Getting arrested and fighting for my life

Last night was crazy.  It seems like when I don't sleep good, I have more vivid dreams.  I think that because I am awake and not sleeping for half the night, then I finally fall asleep, I go into a heavy dream state.  For my first dream, I was in a field with a few friends just hanging out.  It was becoming night time and we were doing nothing more than sitting on the tailgates of our trucks.  All of the sudden, police from every direction came out of the woods.  They started yelling at us to get down and shut up.  I thought this was weird in my dream because we were doing literally nothing wrong.  The police then began arresting all of my friends claiming that they found drugs on us.  I was freaking out, pleading with police, telling them that I did nothing wrong and that I have no idea what drugs they are talking about.  I then got a thought in my head that these weren't real police and they would take me somewhere else.  I almost ran off into the woods but I was outnumbered.  I kept yelling at them to not take me to jail and that I am too much of a pretty boy to go to jail.  They said that I would spend over a week in jail and I was not having that.  After fighting and kicking and screaming, I woke up.  I felt like it was real but a sudden sigh of relief came across me when I was comfortably in my bed in the darkness.
     The next dream I had occurred directly before I woke up.  This dream was much more intense.  I had just watched a scary movie before bed so I believe that was the inspiration.  A man kept trying to break into my Uncle's lake house with my family inside.  A man broke a window in the back room and I ran to the loud noise.  I saw him trying to come in the house through the window but I grabbed some broken glass and sliced his face then his hand.  This had no effect so I ran as he entered the house.  I found a small, aluminum baseball bat and a hammer to protect myself with.  He came into the kitchen and I hit him over and over with the bat.  This did nothing.  He continued to attack.  I needed my gun.  After trying to defend my house, the man eventually took control and I woke up to the sound of my alarm.........

do you dream after you die?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/20/health/offering-support-to-one-family-and-hope-to-others.html?pagewanted=1&moc.semityn.www&ref=todayspaper
For our assignment, I had to choose an article that relates to my blog, and write about it.  It was difficult to find an article about dreams, but I found one that I think dreams can relate to.  I read an article about a family making the decision to donate organs from their dying father.  Of course this decision would be difficult for any family to make, but if your father's death could give life to another, the satisfaction would be grand.  There would be life after death in a sense.  Curtis Kelley, the man on life support, is dying from a severe stroke with no brain activity.  He was not an official organ donor, but his family knew that he wanted to donate his organs to save someone's life.  The doctors needed a long list of organs to be donated.  They needed a heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, pancreas, intestines, blood vessels, and even some skin.  His son, Kello Brown, said, "I just want him to look nice," for the funeral, of course.  The doctors would use prosthetics to restore his body to look normal for the funeral.  This is a great story of sacrifice, love, and compassion.  The family did the right thing, in choosing to donate those organs to unselfishly save multiple people's lives.  So you are probably asking yourself, what does this have to do with dreams?  I was very curious about what kind of dream state one would be in if they were in a coma, life support, or near death.  People say that while dreaming, or near death experiences, or even right before you are dead, large amounts of chemicals like serotonin and endorphins are being released in your brain.  It is also said that in the dream world, time in not the same as time in the real world. You can move from point A to point B in a split second, which cannot be accomplished in reality.  It is difficult to prove that the times are different, but your imagination is much more complex and has no boundaries compared to reality.  So could you be dreaming for years in your mind only minutes before you die?  They say that when you die your life flashes before your eyes, could this be a dream?  Or when people claim to have died, gone up to heaven, then come back to life, maybe this was just a dream.  It is interesting to research and read about different people's experiences.  We will never know the whole truth about dreams, but through this dream blog, we can both learn more and more about our dreams.  Our ultimate goal is to have the ability to control our dreams or lucid dream...good luck...

golf cart dream

I finally remembered my dream last night!! I have been having so much trouble remembering my dreams, even when I first wake up.  You know that feeling when you remember being in a dream and parts of the dream but you cannot recall simple details? That has been my dream cycle lately.  I have had lots of dream activity, just terrible memory.  Last night, I had the same thing happen, but I remembered the ending of my dream....
I was driving down a winding road in a golf cart.  At first, the dream just felt like a leisurely golf cart drive down a potentially dangerous hill.  It was very pleasing and relaxing until a large figure jumped in the middle of the road.  The figure was a man dressed in all black about the same height as Kevin Durant.  He was huge.  I knew that I had to avoid him because he was trying to kill me. You know that feeling you get in your dream when you know exactly what is happening even though there is no way of knowing what is happening?  That was the exact feeling that I had.  I had no idea what the figure was, all I knew was that the figure was bad and trying to hurt me.  As I road down this steep hill in the golf cart, I had to swerve out of the way to barely dodge the figure.  After passing him the first time,  a little farther down the road, he appeared again, and I dodged again.  This continued to happen as the figure got closer and closer with every turn and twist that I made to avoid being captured.  Near the end of the hill, I was gaining much speed, too much to control.  As I saw the figure again, I swerved, then over corrected, and flipped the golf cart down the hill.  I knew that the figure would be there waiting for me to stand up from the golf cart wreckage, however the wreck scared me in my sleep therefore waking me up.
This dream was completely strange but who knows, it could be a metaphor for something in the future.  I am so glad that I remembered this dream though because my blog is looking pretty lame with no dream posts.  If you had a crazy dream lately, tell me about it...Until then, Dream well my friends.

bad memory at night

I have been having trouble lately remembering my dreams.  Do you ever wake up in the morning after a crazy night of dreaming and have trouble remembering what happened in real life or what happened in the dream?  This happens to me very often.  My dreams have been on and off throughout the night, more like 5 smaller dreams than one long, vivid dream.  This is my challenge to myself.  I am going to get a pen and notebook and set it right by my bed while I am sleeping at night.  Right when I wake up out of a dream, I will write as much as I can remember on my notebook.  I also challenge you to do this.  This is the hardest part of keeping up with your dreams or lucid dreaming.  The hardest part is actually getting out of bed while your half asleep and having the energy to write down your dreams.  Once I start doing this, I can post my dreams in detail, and we can try to decode my dreams into real life meanings. Although it may not be true, I am not a dream expert, but it will be a fun way to look at our dreams. Until next time.....prepare to lucid dream......

assignment journal record

After searching through different blogs on Journal Record, I saw that many of the blogs have similarities and differences.  The blogs that I enjoyed were the ones with an adequate, but not overwhelming amount of information.  The more interactive the blog was, the more I enjoyed being on the page.  Pictures help give the blog a visual for the reader instead of just reading text.  Posting very often is also another way that my blog can be improved.  If I have more visuals, and keep up with my dream journal, I think I can make my blog much more interesting.

another assignment

Referring to my blog...

Questions...
1. What area of your blog do you need to work on to improve?
2. What would make your blog more interesting?
3. Be prepared to have your blog projected and discussed
4. Be prepared to show the blog you're following, and list one strength and one place it could be improved, with a one-sentence explanation.

Answers...
1. I think I need to make people more aware that my blog exists.  I could make more interesting content and spend more time making my blog better.
2. I think my blog would be more interesting if I had more content and was more organized with my blog.
3. I am ready to have my blog discussed.
4. I think my blog has a great subject to be discussed.  Almost everyone dreams at night and people love talking about their dreams.  I could improve my blog by generating more ideas to gain readers and be more creative.

Assignment for class

Blogging is something that I have started to become familiar with day to day.  I have known what it is for some time now, but have not looked much into it.  The only time that I do read blogs, is when I ask Google a question and it sends me to a blog website.  After researching and seeing other blogs, I am starting to learn more about the formats, ideas, and ways to communicate to the reader.  I have learned that the more interactive the blog, the more interest the reader would have on that blog.  Keeping statistics about your blog, in my case my dream journal, is also important to the reader or potential readers.  My blog is simple right now, but others that I have seen have many more options yet with a simple structure.  It is not too complicated for first time readers and easy to navigate through the blog.  That is my goal.  To make an easy to navigate, simplistic blog with many options and applications for the reader to interact with my blog.

How to Lucid Dream

My dream journal was put on hold for the holiday weekend because the lake is more important.  Just kidding, I only had one dream that is worth posting.  I have been attempting to lucid dream by using different techniques listed on the internet.  Lucid dreaming is when a person is completely aware that they are dreaming, and has the possibility to control those dreams.  If anyone is interesting in lucid dreaming, here are a few tips...

1. Mind Meditation - The first and easiest technique to try is mental night-time meditation.  The best times to lucid dream are once you have had 4-5 hours of sleep and your mind is in a half asleep state.  Keep repeating to yourself, "I will lucid dream tonight, I will lucid dream tonight," and that helps trick the brain into believing it IS possible to lucid dream.
2. Reality Checks - During the day, write a number on your hand or try to push your hand through each door you walk through or do some sort of real life interaction.  If one does this throughout the day, it makes our mind remember associations, which can then follow us into our dreams.  If there is no number on your hand, or you can push your hand through the door, then you are lucid dreaming.  It helps the mind go from reality to dream.
3. Dream Journal - Creating a dream journal and writing in it daily can bring about similar aspects of each of your dreams.  This will help you become more acquainted with how you dream.  It can help regulate your dreams and understand them more clearly.
4. Visualize and Day Dream - All of us could do a little bit of day dreaming during our class or bored at work.  Visualize what your dream may be, or what you would want to do IF you do lucid dream.  If you create a strong dream scenario or wish in your mind, your subconscious mind could take that wish and create a dream based on the images your mind has created.

If you just read this,  try to lucid dream with me tonight or throughout the week.  If you really give it a shot, your results may not be immediate, but you will feel some sort of progress.  Remember, your mind is very powerful and deep, and lucid dreaming is a way to explore the depth. Have fun!