For the past two nights, I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to induce lucid dreaming
This started with my listening to a podcast episode about lucid dreaming on Inner Cosmos, hosted by Stanford University neuroscientist David Eagleman, with guest Jonathan Berent. I can’t find out much about Berent’s background; according to this website, he’s an “entrepreneur” and “lucid dream expert,” and he’s selling an app. Which, tbh, all sounds kind of sketchy. But he seemed reasonable in the interview, and I respect Eagleman so onward.
The podcast advises three techniques to induce lucid dreaming:
Keep a dream journal. Look for common factors in your dreams that can indicate you are dreaming. Berent says he grew up in Indiana, and though he now lives elsewhere, most of his dreams occur in Indiana. So when he finds himself doing something in Indiana, he assumes he’s dreaming. (Must be awkward on family visits.)
I forgot the second thing. Maybe review the dream journal?
Test yourself throughout the day to determine whether you are dreaming. Tap your teeth. Flick a lightswitch on and off. Push one finger against the palm of your other hand. Look at a clock or some text, then look away, and instantly look back.
We know what happens with those things in wakefulness; the behavior will be unexpected and weird in a dream. For example, your finger might push through your palm. The clock or text might change drastically when you look back at it. Your teeth might float away. If any of these things happen, you’ll know you’re dreaming.
I’ve been doing the reality testing several times a day; I set an alarm on my phone to remind me.
I haven’t done well at dream journaling. Ideally, you should wake yourself up after 5-6 hours and journal at that moment. But I have chronic insomnia—difficulty returning to sleep after waking up in the middle of the night, sometimes three or four nights a week—and so I do not want to mess around if I’m getting a good night’s sleep. I did wake up once last night and got out of bed (for the normal reason one awakens and leaves bed—more common in middle-aged prostate-havers and pregnant people) and brought my phone with me and dictated a recap of my most recent dream. I haven’t listened to that recording; it may just be a minute of mumbling, a stream of water hitting water, followed by a toilet flushing.
I woke up many times in the night and was aware of having many dreams, but I could not tell you details of any of them—other than the one I journaled. I remember that one with a fair amount of detail.
From my listening to Eagleman’s podcasts and other reading about sleep, my failure to remember dreams is unsurprising. When we sleep, the part of our brains that records working memories—short-term memory—is switched off. Without recording short-term memory, nothing can get saved to long-term memory. Dreams are forgotten within seconds of awakening.
I said earlier that Berent sounded reasonable on the podcast, and that’s only 99% true. When Eagleman talked about “reality” and “dreaming,” Berent talked about “consensus reality” and “dream reality”—that they’re both equal somehow. This is bullshit. There is only one reality. Anybody who’s ever kicked a coffee table while barefoot knows that.
What is lucid dreaming? [eagleman.com]
In 51 minutes since I posted this update, I’ve received two requests from companies asking me to take their customer service feedback surveys.
No, I will not take your customer satisfaction survey. Not now, not ever.
I’m doing more writing for Silverlinings and the upcoming Fierce Network site and looking for news, feature and trend ideas related to cloud infrastructure and platform, networking and AI for the enterprise. Hit me with your pitches and ideas at mitch@mitchwagner.com.
Whenever I talk with someone with a New York/Jewish accent, I start reflecting it back to them. One minute I’m just a regular middle American dude, and the next minute I’m Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof.”
Here's why AI search engines really can't kill Google
AI search tools are improving but they don’t match how we use search. [David Pierce / theverge.com]
Search can be divided into three types, says Pierce: People primarily use search just to find websites.
… my favorite fact of all: … a vast number of people every year go to Google and type “google” into the search box.
People also use search for specific facts, such as who won last night’s big game.
And the third type is the “exploration query.”
These are questions that don’t have a single answer, that are instead the beginning of a learning process. On the most popular list, things like “how to tie a tie,” “why were chainsaws invented,” and “what is tiktok” count as explorational queries. If you ever Googled the name of a musician you just heard about, or have looked up things like “stuff to do in Helena Montana” or “NASA history,” you’re exploring.
I needed to get my glasses repaired, but I couldn’t remember what you call the person who does that. I came up with “optimist.”
📷 Good morning! Here’s something I see on my walk every day.
She says she has been a good dog and would like a treat now.
Overheard: “My teacher told me years ago not to worry about spelling because in the future there will be autocorrect. And for that I am eternally grapefruit.”
Death and typos: Writer/musician David Safran describes his six strange years screening online obituary comments. His job was overwhelming and rich in errors. And it drove home one message: we’re always on the clock. [theguardian.com]
Elon Musk has fully bought into the ‘great replacement.’ Musk thinks Democrats are using immigration to bolster a favorable voting demographic. But that’s not how immigration works. [theverge.com] — It is, at most, a short step from “great replacement” to “The Jews will not replace us.”
Margaret Atwood on Stephen King’s “Carrie,” which turns 50 and is still relevant today. Like much of King, it’s about the white underlcass in America. [nytimes.com]
First impressions of my new MacBook Air, after using it just a few minutes
- Holy cow, this thing is fast compared with my 2018 MacBook Pro. I did a thing where I open 30+ tabs simultaneously. Took a couple of minutes on the MBP, but is virtually instantaneous on the MBA.
- Migration Assistant seems to have worked flawlessly. I had to authenticate and give permission for a few things, but that only took about a minute.
- Unexpected benefit: With a 15" built-in display, I now have a usable second display for my desk. My previous 13" display wasn’t usable when the MBP was on my desktop attached to the external Cinema Display, keyboard and trackball, except under limited circumstances. I hadn’t considered that when I decided on 15".
- Hmmm… I hope this thing fits into my favorite computer bag. If not—MOAR shopping!
- I can switch back to Safari from Vivaldi now, but I don’t know if I will. I’ve come to like Vivaldi.
Before upgrading to my new MacBook Air, I am being responsible, updating the operating systems and making sure my backups are all up-to-date. But really I just want to hold-my-beer this bitch and let Migration Assistant rip.
My new MacBook Air is here!
My current machine is a 2018 MacBook Pro. It works fine,although of course it’s slow. But I have to reboot several times a week—twice in one morning last week—and this suggests to me that it’s going to die on me at any moment and leave me possibly unable to meet deadlines. Better to arrange the transition on a schedule more under my control. So I pulled the trigger on an upgrade last week.
The old Mac has just 8 GB of memory and a 13" screen. The new machine is 15"/24GB/2TB. I’m looking forward to having that bigger screen to spread out on when I take the MB off my desk and use it elsewhere.
But now I’m on deadline and don’t even have time to open the box!