My Caffeine Dreams

I would like to be able to say that the recent lack of posts has been down to extreme exam preparation or because I was very busy with other important things, but I can't. The last month or so has been an odd time for me with the enevitability of exams that May brings not really hitting home at all - well I should probably say that the week running up to my maths exam was fairly ropey but only because I was beginning to infruiated myself with my incessant procrastination. So what have I been doing with all that time that has stopped me from blogging? Well I am pleased to say that I have mainly been reading for the last month and devouring myself with films that I always have meant to watch but never really found the time for. I believe that is not the worst use of my time but why I couldn't find just an hour in May to put up maybe an exam related post is beyond me: maybe because the exams just weren't such a bit part of my life this year or maybe there was just nothing to write about? Anyway I am back and hopefully this post will rekindle the interest of the few that I could always count on to peruse my posts back in the good old days of posts being published at least every fortnight (the good old days of course just being april).

One of the main constants over the last few months for me has not been revision or anything nearly as important as that but instead something a lot more trivial. It was only about this time a couple of years ago that I actually started to drink coffee but now it has become a habit for me. I will happily drink a few cups of coffee a day, sometimes even extending into 5 or 6 depending on how I feel. Of course this means I am pumping my body up with caffeine which would mean a lot of restless nights at the start of this habit but now it is a very rare night when I can't get to sleep because of it. In fact there are not many nights I can't get to sleep now and I think it might be down to late nights and early, highly caffainated mornings. Now I am sure that you do not want to read about what I drink so I am not going to go on about it but it is from this love of coffee that the inspiration for this post came from. As I said before, I am getting a lot of good sleep at the moment despite how much caffeine I drink. This has therefore provided me with many a dream which I can only link to the fact that I have been drinking coffee. I'll try and keep this short and sweet because some dreams are not worth writing about and there are others which I would rather keep to myself but certainly it's something that has really interested me over the last month or so.

Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming? Well basically it is the art of being able to control what happens in your dreams and to be able to make decisions just like you would if you were awake. Some people can do it naturally but it is also something that you can teach yourself to do with a lot of hard work. I have read quite a lot about this and it is something that I have had the urge to attempt but never really found the motivation to do it. I have been through a lot of phases like this when I have found something that I could teach myself, started it and then put it in the back burner (almost literally because all of those little things like speed reading seemed to have burned away). So I guess that when I had what I thought to be my first 'caffeine dream' I was pretty lucky. I am sitting here not really knowing quite how to describe it actually because there is something indescribable about it. If you have ever had the dream when you fall in your sleep and it wakes you up then I think I am already half way to being able to tell you just what these experiences have been like for me. I have woken up in the past from a dream and felt like it was real but then these dreams that I have been having recently have gone a step up from that. I can remember the words that I say in the dreams and the actions I have taken in them as well. In fact there have been a few occasions when I have been standing in the shower in the morning when I would have to try and convince myself that whatever I dreamt didn't actually happen in real life. The characters that have been in the dreams have always been people that I know so that makes the whole thing seem even more real.

After having a quick gander on google about the effects of caffeine and stimulant drugs of dreams, it seems that instead of making my dreams more lucid, the caffeine is in fact just making me remember my dreams better than before. This suggests to me that I have always been having dreams like that but I have been unable to recollect them once I have woken up. It is an interesting idea that you can be dreaming but be completly unaware of it. Recently I downloaded Sigmund Freud's 'Dream Psychology' in audiobook form (for free of course because I have become quite canny at finding free and legal material as of late) which I have yet to listen to but although it might be a bit of a slog listening to it, it might bring up something that is realated to this pretty cool thing. It's a sad day when one of the most interesting thing in a guys life is the way that he remembers his dreams but then again this is the same guy that sitting writing a blog post fairly early in the morning when he could in fact be in bed. In fact it says a lot when I am currently wide awake because I am already onto my second cup of the day.

To say that I am addicted to caffeine would be far from the truth. Maybe during the first set of exams a couple of years ago when I first took to drinking coffee, I would put an extra spoon of instant into a mug just because it would make me more alert. Now it has become more of a pleasure than the search for a 'hit'. I now make up cefetieres of coffee instead of drinking instant all of the time and can now comfortably taste the difference between different kinds. The proof that I do not drink coffee now for the caffeine is in the fact that I drank decaffeinated for the first time a couple of months ago and really enjoyed it. So I would just like to make sure that you don't think I am a classy addict looking for a buzz now and again!

If you are not bored by this post by now then you must be on something; have you been drinking coffee by any chance? The idea that this post was ever going to be interesting for you to read is one that was really lost on me after writing the first paragraph but I thought that I better follow through with it and try and get myself back into writing again. Maybe nobody will read this post this time, maybe you are going to be the only one but let it be known that I will continue to write in this blog until I find a topic that really interests people. After a month away I am back and doesn't it just feel great. Now, stick the kettle on will you?

Thanks again for reading,

Martin