Thrift Thoughts - An Update

It has been six weeks since I determined to not buy anything new and it is already turning out to be a learning experience.

 

It has made me think a lot about what it means to not have exactly what you need (or want) readily available. While I haven’t had any exhaustive lists in the past week of things I needed, it was the beginning of a semester and I had to adjust my school organization slightly.

 

I never really took much notice before that when I need notebooks for each class I can just go to the store and grab as many as I need. They are the right size, they have convenient pockets, and they’re even in colors that I like. This time, I went to thrift stores hunting for notebooks and found none. So I went through what I already had in my room and found a perfectly good binder and plenty of paper in still-unfinished notebooks. -- We buy things we already have.

 

I have also learned patience and the value of planning ahead. It was a struggle to get all of my textbooks used (I unfortunately have one new one, but I’m planning on selling it back) and I put off ordering them online and am still waiting for one to arrive. -- Stores give us the gift (or problem) of immediacy.

 

I see that sometimes you really do just have to take what you can get. Thrift stores have a lot of options, but it’s only by chance you’ll find exactly what you need that day. And what you end up getting might not be what you had in mind.

 

Most importantly, I’m beginning to see what it means to depend on others. I recently got a job and needed black pants and nonslip shoes in order to start work. I used a very kind birthday present to get the pants and phoned up my friend to see if I could borrow her shoes for an extended period of time (she had recently quit her waitressing job). -- People have gotten so used to just running to the store to get what they need when their neighbor very well might have that thing sitting in a corner of their house. Since it can be maybe awkward to ask for things, be a giver. If you hear someone say they need to go get something you have and aren’t particularly using, give it to them. I’ve done it once so far and I’m looking for an opportunity to try it again. 

Wherever the Big Sky Country Singer Ends

Have you ever had one of those heavy moments,

One where you just feel the weight of things?

You realize that your life is kind of like a movie,

Like how you always wished it was.

You realize that there are decisions, rash and solid, ahead

That you will pass through.

But you won’t be able to reverse.

You realize that your world is pliable

But only in your hands.

You realize your world is a dome

Set down on top of your broad brass plate.

It’s all you in there;

The space encased inside heavy glass

Is all human.

You’re not trapped,

You’re merely contained,

In a personified firmament hovering

Over a realm of earthly city.

You realize you can filter through your lid

And press on,

Sift yourself out like flour through a sieve,

But you will leave behind chunks

Of you,

Of things you were to do,

Of people to say things to.

You realize you can move.

You can trek through wasteland

That is unfit for you,

Hold your breath

Through thin air

Until you come to another dome,

Etched on its edge – you.

A new encapsulated lily pad land.

You realize you can lift up the lid

And step inside,

Lean against the thick walls

And breathe in the

Dense, substantive, undiluted air.

You realize again,

In case you had missed it before -

It’s all you in there.

Lucid Dream Success!

I spent most of the day today stoked off my britches because of the dream success I had last night!

 

I followed the instructions of Stephen LaBerge, a psychophysiologist and expert on lucid dreaming, and was able to induce a lucid dream! I have lucid dreamed before, but I was eager to do it purposefully. He advises a nap 30-60 minutes after waking up in the morning and repeating to yourself, “Next time I’m dreaming, I will remember I’m dreaming.” It also helps to picture yourself in a lucid dream and plan on what you want to do.

 

My plan was to return to the “alpine ocean” in my dream from last night, but as it turned out, I was unable to control every aspect I wanted.

 

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My dream opened with immediate lucidity. I at first had problems focusing my personal perspective and had to search for myself. I didn’t know if I should watch myself in the dream or watch the dream from myself. It’s like I had to get my sea legs, but in this case, my lucid legs.

 

I was at the beach, not an arctic one, but a regular California beach with regular beige sand and blue water. I was disappointed. I kept repeating to myself, “I want to go to the icy ocean.” When I realized I was unable to make that happen I attempted to meet mythical sea creatures. When that failed too I sighed and said, “Fine, I guess I’ll just fly.” Immediately I started to float, far above the water. A mini gray cloud was within reach and I swished my hand through it and stroked the wing of an in-flight bird.

