No cakes or Cookies in 2014

This was my goal for 2014. It did not survive past the first two weeks of January. Mostly because I kept forgetting.

I am punishing myself this year by giving up two things, soda, and processed meats, as I define it.

Out: Hotdogs, sausage, pepperoni, salami, bologna, pastrami, etc.
In: Ham, bacon and lunchmeat

So far, so good. I did grandfather in some cherry coke zero and a summer sausage that I got for Christmas. When those are gone, we'll see.

Creativity in dreams

Do you find that you do "complex" thinking and creating in your dreams?

I recently dreamed that I was at a casino somewhere, and I was getting ready to leave, and the dealer, or some employee of the casino, suggested that I play a different game. The game involved a box that opened on one side, via hinges on the other side. Inside the box were equal squares in two rows of four, each row containing a number, 1-8. In the game, I was the player, and I would circle with a marker of some kind, one of the numbers. The dealer would be allowed to watch my hands, but could not see the numbers because I was blocking his view with the "lid" of the box. Then the dealer would be guess a number as I looked down at the number I had circled. If he guessed right, I lost, if he guessed wrong, I win. He made his guess by watching me circle, and watching where I looked as he began his guess.

When I woke up and started thinking about the game, I was surprised that I had basically invented a game during my dream.

Should I have been surprised? Does this happen all the time and I just don't notice? Do you create or invent in your dreams? Is there a difference between creating a place to be in your dream, like flying somewhere or being in a city or place you've never been, and inventing or creating a game or something else? It seemed to me to be a more complex creation for a dream. I don't know. Maybe not.

Little Girl

There is no sweeter sound to my ears than that of my 3 year old daughter singing randomly to herself. It is beyond adorable. Sorry for the lame post. Had to be said.

And you thought your 1990 calculator watch was cool.

The watch in the below linked article will save your life. In an emergency, specifically, an emergency where you are lost, on an island, in the forest, etc., you can deploy an antenna, and activate a signal, detected by satellites, that will tell people where to find you. Price tag is a bit steep, but that is a cool watch.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/29/breitling-releases-the-emergency-ii-a-watch-that-can-save-you-if-youre-trapped-on-the-island/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29

Red, Yellow, Green..... and Pink?

We were playing a card game at Danyael's parents' house yesterday, and Andrew threw out a gem. The card game was being played with Uno cards, but only the red, yellow, and green cards. Andrew observed this, and drew the comparison between those colors and traffic lights. He has know for some time that red means stop, and green means go. Yesterday, he said that red and yellow mean stop, and green and pink mean go. ??? I asked him what he meant, why pink, and he reasoned that red and yellow go together, and there are two colors for stopping, and therefore there must be two colors for going, and pink goes with green, so obviously, green and pink mean go.

Okay then.

Stimuli - Our brains are smarter than we are

According to this blurb, and apparently this information comes from a video, our brain can effectively process only about 1% of all the stimuli that it takes in. Our brains have filters to filter out non-meaningful information.

My question is this: What would be different if we could effectively process all the information that we take in? Does this ability differ to any degree from one person to another? Does this ability change in the afterlife?

Starting simple, would we be able to avoid ever tripping again?
Would we be a lot better at sports?
Would we be able to perceive more colors?
Would we be able to communicate with each other a lot better?
Would we be able to understand animals and babies better?
Would we be able to see a lot farther?

Getting deeper, would we be able to see things that we previously simply could not see? Like ghosts?

I don't know.

Progressive Dreams

Does anyone else have progressive dreams? Dreams that progress over time through multiple dreams?

My most recent example is a dream that I had a week or so ago. I had a dream that was chapter 3 of a story. In chapter 1, Danyael and I found out about some apartment units in a series of buildings that were being built in part to generate capital for Real Salt Lake. The apartments were in buildings located somewhere near the stadium, though in the dream, I'm not sure where it was. We purchased an apartment unit in the dream and had it for a monthly mortgage payment of only $200, which was awesome as a cheap investment property. In the dream we visited the unit, and it was nice, but unfurnished. In Chapter 2, which was a dream somewhere between 6 months to a year later, we were able to purchase a second unit at the same price. We never visited the second unit, but did visit unit 1 again. In Chapter 3, which was last week, we had some family in town, and showed them the first unit. It was now furnished, because Danyael had made a deal with the developer that for an additional $100/month, they would purchase all the furnishings. It was really nice. We still did not visit unit 2.

I am sad every time I wake up from the dreams because it would be a nice thing to have. But most of my dreams are not progressive this way. Anyone else?