Because learning about your brain and sleep can be fun . . .
It’s understandable why someone would want to take some kind of dream analysis shortcut. Quicker is usually better. It’s “efficient.” But not in this case. People wake up in the morning. There’s a rush to get everything done. Get breakfast. Get to work. Sometimes they’ve made a promise to themselves to go to the gym…
Your intestines are an actual environment where things live. Namely, these living things are bacteria. Bacteria are occasionally harmful, but they’re often helpful. Antibiotics don’t discriminate between the harmful and helpful. They knock out both. This causes problems, from diarrhea to sleep. Antibiotics affect metabolites, namely short-chain fatty acids. Metabolites are necessary for certain metabolic…
When you’re faced with a tough dilemma, it’s easy to go back and forth, hemming and hawing, perplexed. Both sides of the issue can make sense. Both sides look pretty good—or are equally repellent. Positives and negatives? Well, they weigh out almost the same. You can see the sense of both options (or, in some…
10-3-2-1 sounds like something a quarterback might say when calling a play during a football game. Or something Mission Control might say before sending a spacecraft into orbit. And it is kind of like that. Instead of the endzone, the quarterback, or Mission Control, 10-3-2-1-0 is a countdown to Dreamland. It’s a reminder. Like PACTREPS, …
Nobody, I mean nobody, wants to be around an obnoxious person. There’s nothing to recommend hanging out with them. They’re loud or seem that way. They’re out for themselves. They don’t listen. They don’t even really see you as another person. You’re a means to an end. Unless there’s another compelling reason to have them…
Staying in bed all day: not going anywhere, doing nothing—some have called it “bed rotting.” Rotting away is a very apt way to describe it. Bed rotting is a good way to make your health rotten. It’s a good way to ruin your sleep. The name is too cutesy for something so easy to avoid,…
Even though they happen in our heads, the sights and sounds of dreams are usually conveyed by the two main senses: seeing and hearing. Dream scenes consist of seeing something happen in your mind. In dreams, people can speak and music can play. Dreams that rely on the other three senses—taste, touch, and smell—aren’t completely…
Be careful with what you listen to and do first thing in the morning. First impressions are important. Make your first impression of the day a good one. A common saying in the media is, “If it bleeds, it leads.” People find stories featuring some emotional impact the most interesting. They like conflict. Media experience…
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. — Confucius It might be natural for you to get a lot of satisfaction from entertaining others. Someone else might get much satisfaction from accumulating a fortune. Still…
What you eat affects your dreams? Some think so. Maybe the food affects the experience of your dream, not necessarily the content. Every so often, when I’m doing research for this blog, this idea crops up. No proof is offered, it seems to be assumed. The relationship between food and dreams There’s a relationship between…
It looked like one of those trucks from the 60s, a faded light green Chevy. The truck was struggling to get up a hill. Yes, the hill was steep, but not unforgivingly so. The truck should have been able to surmount it, but its engine was having difficulty summoning enough power. The tachometer shot up.…
Dream journaling is a type of somatic writing. Somatic writing is a practice that focuses on the physical sensations and bodily experiences of the writer. Bodily experiences include the sensation of dreaming. All types of somatic writing involve exploring emotions, memories, and inner experiences by focusing on the physical sensations associated with them. Somatic writing…
When you keep a dream journal for a while—and take the time to understand the dreams—you’ll note that sometimes two or more consecutive dreams are related. On the surface, they may or may not have the same subjects. Rather, it’s the meaning or the category that’s related. It’s not unlike a series of lectures from…