 

Suddenly I was in a city, an unknown and somewhat drab city with stone walkways and brown overhangs. I wanted to see a specific person and decided to try and make it happen. The next thing I knew, they were walking towards me on the street dressed as a pizza person.

 

I was still in the city, but in an appliance store. A man and a woman were having an intense and passionate conversation on a couch. It was very audible, like they were speaking directly into my ears. Musical interludes would play in between things said as well as between the remaining dream scenes, like a dvd.

 

I was again frustrated because I hadn’t reached any snowy land yet. Immediately a digital menu pulled up, containing my entire vision. It was a blue and white map of the whole world. During this time music was playing, increasingly loud and directly into my ears like I was wearing headphones. It was a Blindside song and I remember thinking that someone must have come into my room and turned my stereo on, there was no way I was listening to this music so clearly. As the music progressed, I clicked on Alaska on the digital map and woke up as I stepped off the plane.

 

Throughout the dream there was a heavy feeling on my body, a dense pulling, like a thick rubber band. I could feel myself being lifted out of the dream, but I kept pulling myself back into the dream world. It was like I was having a tug-o-war with reality.

 

Probably the most astonishing thing that happened was that I successfully used a reality check in my dream. Reality checks are dream tokens (like the spinning top in Inception) or other methods used to check to see if one is dreaming. I had been using the plug-the-nose trick. Periodically throughout the day I would plug my nose and try to breath, obviously to no avail. I did this so once I entered a dream I would by habit do it there too. In the dream I would be able to breath through my plugged nose and it would signal to me that I’m dreaming, enabling me to become lucid. In my dream, I was already lucid, but this trick affirmed my dream state. There were points in the dream where I was completely aware of my sleeping body on my bed and at one time I questioned how I could be sleeping facedown with my face buried in a pillow and still be breathing perfectly (I of course was not actually sleeping in this position, but my dream self thought I was). After I was awake I was completely amused at the variation of the trick in my dream. I was also surprised. I guess I had doubted reality checks.

 

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Here’s the link I used: http://www.lucidity.com/LucidDreamingFAQ2.html#howquick

Click on “How do I learn to have lucid dreams?”

Dream Content, Dream Class, and Lucidity

A dream from last night:

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I am with my mom and my friend Kristin and we are preparing for my birthday party in an unfamiliar place that resembles a school. My mom left to go buy stuff, leaving Kristin and I with some time to hang out. So we go to the

Snowy, icy, alpine

Mountain coast.

(In my dream I thought the mountains to be the Alps, but when awake I looked at photos of them, I saw that they were no comparison to the beauty of my mountains.)

The color scheme was wildly pleasant: pale powder blues, soothing grays, spotted blacks, and bright whites.

The mountain range was oceanic.

Wide and rough waters spread between the chests of the mountains.

We were swimming.

It was all serenity and beauty and crispness, but we felt no temperature.

The sea brought the mountains to our level – tangible.

It was calm, until waves started to roll, and then chop.

There was something in the water, reddish brown machinery, then

Suddenly we were in a beautiful green and peaceful canal, but only for a second.

The waves of the frosty sea got bigger, we started to anticipate them, and

Dive under them, multiple times, deep, deep down - each time longer than previous.

Slight fear, but all joy, in wondering what could be down there.

We hide behind a giant horizontal rock that takes the power of the waves for us.

Kristin listens to Boston for the first time.

We leave and return to the party location.

Kristin had bought some stuff while we were gone and my mom returned with some stuff too.

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Some things I noticed when I reviewed the dream were I had dreamt a short dream of my dog dying before this and the color of her coat is the color scheme of the mountain coast. The same color scheme, with the added red machine, is also a color scheme I have been finding pleasing lately. And when my mom brought stuff to the party, presumably presents for me, I had questioned if they were new or used items (see previous blog post).

 

 

I have been receiving a non-stop onslaught of dream and sleep information the last couple of weeks in the Sleep and Dreams class at my university.

