Am I paranoid, or is the guy I'm writing this blog about? You decide.

A few days ago a new member of the Gears of War Universe signed up and was mentioning he might like to play Gears 2 with us at the union while we all waited patiently for Gears 3. So I told him that I'd be interested, and sent him an invite on xbl (which he encouraged any of us who might be interested to do) so the invite was sent without fuss. But the next day, I had a message in my inbox from the same guy and he's like "where did you find my GT?" (keep in mind that this guy has his gamer-tag in his signature on gamespot, for all the world to see) and I'm like: "I'm an officer of the gears of war union on gamespot"

So he accepted my invite, but then, the day after he accepted it, I got the following message from him which went like this (word for word):

"why the hell have you blocked your achievments and game history? that's totally unecessary, for that reason alone I'm removing you..."

Now, to be honest, I don't remember blocking my achievements and game history, so I was taken back by this seemingly un-warranted outburst. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought that this guy wasn't just overreacting, he was a bad speller... that and he was slapping me in the face with my own kind gesture of friendship. I mean, who cares if my games are blocked? What could you possibly learn from such information that you NEED to know the history. then I began to think that I was getting paranoid too.... must be catching...

So I sent the following word-for-word reply:

"wow someone's OCD"

And he's like (word-for-word):

"nope, not me it's just I don't see the point in games history being blocked. Why hide it? You've obviously got something to hide or you're just very insecure to care whether people can see your game history or not."

So, man, I'm thinking "seriously?" I mean, first of all, I had no idea that options on a console weren't optional, secondly, people boycott facebook for less, thirdly, why's he need to even see my games, and finally, who the F@#! does he think he is that I should just waste my time trying to appease him just so I can follow-through with my gesture of good faith? Like honestly, what is the world coming to when this is what some people are like?

Anyhow, today I replied to him with the following word-for-word statement:

"I don't recall shutting it off tbh. but what terrible video games I must play to hide it... honestly, what kind of games can one buy that would require such DRASTIC measures... *sarcasm*"

Hopefully he gets it, but to be honest, I don't really care. I'm pretty sure I don't want someone like that for a friend, I've got better things to do with my time than try to alleviate his concerns when they are so obviously paranoia-driven. But maybe it's me, I dunno, all I know is it's another reason why people are considered to be (imo) DUMB!!

The End.

So I had another Lucid Dream last night and thought I would post it here, so here it is!

I was at home (my real home) and was in the kitchen after just coming up stairs. My Mom and two brothers were there although my youngest brother was perhaps in the study on the computer. The whole scene was so real and normal, AND everything looked real that I didn't suspect a thing until, for whatever reason, I did. I said "Wait a minute... is this a dream?"
My mom turned around and laughed slightly "No... "
My brother asked me why or something and I was more and more adamant: "No but this HAS to be a dream... let me check my clock..."
"Ok." my Mom laughed.
But as I looked at the clock I noticed it was staying the same after 2 times looking. then, when I checked the third time, it was the same time but now the numbers were in military time (like a 24 hour clock) I thought "that can't be real" and looked again, sure enough the time changed. So I immediately ended up somewhere else once realizing it was a dream, and as it started to fade, I rubbed my hands together to keep it real and everything became so clear and realistic. I felt along my arms to increase my mind's involvement in the dream and everything seemed to be stable.
So I don't remember much about the dream but it was long. I remember the next location I was at was some kind of penthouse suite on a dock with it's own boat, and a water-plane had just landed with some associates of mine who came into the house. But they were randomly generated DC's so I decided to try summoning and I did it by saying "no, you're supposed to be..." and then looking away and looking back and they always were whoever I wanted them to be. Except once when it didn't work, and then I just tried again by re-phrasing it and it worked.
I remember we went on some kind of mission and had some kind of business to work on but it all happened progressively like a linear time-line of thought-processes when it came to what we had to do. Like a checklist. And then we ended up in some tunnel underground.

Well as some of you may know, my family (my Mom and two brothers) moved in a month ago after I persuaded them that living co-operatively would be far more advantageous to us than to go our separate ways.

I've always been a strong believer in co-operation, especially when it comes to family, and find it utterly aphalling that our society makes it the norm to divide up families, and resources, so that we are all left with next to nothing; having to build wealth for ourselves with little if any help from other people. This ought not to be so, I thought to myself; then it dawned on me:

"Why not work together?" - This was about a year ago.

I've always contemplated society and it's morals, but when the biggest issue facing people today (especially after the economic 'downturn') is money and how to live comfortably, I began to see a critical error in this 'great' society we live in. That flaw was undoubtably capitalism. Because we are all expected to go on after reaching a certain age to 'make something of ourselves' we all (most of us anyhow) have to start from scratch and, given most people's situations, usually that means ending up with a sub-par job or a really good job after years of mind-numbing school.

