#artificial dopamine

[theamazingannie]

Finished the first two episodes of PJO. Got thoughts (if anyone cares). Putting under a read more cuz it’s a bit lengthy

Before I go into the cons (cuz I got some unfortunately), the pros:

Aryan is so cute I adore him

I love the main trio in general. I think some of the acting isn’t always great but their chemistry and adorableness make up for it

I especially love the percabeth relationship. Walker and Leah did a great job showing that doofus Percy and irritated Annabeth relationship. Especially their early on “Annabeth looking down on Percy while he understandably flounders around.” I cannot wait to see more of them!!!

Saw someone on Twitter talk about the armor adjustment scene and how it could be a parallel to them later on as their relationship progresses and I hope so badly that they do that

Love Clarisse. Does a great balance between being unlikeable and being unenjoyable

LOVE Mr. D. Had absolutely no doubt that Jason Mantzoukas would crush this role and am glad to see it. Perfect level of unhinged and unnervingness. Literally the perfect person to play the role

It has a decent script. Not perfect, but I like how witty Percy is and there’s a lot of good written chemistry between characters and I found myself chuckling a lot, which is great as an adult with a show targeted towards younger audiences

The scenery is GREAT. I always have a hard time visualizing camp in my mind while reading and I think the show perfectly balances a normal summer camp with fantasy. Would’ve liked to see more of it, like a proper tour, but I know there’s not a lot of time. Hopefully we get to see more of it in later episodes

Great fight choreography. Wish there was a little more of it. Again, maybe they were cut for time but the fight scenes just seemed very rushed. But what we did see was so good. Especially loved Percy’s little duck and roll thing he did

Which brings us to the negatives. I wish I didn’t have any, but unfortunately I have a lot. I base these both as a fan of the books and as a show as a whole:

First things first, the pacing. It’s awful. It felt like a bunch of random scenes clipped together. There’s almost zero flow between scenes. It reminds me of watching the deleted scenes in the DVD bonus features and the weirdly long pauses between some scenes added to that. Nothing felt connected

To add to pacing, everything felt really rushed. As I said before, I get that timing is an issue, but I felt sped through everything. Considering it’s a tv show and we were promised more than was in the book, I didn’t expect so much to be left out. Nothing too important, but as I said before, it could’ve used better transitioning between scenes. I was left kind of disappointed and I can’t imagine not reading the books and being expected to follow this

On that note, explanations were iffy. It felt like they wanted to rush through explaining stuff to get to other parts which is fine for us readers but I think new audiences might struggle to follow. There’s a lot of information that the audience needs to know and I don’t think they properly addressed everything

One thing that comes to mind as I’m typing this is the wheelchair. They never show what it’s for. They introduce Chiron at camp as a centaur and have him be one for the entire time and so to an unknowing audience there’s just a random empty wheelchair during a scene. If they weren’t going to use it, they should’ve cut that out

The scene with the Cloven Elders felt unnecessary. I get they want to explore other POVs outside Percy’s but nothing that happened in that scene felt necessary to the plot. Barely anything happens and most of what happens is explained verbally through Grover later. I wonder if the scene was cut for time but it probably should’ve been cut altogether. It didn’t add anything except a tiny bit of worldbuilding and having them go INSIDE the tree was weird and not even from the books. There’s like a whole forest inside the forest which gives me Dodona vibes which it shouldn’t

As I said before, the acting isn’t great at times. That’s fine considering I was a House of Anubis stan once (hence the icon). Acting is honestly not the most important part of a show as long as they have interesting characters with good chemistry (which they do!) but still pulled me out of it a bit. Some of the delivery was kind of dry

There were multiple times when I thought the direction could’ve been better. It wasn’t necessarily the acting (although that was part of it). For example, which Annabeth says “you drool in your sleep”. She says it very monotonously and matter of fact and just stared at him unmoving which is fine cuz I think that’s how it worked in the book but I think it might’ve worked better if she said it more petulantly and hurried away. This is very nitpicky tho and is mostly just opinion

Speaking of Annabeth, though: I wanted to see her more! I get we will see her plenty throughout the season but I love her and would’ve liked her to be introduced sooner. She meets Percy earlier in the books so she could’ve been introduced sooner. I also want to see her and Chiron interact (which we will hopefully get ep 3) so we can see that father daughter relationship. (I did like the way she was introduced though. They did that really well. I just want to see her more🥰)

A note for the next ep promo: WHY did it spoil that they were gonna be meeting Medusa??! That was supposed to be a surprise and they just gave it away in the PROMO????

