noticing the brief wake up between each dream and staying aware during the time it takes to enter the next dream. This is exactly what I did last night. I dreamed about being in a forest with my dog. She went after a bear with a stylish hat and a suitcase and as I tried to call her back so she wouldn't get hurt, I realized how absurd the situation was and just then, the dream ended and I "woke up" in my bed.
Basically what happened after that was that I jumped down from our balcony, onto the stone wall separating our backyard from the street and down from there and after that, I did one of the most fascinating things I've ever done in a lucid dream: I summoned a thunderstorm. I simply did a sweeping motion with my hand stretched toward the sky. At first, the clouds actually subsided, revealing the sun, but soon the whole sky was covered with dark clouds and it started to drizzle. After that I tried entering a submarine on the beach, (which I managed to summon because I wanted to go somewhere else) but I woke up.
This has been another look into my bizarre mind. Have a nice day.
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