I began to see the problem and traced it to what I saw as it's source: selfishness.

Not only do we all want to be rich, we want to be RICHER than our neighbors. We want to be able to look better when compared to the people we know, and we want to be able to say "I did this by myself" but to quote Dr. Carl Sagan "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe." Meaning, nothing is self-made, nor can we get ANYWHERE without other people. You may say this is obvious, and I agree. But even more obvious (at least to me) is the fact that if we were to work together, we could equally share the costs of living, and elevate life's quality for ourselves, simply by learning to get along. Besides the large philosophical ramifications that this brings that I won't go in to, this was quite possibly the greatest shift in thinking I'd made in a long time. So I began to consider myself a communist as the ideals are the same and because the more I read about it, the more it made sense.

Now you may say "communism never worked" and that MAY or may not be true (after all, it's working for me), but REGARDLESS, I believe that the underlying principle is worthy of exploration.

And so (this is turning out to be a round-a-bout-way of saying it, lol) I convinced my family that we should give it a go. We'd move into a house, share the food, utilities, and rent costs, give equal share/each according to their needs, and all that, and see how it went.

Well, it has turned out to be immensely successful, as we can not only get along, but are encouraged to do so because of the money we all are saving. Consider for a moment the following:

When I lived on my own, all I could afford was:

- a basement 2 bedroom suite, with no cable, internet, or car.

Now that we have pooled our resources we have:

- a 5 bedroom, 3 FULL bathroom house with basic cable, as well as ultra-Hiogh speed internet.

and

- I have a 2010 Honda Civic.

So I was pondering all this today and thought "If only MORE people felt this way and did what I'm doing! We could all pool our resources and save a TON of money while living BETTER than we were before!" Doesn't that make sense? And again, all you have to do is get along with some other human beings. THEN I thought "If more people DID do this, we could buy property, sell it or rent it, share the surplus, and continue in this fashion." Completely reversing the hold that the banks have on us, because we'd know that our comrades had our back.

I guess I should bring this tale to a close, but before parting I'd just like to say that this is working so well, we plan on BUYING a house next year.

So I just read Bob_Toeback's blog which inspired me to post a poem I recently wrote. But before that, it seems to me that people are losing themselves to algorithms known as 'popular media' or (in a grand scale) anything bandwagon-driven. When I recall my dreams, they are rarely of anything recognisable in popular culture, and are never inspired by it unless I myself have brought those elements in when I become lucid, and even then, it's not because of the popular elements, it's because I see something within these elements that no one else can. I see the free souls, and I need to explore them, as well as my own.

It is truly regretable that our civilization has advanced because of the adventurous and curious attitude of men like Christopher Columbus, only to be degraded and plateued(sp?) to what it is today. There are millions of people hooked on new fads because millions of people will be hooked on those fads simultaneously like some deranged and horrific self-fulfilling prophecy, cataclysmically spiralling the intellect and uniqueness of human kind into one singular melting pot of popularity marketed to the masses. Fully generalized and equalized to ensure the highest profit. We are all a part of the equation on some C.E.O.'s desk, and he knows how to sell us what he wants but what does he do? He is above the system he has created, and uses OUR money to seek the things in his life that will give him joy. Should we not all be doing the same?

Anyhow, continue if you know how this feels:

Fling along my fingers, the heavens
That we've lost.

Many of our heart-breaks have lived there,
Many centuries ago,
Awaiting the flight to a sun long gone.

The last day of our encampment felt that it could have remained
To shelter our heads from the coming disastrous consequences of our steps-
Filed high toward the sky.
Why has this place been so foul?
Our attempts to bring them water were met by drunken outrages of heresy
Or a mother-lode of promises yet to be fulfilled; and none of it was warranted.
Or at least, not wanted.

- The cows over the moon by now
To be seen from afar,
So it took the high road and set itself
Across the sea,
Which used to be ours. -

~ Finger Tips.

Yes!
The hollow sound of the train as it comes around the buildings of yesterday,
Sitting atop itself before the whistles below,
And not for a second guess but for a second righteousness.

Finally,
We have found the opening in the sunlit clouds,
Beckoning to the townsfolk below to follow us. Which makes them
All the more angry,
So we ask them to trade places; and we'd gladly stay below
To only see them ascend,
For we believed that we knew the way. Which is when it hit us
That we were not holding the key, but the ascent itself was the key to the mystery;
And now it was gone forever. Guess that being selfish IS the ultimate source of salvation, But only if they said so.