 

So far I am fascinated by the striking resemblance brain activity in REM sleep, the stage of sleep with higher chances of dreaming and dreaming vividly, has to being awake. There are parts of the brain that control logic, reality checks, and attention-focusing that are turned off during this stage of sleep. This accounts for the skyrocketing creativity levels and bizarre nature of some dreams. I am equally fascinated by some studies that have shown it plausible that dreaming is emotionally therapeutic in helping people recover from breakups and traumatic experiences and others that show the huge effect dreams have on learning and memory.

 

A tad bit of a digression: I am currently reading The Mind at Night: The New Science of How and Why We Dream by Andrea Rock (I recommend it!).  There is something called the anterior cingulated gyrus that becomes active during REM sleep and appears to impart meaning to experiences. It is speculated that this region is the seat of free will, where we generate our sense of an independently acting self, Nobel laureate Francis Crick said. Observations that it is always fully active, even seconds after waking, led to the interpretation that it supports consciousness as our source of self-awareness. I almost fell off my bed when I read this! It is still speculation, but what can this really mean for the mind-body problem?

 

Sorry for the academic rant, it’s sort of the mode I fall in during semesters.

 

Tonight, I am sleeping with a sleep monitor that will record my dream cycles, and if all goes well, wake me when I have spent some time in REM so I will be able to effectively recall my dreams. Then, in the morning, I plan to use a system designed to induce lucid dreaming and, after a short while, take a nap and hopefully enter a lucid dreamscape!

 

My interest in lucid dreaming is endless and I have only recently delved into any real information on it. I am excited to implement what I have learned so far and my plan is to return to the dreamscape I was in last night and have some fun! I think I might try paddle boarding at high speeds or meeting friendly sea creatures. Although, I’m slightly afraid of that going awry to where they aren’t so friendly -- I hope my excitement doesn’t impair my plans! I will post the results, successful or not, here later. 

Thrift Thoughts and the Beginning

I never really know how to starts things. But here I am, starting a blog. I feel like I need a place to put all of the misplaced thoughts that are in my head. I need a place to write things out and, I guess, work things out too. So my blog will be a place to put things: thoughts, poems, decisions, questions, dreams (the sleeping kind), intellectual struggles, the occasional photo, and hopefully some epiphanies. In return, I would love any reassurance that I'm not the only one concerned about the things that I'm concerned about.

So, let's start with a thought and a decision:

Hi, I 'm Jo and I shop at thrift stores. I had the thought about mid-December -- What if Ionly shopped at thrift stores?  

There's been negative feelings building in my body towards retail and department stores. They just have so much stuff. Is it all really that necessary, shelf after shelf after shelf of batteries, dolls, t-shirts, bath towels, earrings, video games...?  There's so much and I don't think it's all going to be purchased. And if it is all purchased, I don't think it will all be used. It just feels so wasteful. I am not advocating a nationwide shut-down of all Wal-marts or Toys R Us', they serve their purpose, but I for the moment, don't want to be a part of it. 

At the beginning of the New Year I decided to not buy new things for at least a year (this excludes food, toiletries, and fair trade items). In its stead I will only shop used. Which means,thrift stores! (And garage sales, when I can find them.) 

The reasons for this are as follows:

Far more unique, interesting, and beautiful things can be found at thrift stores.

Most thrift stores are non-profit and all or most proceeds go to benefit a cause.

It's not wasteful, it's recycling.

It's cheap!!!

Shopping in them is more like an adventure than a shopping trip.

I'd rather give my money to people who need it than to retailers.

It will exercise my creativity.

I want to challenge myself. 

Yes, this does mean that if you're my friend and your birthday is coming up, you will receive a used gift (or a made gift). 

I do apologize if I sound like some sort of go-green-boycott-the-machine hippie. I know this idea is not novel. I'm not trying to be pretentious, I just have a lot of thoughts of this nature and I figured I'd best start putting the ones I deem good into action. So that's what I'm doing. I'd love to know if anyone else wants to do it with me! It should be interesting, but my guess is that it shouldn't be too hard. But in case I do fail, I'll let you know.