One last thing cuz I’m mad. I already made a separate post about it but THALL-EE-UH???? That’s literally how I pronounced it when I first read it and was repeatedly told it was wrong and it was TALL-ee-uh so I switched my brain over and NOW you tell me I was right??? I knew some pronounciations were gonna be wrong but I was PRETTY SURE about that one

I definitely had more thoughts while watching (some that are extremely nitpicky that I’m going to force myself to ignore) but I didn’t take notes while watching and am already starting to forget details. Overall, I did love it, but I think a lot of the love came from my existing love of the series. I first read PJO 13 years ago and it was the first book series I truly fell in love with and remains my favorite to this day. A lot of feelings are my love biasing me both positively and negatively, and it makes me wonder if I would have chosen to continue watching the show if I hadn’t already had that love. Honestly, I don’t think I would. However, I do plan on continuing to watch and support and hopefully the rest of the season goes well!

[honorthysalad]

do y’all think ‘hikaru’ is better or worse at video games than Hikaru? Than Yoshiki?

[tenpixelsusie]

i forget rand basically drugged reagan. with fucking dopamine.

[hatchetverse]

Up till 4 am again. I am too old for this…..Still gotta chase that dopamine where ever u can get it

[realhumanbaby]

How can I be more disciplined? I can’t seem to make myself do the things I know i need to do in order to move forward and to be better

It goes like this: Caffeine, b12, omega 3, pomodoro, modafinil, racetams, bromantane, amphetamine, methamphetamine, psilocybin, intermittent fasting, infrared sauna, ketogenic diet, cold exposure, cbd, meditation, validation-seeking, artificial deadlines, thc, habit formation, dopamine detox, manifestation, variable interval reward, looksmaxxing, betrayal, disillusionment, poetry about death, sigil magic, learning the rules, embracing the pain, absence of fear, final boss, rewriting the rules, confession, submission, sublimation

[ajab-leher]

space movies make me tear up for some reason and i think it's because i used to think as a kid that i'd been out there and looking at just outer space related content makes me so. delirious. unreal. and it feels like a dream. man i went to a planetarium in like july or august or something and i think what i became at the end of that show is what i'd be like if i was high for real.

[sugarandcigarettes]

my safe foods !! <3.

cigarettes : as much as i love the little dopamine rush, i usually have them if im super hungry. warning, however, if you always smoke when you're hungry, a mere sniff of the smoke may start making you feel nauseous. they do remove the rumbly feels, but it's temporary.

diet coke : chic girl staple !! the bottles are so pretty and they're so effective. and soooo yum !! i love not having to worry about the calories in it, and like, even if it kills me in the future, that's bound to happen anyway so it's fine <3

black coffee with white stuff : always artificial sweeteners, don't wanna get fat silly !! i mean, crack could probably work too.

strawberries : low in calories, nice and sweet, mostly water, and you can eat a lot without feeling too guilty c: it's perfect !!

ritalin : i do in fact have ADHD, and the stimulant makes me happy c: it also kills my appetite which is great !! but it makes it super hard to enjoy meals, so that kinda sucks for when im trying to munch on something during my period :c

{{ previously strawberriesandvapes, i got t-worded :[ }}

[gamblersdoll]

Sooo first time requesting anything lol. If you see and write this, thank you ❤️

What about reader and the JJK men finding out reader ate pineapple and she kinda tastes a bit like it? (Could be fun or just smut i guess up to you)

gojo would definitely crack jokes, or probably will try it as well. but he only wants physical proof and thats by spreading your wide with a bar between your legs while mercilessly eating you.

nanami would be concerned, always wondering how scientifically that works. but he’s amazed when you do taste of the sweet fruit, hes diving for more than anything at this point.

sukuna would have a shit eating grin, babbling about how you tried to taste good for him. but surprisingly, he takes this as a opportunity to have you sit on his face.

