Hello,

I'm not sure how many of you know of the works of Carlos Castaneda, the guy who supposedly had such a mastery over his dreams that he wrote all his best-selling books in them. Anyway, this tip comes from a book of conversations with him that is not very widely published.

In the book, a student is complaining that he has tried to dream (in Castaneda's books, dream is always in italics to differentiate it between a normal, uncontrolled dream) but has met with no success. Castaneda tells him that the student hasn't really, really been wanted to, or else he would have by now. "If you're serious that you want to *dream*," he says. "Prove it: don't eat or speak until you succeed. You will be astonished how quickly it will happen."

That's the advice, don't eat or speak until you succeed. When I read this, my first thought was, "what ridiculous advice! How am I supposed to go through an entire day, with a roommate, with hundreds of acquaintances I see everywhere, without speaking? What am I going to do, pretend I don't know them? And how am I supposed to survive without eating? I don't think I want to LD thaaat badly"

I moped around for a while feeling sorry for myself: on the one hand I couldn't dream, and on the other, I couldn't take this action to get me to dream. I felt trapped. Finally, something in me broke, I became furious, and I steeled myself to not speak or eat until success. It was a Friday so at least I wouldn't be going to classes until Monday. That just meant having an LD before Monday (hopefully!&#33. And if not, well I would figure something out before my classes began.

My first act was to go down to the grocery store to pick up enough fruit and vegetable juice to last me 2 months with lockjaw.

I have to go, to be continued!