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London

Well, today is our last day. Our trip was a lot more… mellow than usual, since my dad got sick a few days in, so there was a lot of hotel time. We think he might have pneumonia, which is what I had the last two weeks before break. Poor dad…

We did see some excellent shows, my favorites being: “One Man, Two Guvnors” which was HILARIOUS. James Cordon was the lead, and I remembered him from a few episodes of Doctor Who. Other plays we saw were “A Comedy of Errors” at the National, which was also great, and had the most amazing sets I’ve ever seen. Then there was “The Pitmen Painters” which was also really lovely (see, I’m already English!) and was all to do with art, which I am in total favor of. Last night we saw “Slava’s Snow Show.” I don’t know how to describe it, other than it was really great and I got confetti/fake snow everywhere, including in my clothes!

Christmas we met up with a family that’s staying here as well. Our mothers are friends, and I go to school with their daughter Alyssa, though I didn’t know her very well. We hit it off nicely at Christmas dinner, and I liked her younger sister as well. 

On Boxing Day we went to Brighton to visit my dad’s colleague’s family. Brighton was beautiful, and I really loved the family. The dinner was great!

The day after that the three of us (Alyssa, her sister Marin, and myself) went skating at Somerset House, which was an adventure. None of us were very good at skating, so we were all fairly wobbly, though Marin was the daredevil and always managed to stay ahead of us. Afterwards we had a lovely hot chocolate and parted ways.

We continued on to Covent Garden, which is always fun, though my feet were aching from staking at that point. There’s this new store called the Moomin shop, which sells everything to do with Moomins. If you don’t know, moomintrolls are these funny little creatures created by Tove Jansson, a Finnish author. Those books were some of my favorites as a child. I didn’t realize that there was also a comic strip, so I bought that, as well as a little Moomin keychain.

Today we (my mom and I; dad stayed at the hotel) went to Fortnum & Mason, my favorite department store in the world, and overindulged ourselves on tea. 

And I FINALLY got to try Turkish Delight, which is something I’ve been very keen on doing since I first read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I got apple, lemon, rose, and pistachio. To be honest, I don’t know why Edmund was so enchanted by it, though I guess that it was enchanted. The lemon and apple were ”meh”. The rose was lovely. My favorite was the pistachio, which was delicious. I guess maybe I would be tempted to follow an evil witch who wanted to kill me and my siblings for some more of that… Or maybe not.

So, heading to the airport this afternoon, and we’ll be back in Boston around 9. I’ll be glad to be back, even though I adore London. 

Last night I had a lucid dream!

A DILD (dream induced lucid dream). It was very cool. I forget exactly what was happening, but something was going desperately wrong, and suddenly I just realized: “Hey! I’m dreaming! I don’t have to go through with this!” 

Things became a whole lot clearer, and I just felt liberated. I took to the sky and changed the scene to something that looked a lot like Walden Pond. Except then, I could feel myself starting to wake up, as I am told will happen (due to more activity in the parietal lobes, the brain effectively gets “confused” and starts to wake up). I tried spinning in a circle, which is supposedly one technique to stay, but it didn’t work, so I woke up, unfortunately.

But it’s definitely a start. Now I really need to get going on WILDs (wake initiated lucid dreams) where I fall directly into a lucid dream from a waking state. It’s so much fun when I am doing exactly what I’m writing about in my biology project. 

Dreaming

Lately, I’ve been a bit obsessed with it. 

I’m taking Advanced Biology and one of the requirements for the course is a year long expert project in any biological field. I focused in on dreams: REM sleep, current dream research, and the like.

Anyway, recently I’ve been trying to lucid dream, which is what happens when you are dreaming, but aware that you are in a dream. Seen Inception? Well, it’s a bit like that. If you are aware that you are dreaming, with practice, you can manipulate your dreams and should be able to bend the laws of reality and do whatever you want to. 

I suppose I have always been able to do that to a certain extent. A lot of times, I think to myself (in dreams), “Hey! I’m dreaming! So I should be able to fly!” And I fly. Yet, I don’t think it is a fully formed realization, as something always holds me back from flying too high. 

Most of the time, people become lucid for whatever reason in the middle of a dream, but there’s this technique called the WILD (wake into lucid dreaming) that I’m trying. It involves lying still until your body thinks that you are asleep and enters sleep paralysis (so that you don’t injure yourself while REM sleeping and acting out your dreams) and then falling straight into a lucid dream that you’ve created. 

I’ve experienced the sleep paralysis (absolutely crazy!) but I haven’t actually been able to get into a dream from there yet. It’s rather frustrating, but I’ve been trying every night and hopefully I’ll get there eventually.

So sorry for infrequent updates.

As I come up on the end of my term, my priorities have shifted. I’m spending almost every waking moment wrapping up those last assignments, starting to study for exams, and of course, college applications. Also, my betta fish Sherlock was sick (a nasty parasite) and I apparently care enough about my pets that it gave me nightmares. He’s perfectly all right now though! I’m training him to jump for food from my finger. It’s very cute!

Delicious and quick recipe I found: Chocolate mug cake

Mix together 1 egg, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, and 2 tbsps of unsweetened cocoa powder in a standard size mug.

Microwave for 40-60 seconds until it’s cooked, but not overcooked. It tastes good if it’s gooey in the middle. Serves 1.

Enjoy!