toji would probably not notice, because you always taste like that. hes always seeing you eat some type of citrus fruit or berries, but he pays no mind to it. when you mention it, hes testing the waters, your cunny tasting the same. the problem was when he licks upwards to your ass, thats where it hits him.

hakari is taken by surprise and does not let up, looking up at you while you scream about letting you go. but it falls onto death ears.

geto is only smiling, kissing your clit and goes to fingering you instead. he cant savor it forever, but the smell and essence gives him a dopamine hit. because he also eats pineapple and tastes just like it.

choso is feral, sucking on your clit and entrance like a pacifier. thats it, thats the plot. hes a munch and knows he cant put anything flavored and artificial. but tasting what youve eaten?

[rottenpumpkin13]

Let’s reverse the question, AGSZC get stuck in a timeloop COLLECTIVELY, what’s the first thing they do?

The Nibelheim Time Loop (from hell)

Nibelheim Loop #1

Cloud: Man, I had the weirdest dream last night.

Zack: One where Sephiroth burns your village down?

Cloud: That's so creepy! How did you know?

Zack: I had the exact same dream.

*Sephiroth walks up to them*

Zack: Sephiroth, did you have any weird dreams last night?

Sephiroth: I had a dream where I turned into an infant kangaroo and was taken from my mother at birth, deprived of the comfort of her pouch, and forced to work for Shinra. Years later I discovered my mother was complicit in denying me the pouch. Seeking solace, I found an artificial pouch from a robotic alien kangaroo mother. I then rode contentedly in her pouch as she burned everything around us to keep me warm.

Zack: A simple yes would've sufficed.

-

Nibelheim Loop #5

Zack: You're living the same day over and over too, right? I'm not going crazy?

Sephiroth: Actually, I just noticed that we're in a time loop this morning.

Zack: You burned down Nibelheim four times.

Sephiroth, gaslighting him: What a touching story.

Zack: !?

-

Nibelheim Loop #8

*Nibelheim is burning*

Cloud: WHY!? WHY?? WHAT EVEN IS THE POINT ANYMORE!? WHY DO YOU KEEP DOING THIS?

Sephiroth, roasting marshmallows: Professor Hojo never let me roast marshmallows when I was a child. He claimed the sugar would provide excess dopamine, tricking my brain into thinking I could be happy and want more out of life.

Cloud: Shit man I had no idea

-

Nibelheim Loop #12

*Zack, Cloud and Genesis are holding Sephiroth down to keep him from entering the library*

Zack: QUIT IT! YOU ALREADY KNOW THE TRUTH!

Sephiroth: I YEARN.

Zack: FOR WHAT!?

Sephiroth: I YEARN.

-

Nibelheim Loop #16

*After tying Sephiroth up and sedating him*

Zack: There! Now he can't escape, and Jenova can't do mind control on him! Problem solved! No more Jenova cell people running around.

Zack:

Zack: *smells smoke*

Zack: That apple bastard.

-

Nibelheim Loop #23

Cloud: You know what!? This is a time loop! There are no consequences! I can go up to Sephiroth and kill him right now! Fuck it!

*Sephiroth walks up to him, Cloud punches his chest (nothing happens)*

Sephiroth: …..

*Cloud punches him again. He doesn't move*

Sephiroth: …..

*Cloud tries again. It's like punching a brick wall*

Sephiroth: Please stop fondling my chest.

Cloud: Oh my god.

-

Nibelheim Loop #36

Sephiroth: Am I….a human being?

Sephiroth: ….

*Sephiroth turns around*

Sephiroth: Where's Genesis?

Zack: He's not here, but he left this note. Here, let me read it—"Dear Sephiroth, I grew tired of flying from Banora to Nibelheim 35 times only to be met with disappointment, so I'm spending this loop in Costa Del Sol. Best Wishes, your friend, Genesis Rhapsodos."

Sephiroth: Wow. And he didn't even insult me this time.

Zack: "P.S.: No such luck kitty-boy you're a monster and yer mum's an alien. Get rekt."

Sephiroth:

-

Nibelheim Loop #???

*At the library*

Zack: Sephiroth! Stop!