Alright, so we're done moving and aside from some seriously stressful events that I won't go in to for the sake of my mental longevity, all went a little worse than I thought it would, but perhaps all will be well if it ends well. Anyhow, you should expect to see me re-surfacing soon, but this weekend is the gears super xp event so I'll be tied up there again. May take some time before I'm completely caught up. Adios amigos, catch ye later!

So I'm going to be moving soon. My family is moving to town and we're all gonna get a house and live like communists and save a ton of cash and be rich... but in the meantime, I've got loads of packing and then moving to do, so don't be surprised if you don't see me around GS for a few weeks. Talk to y'all later!

7 is the magic number. Scientists are telling us now that, due to research backed results, anything more or less than 7 hours of sleep is relatively bad for you. Let us assume that an average person follows this religiously, and then let us assume that he lives to be a ripe age-of-majority (I think) 75 years old.

That means that this average person spends about 191, 625 hours sleeping (not counting Leap-years). Not doing anything, and MAYBE he'll get a good dream out of it if he's lucky. But most people can't remember many of their dreams, and when they do, it feels so aloof that it doesn't seem like they've experienced it.

For me, that has always been unsettling uintil I discovered a place called Dream Views. Dream Views is an online community made up of Lucid Dreamers (people who have trained themselves to be aware when they are dreaming, and even control their dreams, or share them with other Lucid Dreamers). Sound anything like the new movie Inception? Well, here's a flash fact for you, Christopher Nolan (the director) has been lucid dreaming since he was 7 years old. Anyhow, maybe you already knew all this, but the main point of this blog is this: I've been researching lucid dreaming for almost 5 years. It has always fascinated me since reading about it, and due to the huge ammount of tutorials on Dream Views I've learnt quite a bit. But I've never been able to pull it off untill two nights ago. So, below are the dreams I had, and on which days. Hopefully that, coupled with the staggering intrinsic quality that Inception has, along with the fact that it's based on a true story (not really but almost all of it is possible by the proof of over a hundred members on Dream Views) will perhaps be enough to get people at least researching about it as I have. For I can attest that not only is it possible, but that the dream world is as real as ours in every way, and that the connection you can build to the events in your dreams feel as if they are true experiences that you yourself have gone through, and they remain in your mind as memories of your life. And best of all, you feel as if you've done something with those 7 or however many hours you've slept, rather than that you've just slept through part of your life.

Tuesday Night (August 3rd):

Ok, so the first one I attempted as soon as I read a tutorial. I downloaded the sound and alarm clock, set it, and went to bed. Unfortunately, I was SO excited, that I couldn't get to sleep for the longest time. I'd finally fall asleep then have a long, vivid dream (non-lucid) and then wake up. Get a drink, go back to bed, unable to sleep, then finally get to sleep, and have another vivid non-lucid dream, wake up etc, for about three of these cycles. However, in the final one, I was having a dream and decided to look at my clock as I've trained myself to do, and lo and behold, it wasn't consistent (for digital clocks in dreams never are)! So I thought "Aha! This is a dream!" so I immediately started rubbing my hands together and examining them and things got ultra-real. So I decided to examine the mechanics of my dreaming mind, how things behaved, etc. I remember feeling completely aware, I remember checking the mirror to see what I looked like and I looked the same and was kinda dissapointed but the image was slanted, also I'm 80% sure that I created things to see how that worked, basically this was a training exercise for me, and that's how I worked it. When things started to get blurry or dark, I'd rub my hands together again and continue exploring. I'd say I was in the dream for a perceivable hour.

When I awoke, the next day I had such a sensation of accomplishment, as though I'd actually done something with the time that I'd otherwise be wasting in sleep, and I pondered what I would do next.

So, for the first lucid dream I was not able to use the clock, but I became lucid because of how anticipant I was.

Anyhow, the next day at work I checked the clock constantly, did more reality checks, and thought of what I'd like to do next. Anyhow, I decided I'd like to learn summoning next, and so I picked Tricia Helfer as my subject. I theorized that if I was to summon her, as per this site's guidelines, it would need to be believable, so I theorized that using my phone (which is my "totem" if you will as I also use it to check the time to make sure it's consistant) to have her on speed dial would do it, that or going to a building that seemed like the kind she might be at. Besides, they also say that having a Dream Character help you in whatever task you are trying in the dream world, stabalizes the dream

So, I got home, read up on more techniques especially in controlling a dream, decided the passive way was best, and went to sleep.

