Twinkle twinkle little star...

The night sky with plenty of stars is indeed a sight for sore eyes. It feels good to gaze at the quiet night sky but there is more to it than meets the eye. Most of the stars that we see during night wont even exist now!! Can’t believe it? But that’s how it works anyway. The stars that we see are located several light years from earth, meaning that light travelling at 3x10^8 m/s takes several years to reach earth. So technically what we are seeing is the light from stars that have started several years ago. So assume a star which is about 10 light years from earth. Now if that star were to die today we would still see it for another 10 years.

If this is confusing then a simple example would be our Sun. Light takes around 8 minutes to reach earth from the sun. So if the sun suddenly turns off now, we would still see the sun for 8 minutes. So what we see in the sky are the past of the stars. We can look into the past!

Lucid Dream 2.0

This is yet another addition to my previous two posts. I recommend you read them and come back to this post. In this post, I will attempt to tell you one of the methods to have a dream initiated lucid dream. This is where reality checks comes in. ‘Pinch me, I must be dreaming’ is one such famous checks, but often fails in many dreams. Reality check is some event that you do to see if you are in reality or in a dream. Some of the best methods are, looking into a digital watch, remembering the current time, looking away and again looking back at the watch. If you are on a dream, you might see random numbers during the second time. Looking into a mirror also works. If you are in a dream, you mostly don’t see the actual you in the mirror. One more test is, read some text, look away and look back at the text again. If you are in a dream, the text would have changed in some way.

So one should do these tests now and then when he is awake. So while dreaming, he does these tests subconsciously and thus conclude that he is in a dream and continue on. Sometimes you may dream of getting up and you think you are awake. But actually you are in a dream. Sooo inception like, right? So next time after a lucid dream when you think you are awake, do a reality check…
twine tastes so good cats ask for it by name

Lucid Dream (you can have one...)

As an addition to my previous post about lucid dream, in this post I will attempt to tell you how to get into a lucid dream. Lucid dreams are closely related to Out-Of-Body-Experience. OOBE is where you seem to float out of your body and do things that you wish. Similar to a dream, but you control what you do. So when trying to have a lucid dream, people tell that they experience leaving their body sometimes. So as the first step to having a lucid dream, you should be able to remember your everyday dreams. Having a dairy or a recorder and recording what you dreamed as soon as you wake-up helps.

For a lucid dream, you have to get into a state between awake and asleep. From many methods, the one that I tried and the one worked is as follows. Get up a couple of hours earlier in the morning. Stay awake for about an hour. Do something like, read things about lucid dream etc. Then go back to bed with your eyes open and do things like counting your breath. This is a good time for your body to go to sleep and you still are aware. You would probably experience sleep paralysis at this stage where you seem to be awake and yet you can’t move or talk. This is normal and during this time, think of what you want your dream to be and go on.  This is a wake initiated lucid dream. I will explain a dream initiated lucid dream in my next post. TC.

Inception - Dream Control

One of the most interesting and talked about movie in the recent times, Inception, really has a great plot. Some parts of this article might be a spoiler for the movie. So for the people who didn’t see the film yet, I suggest you not to miss this. Getting into the story, do you think it would be possible to dream knowing you are dreaming? Is it possible to control what we are dreaming? Well, the answer is yes. This is termed “Lucid Dream”. In a lucid dream, the person dreaming consciously knows that he is in a dream and continues dreaming. Want some more…, once you get into this state of having a lucid dream, with some experience, you can even control the events in your dream.

 

Considering lucid dream, there are two types of getting into it. One is where you dream of something and at some point, you seem to conclude that it is actually a dream and continue with it(dream initiated). The other is where you get to a lucid dream conciously just as you get into sleep(wake initiated). This is not a modern discovery as lucid dream was discussed around 410 AD. For people who have troubles having nightmares, this can help you as you can control your dream. As for others, you can do interesting things like fly around etc. This is one of the things to try out…

Jingle Bells ^_^

 “Ho ho ho!!”. The one thing that comes to mind when you hear this is Santa Claus and the joy of Christmas. On the eve of Christmas people do a lot a lot of shopping, families have a good time with a grand feast, children waiting for Santa to come down the chimney and give them presents, the soft touch of snow flakes on your cheeks – these are the cherished moments of Christmas. On the eve of Christmas families get together and decorate/personalize their Christmas Trees with all sorts of stars, lights and coasters. The Christmas carols and hymns sung by people and children set the mood and give you the joyful Christmas spirit. Lovers and couples would love to get a moment under the mistletoe(*wink*).

On the day of Christmas, children wake up to the glee of opening their presents. Families visit their relatives and have a good time. The Christmas sprit lives on until the new year arrives. This Christmas I hope santa gets me a Playstation 3(*wink*). So what do you want for Christmas this year?

PS – Wish you all a happy and joyous Christmas

the CUBE

I spend a lot of time travelling each day. So tried reading books and doing puzzles to spend my travel times with some use. I slept most of the time though.  During the past month or so, I got a new Rubik’s cube and got serious with it. It really needs some brains to do it. In a couple of days I solved it using the beginners method that’s all over the internet. On seeing me many of my friends got a cube and then we started competing for the quickest solve. So I practiced it during my travel time and my time got around 4 minutes and then to around 3 minutes. After this I studied about speedsolving. It is solving the cube fast(duh).

Anyway, I learned a method called the Fridrich’s method. Also I got to know that the pros actually lubricate their cube to make it move smooth. After all this, my current time is around 2 min. My plan is to be able to complete the cube blindfolded. This really needs some serious memory. You actually need to remember the cube and keep track of each piece after each move. So a rubik’s cube is a good puzzle to work your brains in your spare time.

Midou Ban - Get Backers

Midou Ban is one of the main characters in the anime series GetBackers. He is one of my favourite anime characters of all. He is known for his mysterious ability called ‘Evil Eye’. He is supposedly the grandson of the ‘Last witch of 20th century’, born under the star Asclepius. So his grandma taught him some witch craft and he learned the evil eye from her. As he is born under the star Asclepius, he has super human strength. One of his well known ability is that he has a grip of 200kg in each hand. Using this he seems to crush hard objects, punch into walls and damage buildings.

He is a genius in battle as he always has his calm and battles with great tactics. Talking about his battles, his best ability is his ‘evil eye’. The evil eye is the ability to make the opponent/s hallucinate a dream of his choice and design for a whole minute. Though its only a minute, it seems a long time for the opponent. The evil eye has it limits though. He cannot use it for more than 3 times a day and cant use it more than once for a same person within 24 hours. He is one of the best anime characters ever made…

Afro Samurai

Afro samurai is a short and fast paced anime made from a japanese manga series. The anime has only 5 episodes based on a story about a swordsman, afro that takes place in futuristic/feudal Japan. In that time where the story takes place, the person with the Number 1 head band is said to be the strongest warrior in the world and he is seen as godlike. Anyway the only way to obtain the Number 1 head band is to get the Number 2 head band and challenge Number 1. Anyone can challenge Number 2 but only Number 2 can challenge Number 1.

The story begins with the current Number 2, Justice, who is challenges the Number 1, Rokutaro. They battle fiercely and in the end, Justice prevails beheading Rokutaro. A small boy, Afro, the son of Number 1 watches all this as Justice claimes the Number 1 head band. So the story picks up as Afro who is now a grown up swordsman and the owner of Number 2 head band, battles to avenge his father and become Number 1. The anime is really fast and action packed. But it contains some gore and explicit language. Another thing to point out is that Afro was voiced by Samuel L. Jackson.

Death Note

Death Note is a manga series which was one of the best in my opinion. The story of death note revolves around a high school student, Light Yagami who finds a mysterious note book called 'Death Note' wherein a person dies if his/her name is written in it. The story thus continues as Light tries to bring down evil and make the world a better place and a world class detective 'L' who tries to stop him. Later the successors of 'L', Mello and Near tries to bring Light down. The way Light tactically takes down people and the way 'L' tries to find him are just too awesome.

After the manga series was a hit among manga lovers, Death Note was made into an anime developed by Madhouse and directed by Tetsuro Araki. The anime had 37 episodes and according to me, this was one of the best animes ever. After the sussess of the anime, 3 movies with real people was also made.