Sephiroth: Each time I return here, my mind becomes clearer, more adept at absorbing information. This only fuels my bitterness and resentment, rather than allowing me to grow accustomed to it. I think this time I'll burn—

*Vincent appears and knocks him out with a pipe*

Zack: Woah! You got sick of the time loop too?

Vincent: What time loop?

Zack:

-

*The next day, after the time loop is broken*

Vincent: I'm glad I could be of assistance.

Cloud: Who would've thought that would end the time loop.

Vincent: Yes. It appears all Sephiroth needed was paternal discipline.

Cloud, gasping: You mean....? You're...?

Vincent: Yes. I'm Sephiroth's parent—

Cloud: !!

Vincent: —tal figure since I was in love with his real mother and his father is Professor Hojo, a role I've assigned myself purely due to the fact that I see myself as his primary caregiver during trying times, which is how an adequate father should act.

Cloud:

Vincent: Not that I would know.

[valorascult]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐫𝐤 𝐒𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 / 𝐒𝐞𝐥𝐟 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞 (𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝)

**disclaimer**

I am not against self improvement. Wanting to be the best version of yourself is your birthright. There are a lot of helpful books, ‘gurus’, articles, practices, etc; that are beneficial & have valuable information to share.

That being said, lets move forward.

Many start their ‘self improvement journey’ when they are at their lowest because that’s when you are most aware that something is ‘wrong’ - making you more vulnerable / susceptible to deception & addiction.

It usually starts by reading a book, watching a yt video, etc;. You watch / read one and then continue to consume more, because ‘maybe the next one will finally get me to where i need to be’ - not understanding that this is just another form of entertainment and procrastination.

There is satisfaction after immediately reading a self help book. You have a quick rush of ‘I’ve accomplished something’ (dopamine) - giving you the illusion of progress until you get stuck inside a cycle and realize, nothing has changed.

Sitting behind a screen is not the self improvement you think it is. Is there good knowledge shared? Yes, of course, but the real self improvement starts by actually DOING. Living life will give you more answers than binging content.

Action Faking - ‘the practice of confusing being 'busy' with making actual progress towards an intended goal and often involves a lot of over-analysing and planning, but very little meaningful action.’

Listening to someone talk about their own lives & share their own improvement stories is not going to help YOU. Gurus try to fit everyone into a mold when self improvement is not a ‘one size fits all’ & when something doesn’t work for someone after its worked for others, they usually see themselves as a ‘failure’ so they move onto the next thing that doesn’t fit them & this becomes a pattern, soon they start to build levels of guilt and shame.

Before consuming anything, you should know the specific problem you want to solve, if not, you are coming into something without a strong foundation, soon, you will start to believe there are 500 other things wrong. Don’t get sucked into a black hole.

Also, understand that many other these therapists, psychologists, content creators, etc; all thrive off of people who are at their lowest. It’s important to know when someone really wants to help vs when someone keeps wanting you to come back. The industry is worth billions.

Many have been accustomed to pacifying the silence. Always picking up the phone, turning the tv on, listening to music when there is downtime, instead of tapping into our bodies - their thoughts and feeling have now become distorted & influenced by ‘the noise’.

Fake positivity instead of facing reality is an issue within itself. These ‘positive’ messages / posts about encouragement and ‘never giving up’ convinces you that it’s ‘wrong’ to changes paths / passions in life & you then see yourself as a failure instead of a soul, growing.

With all of that being said, remove yourself from artificial motivation & start doing. I have nothing against self improvement, but I do have an issue with the addictive side of it that seems to only profit a select few.

xoxo,

valora

[wolven91]

It's the Law

"But it's illegal!" Pointed out the canid, quickly checking over his shoulder, then the other one, ears twitching and nose shuffling.  A canid, even an adolescent like Olio. Max just grinned his mischievous grin. They all but adults and about to leave education behind to pick up jobs themselves, it felt like the end of an era.

Like if they didn't start breaking the rules now, they never would later. A childhood inside the ever-present metal hull of the GC station had been both of their 'worlds' for as long as they could walk. It was pretty hard to commit crimes outside of organised crime on these things thanks to the incredible control that the GC had over these artificial worlds.

