Hey!

Please don't feel sorry about my car accident. I felt no pain from it (probably due to drugs), and it's an experience that I would not take back for anything. Although it was at the expense of others who were concerned for me (and I am now blind in my left eye), I had fun the entire time! How the hell do you have fun when you're hospitalized? Positive attitude! I never once doubted my recovery. Besides, being blind in one eye has taught me much. I am not effected by depth perception at all. For example, I'm addicted to jumping on handrails on my rollerblades as well as all other kinds of acrobatics. I learned that performing athletics or acrobatics like that is way more by feel than by what you see. When I was in the hospital, I talked the nurses into letting me install Photoshop on a staff computer! That didn't work though, cause they didn't have the admin passwords. When I was let out of the hospital, people told me that I should hang up the rollerblades and give up on that lifestyle. Ha! I laugh at giving up!

Yup! We were both lucky!

Stressed and overwhelmed at times?!
I bet that's related to the sinus medication.
This actually concerns me a bit. You should never take pills for reasons like that. Unless you are literally ill! Seriously. There's a lot of long lasting side effects tagged along with these medications. It can make your body feel stressed. And you don't truly know what you are putting in yourself.

As a side note, 90% of headaches are caused by dehydration. Yet, most people still reach for their pill bottle. In turn, the medications dehydrate the host, making the real problem worse. But the host is numb from medication and doesn't feel the problem, and proceeds in performing activities that act in worsening the problem further. It's like taking some ibu for an ankle injury, then going for a run because it feels fine while it's numb - except instead you are doing this to your brain.

Then you say that you like to avoid dreaming due to nightmares?

First off I have to say that sleeping medications do indeed inhibit dreams. More importantly, I have to say that if you find a way to repress dreaming, you will regret it. I've talked to people who have done that because of nightmares.

So, how to overcome nightmares?
The simple answer is one word: love.
The elaborated answer is a lot longer.

A nightmare is usually a manifestation of an unknown or unidentified fear. The first step to overcoming any fear is acceptance. Accept the situation at hand. Other nightmares can be brought on like an inner-challenge that you must overcome to further the evolution of your consciousness while you are alive (I've noted one). Again the first step is acceptance. A third type of fear that can manifest itself in a dream is trauma (saying trauma makes it easy to identify as a fear, but many people don't realize that when a particular smell reminds them of that thing or person they love, it's actually a form a trauma). Making it thrice now, the first step to overcoming trauma is acceptance.

Nightmares are lucid. It can be difficult, but when you find yourself in that unpleasant situation, try to just stop. Say no. Turn and face it. Do whatever is applicable, and accept it. When the attitude of fear is checked, the illusion dissolves.

As a kid I had a repeated nightmare where I would be playing in the park, and suddenly a giant would come out of nowhere and started stomping out everything in it's path. Everybody would start running, including myself. My dream would end when I was about to get stomped out, as I awoke terrified. But then one time as the giant came out and everybody was running, I decided to stop and face the giant. I wanted to see this giant and make it stop. But when I turned to face it, there was no giant. Only sky. So then I turned back, and when I looked down I was towering over the entire park. I was the giant! That was the end of that reoccurring nightmare!

Ok, so acceptance works. But why did I keep on saying that it was the first step. Well, the real first step is love. Every night before I go to sleep, I meditate on the feeling of love. Actually, it's a combination of meditating to falling asleep, so I'm always lying down like I'm going to go to sleep. There are different methods of meditation (even astral), but I always start with love. First, once you're comfy, make sure you have your problems of the day solved. Use a little bit of time to figure out how you're going to deal with a problem. Always be open mined to analyzing different perspectives when solving daily problems.

Once you get that kind of mental garbage tidied up in your head, your ready to bring on the love! What you are really trying to accomplish here is finding the feeling of love, and try to hold on to it so that it fills you up! To do this, start by thinking of someone you really love in real life. Someone like your parents, possible siblings, or a best friend. Really feel that love. Once you've found it, embrace it! It feels tingly, and like it comes from the heart. It's also warming to the soul.

When started doing this and found the feeling, I noticed that I would often be overwhelmed by the amount of love that I would try to embrace, and quickly discard it, leaving me to have to find it again. But the trick was to let in a little bit at a time. It's like once you've found the river, you can control the valve. But watch out! The mind tends to wander! Your job is to use you're mind to fire up love from the heart. As you do this, you will find that it is actually you that allows love to enter yourself. I've gotten to a point where I had absorbed so much love that my entire body was buzzing, and I could think about anything and still feel strong love.

How does this tie into dreaming?
Well, when you achieve a buzzing state of love like that (which I've done twice), your dream is no longer what I like to call "interactive movie dreaming". It's much more soulful and messages are revealed. Acceptance is first, then let the energy flow through you (love), and then the understanding comes. But anyway, telling you that doesn't quite help. When exercising love like this, you're thoughts and natural reactions to scenarios become more compassionate and more loving. With a compassionate attitude like this, your nightmares are solved before they can even manifest, and therefore won't occur. I haven't had a nightmare in a loooooooong time!

If you actually try this, please don't be dismayed if you find it difficult stay focused on finding that love. I know that sometimes I'm just not feeling, so it takes a while. Or other times I catch my mind wandering about. Don't let any side-tracking of that sort frustrate you! Just accept that you side tracked, and get back on it. As you do this, you might worry about what time it is because you need X amount of hours of sleep before your alarm clock rings. Don't worry, because meditating like this actually replaces sleep. You will need less sleep. This is also due to the fact that when you do sleep, you will sleep more soundly and more efficiently. Even if you find just a little bit of love.

Like everything you do in this life, you start at zero and work your way up from there.

"Wrong views are brought to fullness the moment you decide to seek the truth no further." ~ Dalai Lama

Sleep tight!
Chris


Been procrastinating on posting some photography.
He he..