Dream of Qingming
I have to say, this world is really magical. Just because you don’t know something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.
After reading the amazing post “Teaching You how to Control Dreams,” LittleMaster was completely stunned.
Previously, they simply treated the movie “Inception” as just a film and forgot about it after watching.
Little did they expect that it was actually based on reality.
It’s true that experts see the intricacies while novices see only the excitement.
Because of their own stupidity, they have not experienced the sought-after phenomenon of sleep paralysis again.
PS: The prototype of “Inception” seems to be “Yume Detective” by Yasutaka Tsutsui.
If you don’t have time, you can take a look at the animated adaption, “Red Pepper.”
However, I still recommend the novel because it provides detailed descriptions of NP (non-deterministic polynomial) problems and gives many examples.
After that, LittleMaster kept Googling and found the Baidu Tieba forum for “lucid dreaming,” saw the discussions on Tianya about sleep paralysis, and “The Dream Chase” by “Ant” on Douban.
If all of these couldn’t convince them, they also saw a TED talk about the experience of a Harvard Ph.D. in neurology after suffering a stroke.
Why was LittleMaster so excited?
It’s not just because lucid dreaming can be like playing a large-scale 3D game, but more importantly, it’s said that if you can control your dreams, you can do anything in them. Anything at all! (✧≖´◞౪◟≖ ｀)
LittleMaster immediately began experimenting and succeeded a few times, recording the experiences in detail. Here are some excerpts:
First time:
After waking up in the morning, I brought along my notebook and stared at the software, the hexagram, and the three transformation methods (trigger! I was already sleepy, otherwise where did the notebook come from in the middle of the night?). I suddenly fell back onto the bed, and it felt like all the pores on my body had opened wide. Then I immediately got up!!!
Did I have an out-of-body experience? It’s only the third day, and just as I was getting excited, I realized I was back in my body again…
Then I saw myself as a bright white object, with limbs and a body, but no arms or legs, just curved ends. Is this the state of energy? But no matter what I tried, I couldn’t leave. The next step would be to open my eyes.
So I opened my eyes and found that the balcony door was open, there were unidentified sounds outside, and it was a bit scary. Maybe I got scared because of that, but I really woke up and found that the door was closed tightly, everything outside was pitch black, and there was no sound.
I took out the notebook again and felt all tingly…
I vaguely remember going to a karaoke bar, returning to school, taking a bus, a taxi, and fixing an electrical wire. It turned into an ordinary dream…
Another time:
It seemed like I was at school in the dream, and I thought about pressing ctrl to fly. Shift was for acceleration. I played around for a while in a weightless state.
Then there was this Q version animal race in the dream. I was about to fly when suddenly that green animal turned into Makarov (from “Modern Warfare 3”), or maybe it was T-bag (from “Prison Break”)… He wanted to catch me, but I floated backwards to escape…
There were also other experiences, such as when Steve Jobs’ quote “your time is limited” taught LittleMaster a heavy lesson in the dream.
And in the dream, they finally completed the closure of a complicated relationship from their college days and could continue moving forward.
There was also the dream mentioned in “Unveiling the Mystery of the Human Mind” that LittleMaster was always curious about, wondering if there was any meaning to life. The dream gave them a taste of it and made them appreciate how wonderful life really is.
##Methods
There are many methods online, each with their own ways of playing, but all you need to grasp is the core idea: a dream within a dream, and then controlling the dream.
Upon waking up in the morning, it’s important to record your dreams, even if you can’t remember anything. Write and draw something.
Ordinary short-term memories are cleared within 5 minutes, so if you don’t record your dreams immediately, they will be forgotten in an instant.
Remind yourself frequently in daily life, “Am I dreaming?”
Habits can be carried into dreams. See The Power of Habit - Why We Live and Work the Way We Do for the theory.
For more specific details, refer to The Dreamer’s Guide - Analyzing the Mysteries of Qingming Dreams.
It also describes a possible state that may be even more advanced than Qingming dreams: dreamless sleep, a pure conscious state.
PS:
The dreamless sleep here is not like the deep sleep after hypnosis, where you sleep until dawn and everything is like Bali.
It’s more like the state described in “The Power of Now,” where you live completely in the present moment.
Furthermore, when the brain evolved REM, there was no development of written language, so our dreams often manifest in the form of images.
In fact, even in lucid dreams, it’s hard to avoid that feeling of fear, like when your body feels cold and transparent, as if you’ve lost an arm or leg.
If it’s a scene from your daily life, it’s even more terrifying, like strange sounds, monsters, skeletons, and such.
Due to the fight-or-flight response deeply rooted in our human genes, it’s hard to resist waking up in these situations.
Because… what if it’s real!
In the Tang Wang series, “The Art of Dreaming,” Qingming dreams are described as another world, while our daily life is the illusory one.
It sounds a bit like “Avalon,” the ideal hometown where hero’s souls rest.
Although it sounds far-fetched, as Zhuangzi said, “Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again.” Who knows which world is real?
##真実は いつも 一つ
After saying so much, in Conan’s words: “The truth is always singular.”
If your monthly income is over 50,000, consider a mid-range European or American trip.
If your monthly income is over 30,000, consider a low-end European trip.
If your monthly income is between 10,000 and 20,000, consider a trip to Southeast Asia.
If your monthly income is lower than 10,000, choose a domestic trip.
If your monthly income is lower than 5,000, choose a trip within the province.
If your monthly income is 3,000, choose a suburban trip.
If it’s lower than 2,000, choose peanut oil.
If it’s lower than 1,000, choose a trip in the gutter.
If you have no income, choose to “dream travel”!
Wishing everyone a happy May Day!
Translated by gpt-3.5-turbo