"And? You always follow the law?" Asked Max, gently rocking himself in the hammock that had been tied up between two pipes. Olio and he were currently in their 'clubhouse'. What had started as a 'den' of sorts when they were actual kids had turned into a pretty damn good place to go hide when they wanted to be assured, they weren't being spied on.

No security strips could see into their space, but that didn't stop the canid from being paranoid. Max couldn't help but feel a bit of pity for Olio. His biology compelled him, instinctually, to follow instructions and seek authority. To be the authority, or at least it's arm.

"Yes!" The canid replied, worry etched on his features. Max merely reached out and gently held Olio's oversized head before bringing him in to rest his head on top of his stomach. The canid had grown rapidly as of late; he was already so big that they had to raise Max's hammock just so the canid could talk to him without being sat on the ground. It was a bit daunting to climb out on his own, but for the most part Olio just lifted Max in and out of the hammock as and when. 

"Bah. Time to break the law then." Max declared, shrugging happily, gently scratching his nails into the skull of the canid who's eyes rolled back and upwards, his eyelids dropping down.

Max couldn't help but chuckle at the tiny pink tongue tip that appeared at the very end of Olio's muzzle.

"Hnnn... but you can just give me permission?" Olio pointed out, cracking an eyelid, although the eyeball rolled around a moment before focusing on the lounging human. Max merely shook his head.

"No. You're gonna' break the law so you can say you did. Do it, without my permission." Max retorted, "You really want to go to basic without being able to say you've pulled at the lease at least once? You know you can't lie for shit." Max grinned down at the canid.

He wasn't going away forever, Christ, he was going to be coming home every night except when mandated to stay in the barracks. But the other canids were likely able to say they stole something, or smoked or drank something they weren't allowed to.

How many canids could say that they had gotten close enough to a human to touch them, without the guardian pulling their arm off?

Olio stood up, blinking away the dopamine of scratches and shook himself, the great canid mane ruffling in the enclosed space. Max always loved how it looked like a rockstar's hairdo. Olio would love metal music if Max could ever get his hands on some.

"Alright. I'm not asking permission." Declared Olio, Max raising a single eyebrow in response, but said nothing.

A giant clawed hand rose up and approached Max's head. It hovered for a moment, before the leather pads made contact with Max's head. They stood there, frozen for a moment before Olio found the confidence to curl his fingers slightly and scratch at Max's scalp.

The human had expected it to be clumsy and painful, even by accident, but Olio's care meant that he was purely focused on actually petting Max. Eventually, the canid's hand started to gently stroke Max's hair, going with the grain before the leather pads brushed down the side of his face, touching the beginnings of a scraggly beard, grown only by the pubescent.

Max had his eyes closed before flinching as a leather thumb pad stroked along his eyebrows.

"The hell?"

"I'm stroking your fur."

"Not my eyebrows you dork."

"It's fur, isn't it?"

"No!"

"What do you mean no?!"

[graychrissy]

🌊Digital Detox + Egyptians lucid dreaming method 🌊

Idk what to put on the title of this post so I wrote digital detox and I have copy pasted the main lines.

In the ancient Egypt the Egyptians use to have lucid dreaming alot and it was extremely easy for for them not just Egyptians but it was also mention ancient Indian scriptures.

You’re probably wondering ‘what’s the secret’? The real problem is often NOT your technique. It’s actually another issue that no amount of techniques, articles, reality checks, supplements or uncomfortable masks is going to fix. It’s your ‘inner game’. Specifically, your subconscious motivation and reward circuits, and ‘dopamine cycle’. Travel in your mind for a second, to ancient Egypt.

There were no smart phones, internet connections, computer animated action movies or virtual reality headsets.

Your brain back then would have produced a healthy amount of dopamine as a reward for pretty basic things like eating, working, exploring, and taking some time to relax or meditate

Now our average attention spans are literally less than 7 SECONDS. It’s probably a lot lower than that, and It’s declining every single year with the rise of new, highly addictive and stimulating social media apps and platforms. When was the last time you meditated for over 90 minutes? Have you ever? I’m not saying you have to do that to lucid dream, but this sort of practice was very common 5000 years ago. In fact, it was weird NOT to do that. And herein lies the main problem.

Your brain is ