sleeping, bunking, getting horizontal, cousin of death. at least that’s what some people call it. i tend to call it a waste of time. when it should be time to go to bed you don’t want to get in, and when it is time to get up you don’t want to get out. for many years now i have wondered about the phenomenon called “sleep” [usually at those moments when i should be getting some, but the pondering keeps me awake]. with a very interesting addition to dreaming.

we seem to know quite a lot about sleep and dreaming, on either a scientific or a psychological level. but there’s also a lot we don’t understand. in this months column i will show you this world of sleeping, and the even more exciting world of dreaming. time to open up some possibilities on brainstorming or just plain stupid ideas.

so you know what to do next, stranger; click the link to read more. or you can just remain and ignorant fool and pass on this great opportunity of what is considered as quality reading material [arrogance is a designer’s trade].

let’s kick off with the whole start of the sleep-thing; the actual going, or in many casing trying, to sleep. it’s not easy, we know that. and please don’t try to fall asleep, that will only make it harder [i myself am not good at sleeping, i tend to make mistakes].
huge amounts of alcohol or drugs could do the trick, or a hammer [one of my personal favorites], or you could just read a book [as long as you don’t read in bed; associating bed with book is not a good mind-connection].
all in all, there are many options, but when you finally start feeling drowsy you have reached the first stadium. this is where your brain starts to feel at ease. it’s like being in a bathtub filled with warm chocolate [trust me, i know]. waking from this stadium will most likely make you deny ever falling asleep.

when you finally really fall asleep you have reached the second stadium. this is where your sleep becomes deeper. this is more like lying on a bed of cute, plushy, baby seals [the real thing, not those fake toys]. from here on it’s a straight ride into stadiums 3 and 4 where the sleep is at its deepest. that would be something like hanging upside-down in a bottomless pit with no light [don’t ask me where that came from]. all in all a lot of boring information. however, this is where we arrive at the “fifth phase”; rem -sleep [stands for rapid eye movement]. occurring a couple of times a night, this is the phase where you experience your most lucid dreams.

when it comes to dreaming i believe there are 2 main categories. the first being the strange imaginations and stories that reside inside our mind when we are sleeping. this is your normal standard dreaming. although normal and standard, it’s very important to not ignore these dreams, they’re an important link to your subconsciousness and can be of great inspiration. some of the best ideas of this world found their origin in a dream: the theory of relativity, the periodic system of elements, mac os x, guitar hero [1 and 2, possibly 3], the wonder-bra, and many more.

the second category; the conscious wandering through our own mind, is something i do all the time. this daydreaming can produce quite a lot of good ideas. with the only limit being your imagination it can spawn ideas and concepts in a couple of minutes and destroy your social life in a couple of seconds. beware of your daydreaming locations, try to avoid hazardous situations. for example while driving or having sex.

but when we break it down to the pieces that matter there is no substitute for the hypnagogic hallucinational phase. of all the information i fed myself in the last weeks concerning sleeping and dreaming this is by far the most important section to you creative people out there. it’s the twilight zone between sleep and awake, the place where the magic happens. here you may stay conscious about your dream and even have little control to its direction, leading to some fascinating material.

the first thing you should do when you wake up is remember your dreams, because they’re usually deleted when your mind boots [i always forget to remember my dreams]. after practicing this technique i found myself remembering some things i did not want to remember, as well as spawning some great ideas [which remain top secret due to the patents pending].
the second and final thing you should do is harness this great power. hopefully this method can bring you the same innovation and cash my fortuneteller predicted me to have sometime in the future.

as a finishing touch i would like to leave you with some advice. though commonplace, it’s still a crucial thing to remember; follow your dreams! you may never know what good it may bring you, and others around you.

so dream on, dear reader and fuel me with some more discussions. i await your comments…

jan van der asdonk is a contributor to studio469 in the shape of his creative spamming, manifesting itself in his somewhat distorted views and theories of the world around him. feedback, topic requests and fan mail are all very welcome at jan@studio469.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007 at 23:59 and is filed under Column. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.