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The scary thing is that in Texas not too long ago they did arrest two gay men for having sex in the privacy of their own home, though as the article states that law has been shot down. What I always wondered was how they knew they were in their home having sex.

A neighbor set them up, watched them, and called the police at an opportune time.

I can't speak for the rest of the people here, but I never try for that long.  If it takes that long, then I am focused too much on the physical and staying awake.

Just ask yourself, "Does it normally take me 1-2 hours to go to sleep?"

Unfortunately, at least.

Not that I never sleep. Just never sleep much. A great night of sleep for me is about four hours. On the very rare night I'll get 6. That's the most I'll get naturally.

I'm doing as much about it as I possibly can. I've probably tried every suggestion anyone has given me. The problem becomes though I'm so worried about getting to sleep that it becomes work. I get so focused on whatever techniques I'm using to try to get to sleep that I can't relax enough to actually sleep. So my latest thing is to meditate as much as possible. I don't know about the validity of the statement, but a teacher of mine who is working on her psych doctorate claims that 20 minutes of meditation is as restful as 2 hours of sleep. I don't know about all that, but I do find it to be sustaining on those nights when nothing else I do works.

I've been prescribed sleep medication, but I don't take it much, because I don't think I should rely on any substance to get me into such a natural state.

But yes, my sleep problems have been one of my pivotal issues for as long as I can remember.

I'm not sure that this is exactly on topic but it's is a bit coincidental that I was reading old entries in a journal today and came across a meditative method that I complete forgot. Every time a random thoughts pop up, introduce the exact opposite thought. It's a different way to follow thoughts and might perhaps lead you to a discovery.

Hey everybody,

I'm just going to share this because for someone who hardly sleeps and who hardly remembers dreams when I do sleep, the past two nights I've had relatively vivid dreams, and this last night's was probably the most powerful feeling I've ever had from a dream.

And a random question, is there any significance to the fact that when I remember dreams, it's usually because I wake up right when it ends, and it's almost always around the exact same time in the A.M.? Or is that coincidental?

So:

I'm not sure if you'd call it a recurring dream or not. As I said, I only dreamed it last night, but I definitely went through the same dream several times with other dreams in between to break it up.

I was with a woman who doesn't look like anyone I know. Upon waking, the first association to anyone I made with her was Jennifer Tilly. It wasn't her, or an exact look alike, but it was a woman who was in the same tribe, if you will. Anyway, we were in a relationship, I don't know if she was a girlfriend or wife or what. We were in a room, either bedroom or living room, with a couch. She was sitting on it.

This part is a little unclear but I think I went over and hugged her. The next thing I knew, I lost all senses except for the sense of touch. I felt a very sharp burning sensation right above the hollow in my neck, then it just turned into a dull pressure. My extremities began to go numb and the numbness spread relatively rapidly through my body, as a heavy slippery stickiness spread from my neck,, which I knew to be my blood. I could also feel my breath get heavier as I assume my airway was blocked. And I knew I was on the floor dying from a slit throat. I assume she did it, but I really have no idea. Throughout this process I was completely calm, just taking in all the sensory input from all over my body. This could have happened within a nanosecond or an eon.

Then I'd have a more common dream of the sort I've always had, and then this dream would repeat. It's funny, Jung (I believe?) says a person's earliest dream memory tends to shape their life, but I don't really have any early dream memories. I have been told stories of nightmares I had as a child from my parents but I don't think I would remember them otherwise. And I have dreams written down from whenever I started to be interested in nonphysical phenomena, but I don't think I'd remember any of them without a journal. Until this one.

I certainly hope a slit throat isn't going to shape my life.
 

Well anyway, there it is. After I thought about it for a while I began to wonder if it's a memory. Past life regression? But do those happen in dreams? I tended to believe dreams were mental constructs so different egos could act themselves out, but I've never had a dream repeat on me before.

Xetrov,

Thanks for the input. I'd just like to say I personally see nothing controversial about you opine.

Silly me. I thought you were implying if our military became depleted we would force Canadians to serve.

If it happens, I'd have to say I saw it coming.  

what does that say for those of us who can't fall asleep okay?

Actually Canada has recently signed a treaty with us(US) that says they will send back any draft dodgers or AWOL military personnel

My point wasn't that there'd be things here that aren't reflected there. But perhaps there's something ABOUT the things here that can't be experienced with their reflections there.

