Liquid Diet / Cleansing Diet / Fasting / Whatever you want to call it

I'm curious about how fasting affects lucid dreams / dreams in general. Let me know if you have any experience with it. In the mean time, I'm going to see what happens for me.

Due to health issues, I'm going to start what I call fasting. There are many different permutations of fasting. The method I'll be using is essentially initiating the process of autolysis in my body (self digestion) through drinking vegetable juices, herbal teas, vegetable broth, liquid supplements, and maybe a smoothie here and there. Not sure for how long yet. I suppose if I lose too much weight I'll stop it. Right now I'm at 175, and will certainly start eating more if I dip below 155. I just made 2 days worth of soup and salad that I'm gonna eat to transition into this, so I'm at T -2 days right now.

Mostly I'm doing this to heal my body, but I think it'll affect my dreams too. I'll have more details to come, specifically more related to the effect on dreaming. I've fasted a bunch before, but I wasn't really paying much attention to dreams at the time.

Schmaven

What interests me about fasting and dreams is what Buddhist monastics do.

After decades of monastic life and practice it is said that their waking life and dream life become one.

Also

In the old classical book "Autobiography of a Yogi" the author meets a woman who was taught a technique so she never needed to eat again. The author asked the woman what her dreams were like. She answered that her waking life and dream life are the same.

Many monastic Buddhist's have one meal a day. So if that meal takes 2 hours to eat, that means that thay fast 22 hours a day 7 days a week ... forever.

And I often wonder if that advances there dream life untill they never lose consciousness.

And this may mean that they do Wake Induced Lucid Dream. Like, they consciously leave the body and consciously re-enter the body.

Giving them unbroken memory.

This maybe what they mean about not having "dreams" anymore.

Their waking life and dream life become an unbroken continuous consciousness.

And, yeah,

I wonder how much fasting 22 hours every day has to do with this amazing single consciousness.

I haven't heard of that before, but it certainly makes sense to me. I have been thinking about what there is to do in life, and in dreams for a while. It seems like they are different. In dreams we can do whatever we want, whereas while awake, we seem very limited. But then I decided to just do the same while awake, even if there are more obstacles. In that sense, if I manage to stay focused on my goals during dreams and waking experiences, the two states would essentially be the same. I would have the same purpose, and be striving for the same things. I find it reassuring that in "Autobiography of a Yogi" she says her waking life and dream life are the same.

I just managed to finish the salad, and haven't started on the soup. So, still at around day T-1 for now. It was a 7 pound salad, and there are about 2 gallons of soup. I overestimated my intake speed a little, but still going for it. I even bought a thermos to bring vegetable broth with me to drink while at work. It's better warm than cold, and I'll need something for my 10 hour shifts.

Alright, so I ate the last of my solid food about 12 hours ago, and have begun the experiment. Some unexpected factors are that I'm changing jobs right now, and am sort of working two at once for a bit until things settle down. I'm lucky if I can get 6 hours of sleep a night, except for days off where I'll sleep 12+ Today, I'm going to my new job for about 8 hours, and then after a 4 hour break, another 9 hours at my old job.

My standard dreams, at least the majority that I remember, are mostly just the usual stuff I do during the day. There are a few exceptions, and of course more weird stuff happens, but the general setting is almost always where I physically find myself during waking life. Last night I had several dreams, in one I was at my old job, and in another, I was at my new job. Then there was a fun dream involving a giant sea monster eating a guy who was riding a sword fish, who once eaten, poked a hole in the sea monster's belly, but couldn't get out. A diver who had been eaten earlier however, could get out, and swam to shore, carrying lots of gold treasures I had found just before being eaten. Someone else was riding a horse through the ocean, bareback, struggling to hang on because of the waves.

So for Day 0, still normal dreams, nothing notably different.

Well, day 2, and I haven't yet had a chance to sleep more than two 30 minute naps so far. I don't remember any dreams from the first one. But the second one, I am pretty sure my body fell asleep, while my mind was awake, but didn't have any dreams. I just felt my body get all tingly and pulsing with waves of energy, then barely any solid sensation of my body until the end of the nap.

Technically just a few hours into day 4:

Only slept for 4 hours today, and remember a brief dream that seemed like just the perfect day. Warm, sunny, breezey, the perfect temperature for maximum comfort, and lush green trees and vegetation all around, lit up really well, contrasting against the royal blue sky with white puffy clouds here and there. I had enough time to lean into the wind and have it support my weight before I woke up. It was very peaceful.

