Saturday, June 03, 2006

Watch the World Cup for Free!

I was checking out Hal's rant about the injustice of having the World Cup available ‎only to ART subscribers, and I decided to do an act of charity. I will post the frequencies ‎of 4 free to air European satellite channels that will be airing the World Cup - you ‎can get these channels in the Middle East! You have to have a movable dish, ‎though.

So, enjoy.....

Friday, June 02, 2006

Lucid Dreams

Everyday when I wake up, it takes me quite some time to get out of my dream mood. ‎‎ The mood I wake up with usually depends on the dream I've had – and in many cases, ‎this mood is one of worry, anxiety, stress, or anticipation. The funny thing is I rarely ‎remember the details of the dream, I just live the mood and the feelings that I have as a ‎result of the dream. ‎



‎ ‎
A while back, I saw an amazing movie called Waking Life. The whole movie is a surreal ‎experience, almost like a dream. It is actually inspired by the dreaming process and it ‎uses the dream-like format of the film to explore many different issues and observations ‎that the writer/director had. There really is no plot or story – just a guy who moves from ‎one surreal scene to another, observing (and participating in) philosophical and deep ‎discussions on all sorts of topics. Anyway, what I wanted to say was that in one scene of ‎this movie, the hero realizes he's dreaming but he still continues with his dream and starts ‎manipulating the dream to make it go his own way. I got interested in this and checked ‎the website of the movie and I made an amazing discovery. This scene referred to ‎something called lucid dreaming. A lucid dream is a dream where you know that you ‎are dreaming during the actual dream itself, which usually enables you to have direct ‎control over the content of the dream. Can you believe that? Having the ability to ‎control your own dreams? Writing their script? Experimenting with your fantasies? ‎Turns out that inducing lucid dreams has almost become a science. It is scientifically ‎verified that you can do it, and there are many methods to do so. One of the methods ‎‎(which was used in Waking Life) is to try to flick on a light switch in your dream. If it ‎doesn’t work, then you’re dreaming (apparently light switches don’t work in dreams). ‎Once you realize that you’re dreaming, then you can control what happens in it.‎

Those who have experienced lucid dreams describe them as
“exciting, colourful, and ‎fantastic. Many compare it to a spiritual experience and say that it changed their lives or ‎their perception of the world. Some have even reported lucid dreams that take on a ‎hyperreality, seemingly "more real than real", where all the elements of reality are ‎amplified. Lucid dreams are prodigiously more memorable than other kinds of dreaming, ‎even nightmares, which may be why they are often prescribed as a means of ridding one's ‎self of troubling dreams.”‎




Can you imagine the possibilities?

Funny thing is, what do most people do when they ‎experience lucid dreams? They either fly or have sex.‎