Lucid Dreaming: Reality Check November 24, 2006
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Consciousness, Creativity, Dreams, Beliefs, Weird, Abilities , 1 comment so far
I had my fifth lucid dream last night and the durations they last are constantly increasing. I’ve moved over to only recall and journal my lucid dreams and skip the usual ones, which means I just write down a few sequences of them and their total time lapse so that I won’t forget them. The five first ones have lasted 5, 15, 20, 30 and 60-90 seconds approximately. These are estimates I make when I wake up and not something I do in the dream itself.
For about a week now I’ve been trying to create a certain place and sequence in my dream. The goal is to be in a tiny room with a door, a table and two chairs. Then all I want to accomplish is having my intuition/subconsciousness or higher self walk into the room and have a chat with me. This was the first time I had the chance to try and accomplish it.
When I turned lucid, it was nighttime, I walked out of my garage wearing nothing but a shirt and there was some snow and ice on the ground. My immediate reaction was to start dream spinning and rubbing my hands together simultaneously. According to accomplished lucid dreamers dream spinning is used to move yourself into another scenery or place and rubbing your hands together helps prolong your lucid experience. I just decided it’d be smart to do both at the same time.
I kept spinning around on the same spot for about ten seconds and thinking about where I wanted to go. Everything turned black and blurred, but when I stopped I was still there on my yard and nothing had changed. Not being frustrated by this setback I decided to sit down determined that a chair would appear behind me. All I got from that was a bump and a cold, icy feeling on my bum. I got up and witnessed a beautiful sunrise as well.
From that point onward I came to think that maybe this isn’t a dream, and it’s actually happening for real. Why else would I have sensory experiences? I hope I won’t be trapped by this illusion in the future when I’m dreaming because I ended up losing control of doing “supernatural” things once the lucid dream felt just as real as reality in the waking world. Once I woke up I felt like a fool for believing that.
If I’m still able to use all my senses in a lucid dream then I need to figure out a good way to do reality checks. What’s the point in pinching yourself if you know you’ll feel it whether you’re awake or lucid dreaming? This dream also showed that supernatural things like switching places don’t always work when you want them to and it’ll be even more difficult to separate these two worlds from each other than I suspected.
At least the hand rubbing worked. I spent a much longer time in this lucid dream than ever before, walking around and talking to some people. I literally felt the warmth of the friction that built up. The trick is now to not let the sensory impulses convince me that I’m not dreaming. I didn’t expect my lucid dreaming journey to be without setbacks and challenges so I’m not letting anything stop me from doing the really cool stuff in the future. Almost a month into this project I’m very happy with the results so far.
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Measuring Wealth November 23, 2006
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Financial Literacy, Society, Independence, Wealth, Work, Assets, Investing , 17 comments
When it comes to riches, most people set goals like acquiring a million dollars. My goal is to be financially independent. It’s not that I wouldn’t mind getting a million dollars, but I’d still use it to become financially free, which sounds to me like a much smarter goal in life when it comes to personal finances. To some, or maybe even most of you this concept might be unfamiliar, so what are the major differences between these two goals or perspectives in detail?
The underlying question lies in how you define or measure wealth. Most people simply measure it by the amount of money in their savings, total net worth, or monthly/annual income. With measures like these it’s no wonder why about 90 percent of the population:
- define their wealth by the money they have/make.
- conclude that only by working harder, their income will rise.
- believe that investing and entrepreneurship is hard and risky.
- pray that their savings will pay for all their retirement expenses.
- keep on playing the lottery to some day get their million bucks.
- trust their money to strangers who diversify, diversify, diversify.
- borrow money to buy cars and houses to keep up with the Joneses.
Most people do all of these things and it’s socially the “normal and sensible” way to live out your life. But nobody has actually told me why it supposedly is, and if there are any other options. After reading a few books I realized it all boiled down to how you measure wealth - and therefore setting goals according to this improved perspective.
Wealth is measured in time. That’s all there is to it. It’s so simple, yet it has the potential of helping you discover numerous new doorways and paths for you to explore. Ask yourself this question: If you stopped working today, how long could you stay within your current standard of living? In other words, if you did nothing but pay the same bills you usually pay, then how long would it take before your money ran out? Don’t add the option of borrowing money. If your answer to this question is below six months and it’s not improving then this article is specifically aimed for you.
My own answer to that question is approximately 24 months at the moment. But it’s not easy to calculate and estimate since I’m a student and have fluctuating expenses depending on the month and studying is not something I’ll be doing indefinitely. (Hopefully 
) Additionally, my passive income (income generated without effort) is constantly moving upwards so my wealth in time is improving each month. When your passive income is greater than your expenses, you’re financially independent, out of the rat race, retired, free to use 24 hours of the day on whatever you want for the rest of your life. And to me this would be used to live my life purposefully.
The greatest part about this perspective and goal setting is that it gets easier and easier the closer you get to financial freedom as you’ve got both your regular and your passive income surpassing your expenses. You then continuously load what’s yours to keep into your asset column for more passive income or other streams of income - like a part-time business. If this is getting over your head, stay updated on this blog.
The bottom line is that if you keep doing what most people did in the industrial age - get a degree, work, buy a home, raise a family and retire at age 65, then you’ll probably also feel awkward handling money and your personal finances. These are the kind of people that win the lottery and end up feeling miserable and filing bankruptcy a year or two later. Wealth is a phenomenon just like most others as it doesn’t come to those who aren’t ready for it and show financial intelligence to handle it. And a partial reason why this occurs is that most people don’t even think through how to define and measure it.
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