Wednesday Night (August 4th):

Well, AGAIN I was too excited to sleep and had much difficulty, but since I remained awake,
I entered SP (Sleep Paralysis) at one point, tried to sit up in it, but ended up waking myself up and recalling that someone had posted and said it's better not to because you risk waking up (Better to just enter the dream). 'However that is supposed to be done.' I thought. Anyhow, later, the alarm went off! And I heard it but faintly, and so I thought "this is it!" I was already in SP and was waiting, trying to remember what to do, when my body felt like the top half of it was being lifted. But not my physical body, more like a floating body, if you know what I mean. Anyhow, I thought I'd just let it happen, so I did, I got lifted up till my top-half was 90 degrees with the bed, then I shot up out of the room and entered the dream (which was my room lol) but I was standing in it.

Anyhow, I remembered how the day before I had been talking to my cousin about doors and if you could make some other destination appear when you open the door, to go to that is. So anyhow, I opened the door and it was just like the norm in my house and I got frusterated and slammed the door. Can't remember what happened next but eventually I got into a fancy restaurant and thought "this is where I'll find Tricia Helfer" and when approached by the hostess I said "Yes for two, but she may be here already" so I went into the dining room but found that she wasn't there. I thought this odd because I thought I was being quite cunning in my manipulations but I waited for a while and she still never showed up. So I thought "why don't I call her?" so I checked my phone, and sure enough she was on my speed dial, I called her and she said she wouldn't be able to make it. At that point I thought "I thought I was controlling this dream? Guess I'm not.". But she said she'd meet me "somewhere" so anyhow, I ended up walking down the street when suddenly, from the sky, came a rocket ship, crashing into the ground like the canisters of weapons on Halo 3. The policeman opened it and freaked out. When I got there, I saw it was Tricia Helfer inside and I explained to the officer (to his confusion) that I knew her and it was fine. So we left, I asked her what took her so long, I forget what she said, but I pondered why she had come out of the sky rather than just be "around the corner" so to speak (which is supposedly one of the best ways to summon things in a dream. just know that it's around the corner or, like I tried, in the restaurant). Anyhow, we both navigated through the dream and there were some people after her for some reason but mostly I tried to get a handle on creating things. Again, I felt completely aware in this dream but found it odd that I was jumping from one location to the next.

But that's it. I tried last night again but to no avail as I was so exausted having not eaten for hours because I had to go look at a house straight from work. I will continue to try and as they say "practice makes perfect".

Anyhow, hope this has intrigued you enough to give it a try or at least read up on it. And remember: Lucid Dreaming isn't evil, because you do it every night, you are just not aware of the dream so you are not lucid (aware). And it isn't removing yourself from reality, because it's technically more real than a video game is, and it uses more brain power to lucid dream than to watch tv.

Bye for now!

Alright so, I'm level 11 now, three cheers! Not much is happenning at the moment, mostly just trying to get parts to fix the hood of my car which I crashed a few months ago, and work... but anyhow, I decided to post a poem and see how many read it, who knows, maybe I'll post more!

Going to Sea.

As far as the river had taken us is where we left off,
Almost as if to begin was even too sudden.
I felt the canvas and split the tide;
There were far too many seagulls.

Last night the dream had kicked me out of my own head;
I fell upon the sand.

May my intentions be weighed upon just scales.

I have lived the life of my father—
So many have come to see.

"Feel the canvas. Please,
Feel the canvas.
Have I forsaken you? Why do you cry? Many have traveled for love,
And love traveled alone often ends in death. Shall we,
Then, pursue hopelessness,
And follow that to it's end?"

___________________________________

Anyhow, hope you liked it. If you did, you might want to buy my book titled:

"Life's Too Short For Shakespeare" It doesn't have the poem above in it, but it has a bunch of others that are even better. Check it out.

So I saw that I was 98% completed level 9, had no where else to post, and thought "why not make a blog?" So here it is. Basically, I've recently been spinning in an endless circle of stress from work. It's getting pretty bad. But enough of that, I felt like sharing some of my poetry but I don't have enough friends on here to share it with, guess you'll all just have to buy my book when it's out. It's titled "Life's Too Short For Shakespeare" Yes, that quote was in my last blog post, I'm just so proud of it.

EDIT: On a philosophical note, has it occured to anyone that since they say how crazy people will never admit that they're crazy; most people on earth, must then, by definition, BE crazy?! Just a thought.

Well, to celebrate level 9, I decided to update the look of my page. It's fairly simple right now, but the picture of me (yes, that's me :D ) will eventually feature a new quote everytime I make a new blog post, and I might change the banner, it's just how I'm feeling right now. Anyhow, ttyl!

Quote for today: "Life's Too Short For Shakespeare."