I might add that I think these "here" and "there" might actually be the same place. Here is there, maybe. If anything is possible there, than isn't here just the part to which this "physical universe's" laws apply?

First,

That was good reading. I hadn't seen this thread originally and just now read through it.

On to the meat of my post. What about those of us without any Hemisync tapes or cds? I intend to get them at some point, and obviously I want to go to a Gateway Voyage program. But as a junior acting major, my schedule is so frantic that I can only work two nights of the week so I'm only bringing in enough to support absolutely vital things. While I'd happily argue my spiritual developement is just as vital to me as, say, food, and that I do believe, as many of you do, that consciousness is not rooted in the physical body at all, I have less experience in this than most.

So the point is, while I tip my hat to T.M.I. for their contributions to the sort of consciousness research that I am interested in, I don't have the money for their tapes let alone to attend a program there. But I don't want to just wait until I can afford Wave I to continue practice.

Any suggestions at how to become familiar with Focus 10 without the help of Wave I?

Speaking of Canada, has anybody else heard that Wednesday 11/3/2004, their immigration webpage crashed because of the volume of hits it got?

Hmmm.

I think it could easily be a physical relationship.

Both parties need to want the relationship and be honest with themselves and the other party involved exactly what the relationship is. If both parties still want the relationship when it's clear up front what sort it is, the relationship will work.

Heck, that's basically the way it works in nature.

Doesn't matter if it's a "booty call" or a more traditional loving relationship.

That's what I think, anyway.

http://www.sorryeverybody.com/gallery/1/

Check it out.

The only obsessing I do right now is over getting to sleep. I'm usually too exhausted at night to do anything else.

I'm an actor, so as tired as I am, I have to push past it and really bring 100% of myself to my work. This is not a lifestyle that allows for no sleep. It requires as much of it as is possible in down time.

My point about working to get to sleep was this: if I don't follow some sort of routine to get to sleep, I'll end up watching the ceiling all night.

But we're getting off topic. I really was curious about this language problem.

Who else has it? Don't the words ever get in your way?

Let me start by saying I didn't actually mean to suggest I would from this point rely on myself as a teacher. I was more using it to say that under my own guidance I am deciding to stray from the well traveled path and try to bushwack a bit...Hmm...How I'd really like to bushwack in all possible connotations right now. Pardon that little bit of politics escaping.

Anyway, as for using lucid dreaming...The point is I also have to work to get to sleep. I've been realizing lately that that's precisely what I do. I have to try to push myself through exhaustion and run through a method that I have to will myself to keep following until I fall asleep. The trouble is the closer I get to falling asleep the less I can hang on to whatever method I'm using, but if I let go for an instant, I'll snap awake.

As I've said recently in a topic all about sleep, I find I can now fall asleep in a  chair during the day with much less resistance than I have when I try to sleep at night in a bed.

Very funny Nay!! Now can I see Catherine Zeta Jones do that??

Are we talking in the same type of Joe Boxer? That could be entertaining, I suppose

I suppose if Bush would have made THAT executive order in the last four years, one good thing would have happened...He wouldn't have gotten another term.

I suppose I didn't follow it all that closely because I was just not happy that we were there at all. What I recall is he used the right of the president to make an executive decision permitting emergency military action. However, there is a limit to the number of days that action, unapproved by Congress, can continue. I'm pretty positive that he didn't get the approval of Congress in time, but I don't know what happened after that.

I might add that I thought before the Bush precedent that executive order was only used to save American lives that would be lost in the time it took for Congress to make a decision.

I struggle constantly with my projection attempts and with pretty much everything because I'm one of those people who works hard to relax.

If the irony of that statement hasn't made itself clear, let's just say I work much harder than I should. I stand in the way of my own progress more than I'd care to admit. Anyway, I've been having lots of problems with even the simplest of meditations lately.

But today, listening to a lecture on Zen  Buddhism, I had a bit of a breakthrough.

First, the specific breakthrough was that Zen is great, but not for me. In this moment, anyway. I don't want to transcend life and death just yet because I'm enjoying life and death. Sort of.

The point is while I've been having a hard time doing what a lot of people term meditation, for me, meditation shouldn't have to be sitting in full lotus or even sitting in a comfortable chair, etc. I've been gaining all sorts of introspective knowledge and personal insight that I didn't notice because I was too focused on the form.

So I had been thinking for the past 6 months or so that I might like to visit a monastary at some point, but now I'm sure that I don't want to. To quote Dr. Hisamatsu, a great 20th Century Zen master, "The teacher is you. There is no need for any guidance."

And for me, there is no need for all the form and structure of Zen or Christianity or you name it. I do believe in the Void. But to my present understanding, perhaps everything is nothing. But I prefer to think of "the Void" as "Experience". The capital E for me implies universal experience. So yeah. One day I'll reunite with this Experience, but when I do, I want to be full of all my own wonderful experience. And I'm just at the start of the path. Because I believe I am more than my physical body, I don't think I need satori today, or before I die.

The first of the Four Noble Truths is that life is suffering. To me, suffering is a part of experience, but it's not all there is.

So anyway, on to the second half of this topic, which I've already touched on.

Labels are very hindering to me. But until I figure this whole thought-communication thing out, I need language to interact with others. I just have to take time to really consider perhaps I'm making progress is some form that I can't express. Today a few years of struggling clarified themselves as I tried to find the words to express a specific thought to my professor.

I apologize if this was unclear, it's another way I struggle with language; I often have so much spinning around in this blockhead of mine that I am unclear. Much of this was for my own personal digestion of what happened today, but I thought it might make an interesting topic. I suspect I'm not the only one who's gotten bogged down by doing things the "right" way. Every day, my idea of relativity grows...

Here's another.

I come with every 20,000,000,000,000th pair of Joe Boxers.

And I swear, I didn't intend any double entendres there.

Right. The president can't, for example, declare war on Iraq without Congress' approval, right?

Oh. Wait.

There's some guy, I can't think of his name right now, who is setting precedents for breaking these, uh, guidelines.

haha I've been doing the heil bush so much in the past few years.

A professor of mine said it well:

"The scariest thing to me is I think I now understand what it was like to be German under Hitler. It doesn't seem to matter how much we disagree with what's being done. Are we powerless?"

We shall see...

Well I don't drive much anymore because I'm currently living in the city, so someone else should really tell you what they're paying, but last I remember actually looking at the price at one of the stations in the city it was about 2.10 per gallon.

I believe it would be about US $0.55 and a half in litres, but I'm not positive about that conversion.

But like I said, someone else would be more informed.

Jenadots,

Some good points.

Presidents come and go, but this country needs to have a new direction, a new vision of itself and its responsibilities to its own citizens as well as its place and role in the world. I would vote for any candidate who begins to talk about that next time.

But it'll take huge shifts to bring stuff like this about, and I would be incredibly surprised if in 4 years a candidate brought up long term stuff. Republicans know what they want, which is ok by too many people who are happy with the way things are, and the Democrats are no good at campaigning and getting people behind them. Add to that the fact that, as I recently said in another thread, societies tend not to look well upon people who speak their opinion, and what do you get? As I said, it seems like a major change is needed. And not just here in the States, but all over.

Know what's scary? The Bush Administration always talks about this "post-9/11" world and to me that's a crock of *edit*. First of all, it is tiring for them to play the 9/11 card all the time. Yeah it was a horrible thing, and there's much more to be said and I in no way mean to belittle it, but it was several years ago, already. It's in the past. Let's not dwell. For a while we all united and there were some changes, and the administration loves to use it in order to pass just about any restrictions of freedoms they care to (I'm aware this is an exaggeration, but obviously I don't like the Bush Administration). But we're as divided now as ever, and I don't see any long term improvements. Are you really going to tell me the removal of Saddam is such an improvement? First of all, I believe he would have been removed sooner or later with or without a 9/11. Second, there are plenty of fascists and despots just waiting for the opportunity to take power. And I also think that maybe Americans tend to be just a bit nearsighted when they talk about the rest of the world wanting to be free. This may be true, but who are we as Americans to go around "freeing" countries that don't want our help?

Oh right, so the scary thing. If 9/11 didn't bring about those supposed changes, what'll it take?

Here's to those world changes that some people seem to think have already started. I've yet to see much evidence of it.

By the way, this may seem opinionated. Good, I am. I love opinions. Tell me yours. Use your voice.

- Mark