I think it's rather humorous that my new job specifically has in the rules, "Fasting and Cleansing is not permitted while working. If you wish to do a fast or a cleanse, you must take a vacation and do it on your own time" I'm still gonna do it, I just have to call it something else and not talk about it at work. They probably just don't want people talking about it at work and creating a big distraction because a lot of people would probably have questions since it is a health food store. Personally, I work better while fasting: more energy, more stamina, greater focus, and better reflexes (for catching things when they fall off the shelves from going too fast).

Day 6: Ordinary dream, but pleasant and enjoyable.

Finally managing to sleep for a good chunk of time, I had a really long dream about being at work, at my new job. Because I thoroughly enjoy the work, it was a nice dream, and I felt good about it. I was stocking the shelves at a health food store, and there were dozens of new items with no spot to put them. I took it upon myself to find an appropriate spot, set them in, printed and hung tags for them, and continued to put stuff on the shelves. My co-workers there were very happy with my work.

Day 10: Slightly out of the ordinary dreams. Believing I can and then doing the impossible without lucidity. Only averaging about 5 hours of sleep a night, which is probably why I'm not remembering as many dreams. Another factor is my recall is sinusoidal in the amount that easily comes to me. Varying from 0 to 6+ pages and then back to 0 about every month has been what I've observed over the past 6 years. Right now, I appear to be coming out of the 0 phase.

Dream: At the grocery store I work at (a combination of both stores I work at now), there is a bit mountain of cardboard boxes that are used instead of grocery bags. Inside this pile, lives several vampires. My job is to grab a few boxes, and pretend to shop to discourage someone from stealing, but I am nervous about being attacked by the vampires. I think about how fast they are, but then decide that I'm pretty fast too, and could punch them, probably knocking one out if I had to. Since there are several, I fill my mind and body with love for everyone as protection, and go to grab some boxes. I feel energy inside me, like bright sunshine, glowing through every part of my being. This seems to offer the best protection against vampires, and they leave me alone.

Dream: I go up a hill in the woods with lots of old, some dead trees, and see someone sitting behind a fallen down wall, inside the barely recognizable remnants of an old house. He tells me to not make any sudden movements, as he's discovered a rare molecule that has never before been found. Using a microscope that's about a meter long, and as thick as a pineapple, he stares into it while he talks to me. I congratulate him, but this seems to distract him from his work, as he now uses the microscope as a telescope, and tells me about all the things he can see far away. My head is next to the middle of the micro/tele scope, and for some reason, I can see what he sees through it, even though I'm not looking through it, but next to it. Kind of like that illusion where you can make it look like you have a hole in your hand if you hold a tube next to it and look past both with both eyes, only with magnification, and without actually looking through it. I then notice that I can also hold my hands in front of my eyes, and still see everything past beyond them. The scientist guy tells me that this is the "Adrianna Effect" which gives all this a legitimate sense of normality to me.

Day 13: Results and Conclusion

Fasting appears to have no notable effect on my dreams, neither quality, quantity, nor content. The main factor in my recall still appears to be getting enough sleep.

I stopped fasting because it seemed like I ran out of extra flesh to use for energy. I went from 175 to 162 pounds (80 to 73 kg) in the first 10 days, and then stayed at 162 (73kg) for the last 3 days, during which I noticed more burning in my leg muscles when I rode to work and back. I didn't have much extra weight to begin with, and that seems to be one of the helpful conditions in fasting for prolonged periods of time. I'll post some embarrassing before and after pictures soon so you can see for yourself how little I had to work with.
:P

13 days doesn't seem like very long, and it isn't. Stocking shelves at grocery stores 66 hours a week, riding a bicycle 15 miles a day, and exercising regularly are all variables. Normally, I consume about 6000 Calories a day, and since without solid food, this comes from the autolysis (self digestion) process, I feel like 13 days of fasting with that energy expenditure results in the same net effect as a much longer fast. My health condition had disappeared on day 3, and I have not seen any trace of it since then.

Well, I was at 84 kg or 185 lbs before I got sick, so I already looked scrawny at 175 by the time I decided to start the liquid diet. Now with my health restored, it is again time to eat a lot and fit into my pants again. Even my belt is too big now.

A hail storm broke the sky light in that room, now temporarily covered by a blue tarp, giving me some unusual variation in the lighting if you notice the blue glow behind me.

Without further ado, here is my serious face...

- - - - - - - - - - Before: 80 kg (175 lbs) - - - - - - - - - - - After: 73 kg (162 lbs) - - - - - - -
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c3...ps5d922cad.jpg