errantember

One major blow to my praxis while I had a corporate 9-5 job was the fact that I had little or no memorable dream life. Due to the control I've had over most of schedule for the past 5 or 6 years, I was able to spend extensive time deliberately sleeping into the sunlight to do work on myself inside my own dreams. Sleeping during the day seems to significantly increase the chances of remembering dreams and lucid dreaming. After reading a book on the subject of using and controlling one's dreams, I became better at being able to dream lucidly pretty much at will. I developed a policy that if I had a bad dream or nightmare and woke up, I would deliberately go back into the dream as an all-powerful force and fix whatever was wrong. Initially this lead to a lot of slaughtered vampires and other violence, but eventually I realized that if I were all powerful, I didn't have to use violence. In the vampire example, for instance, I would go back and free the individuals from their vampirism. I often had flying dreams of the type associated with feelings of personal empowerment and freedom, and I really felt like my dream life was every bit as vivid and real as "real" life. Even though I could do whatever I wanted, I recognized that dreams, including bad ones, happen for important reasons, and learned to read the rhythm of the dream to know when it was worthwhile to intervene and, more importantly, when it needed to be allowed to take its course.

I saw substantial evidence that having this alternate universe where I had absolute freedom and power changed my real life as well. There is a strong parallel with the Power of Now-type idea that we are all part of an infinite and powerful creator-force, and that nothing in the real world can change that or take it away from us. It makes dealing with trials and risks in the real world much easier, but we no longer believe that our day-to-day dramas are the whole of what's going on.

Now that I've regain control over my sleep schedule, I've started using these techniques again. Another one that I believe writers often use is to deliberately hover in the just-waking semi-dream state and meditate or brainstorm on ideas or projects. This afternoon I had several breakthroughs regarding my first iPhone game while hovering in that near-dream state. I'm looking forward to seeing that other fabulous ideas come out of all this, and am really grateful I've gotten to a point where I can control my schedule again.

I'm going to be trying my first Master Cleanse here in a day or two. Except for the occasional date, now is a good time for me to try it. It also jives with my general program of avoiding allergy-causing foods and saving money on food this week, which was very expensive up-front. I'm going to try for a five-day cleanse the first time. If it works out well, I may make it a regular thing, perhaps every three to six months or so.

I also got two callbacks from resumes I sent out today, and I'll be calling back the first prospect tomorrow. The company actually looks both really cool and like a place where my skills and interests will be appreciated. If I could land a 6-month contract, I could raise enough money to pay for at least a year of living, which would really help my fledgling freelancing work.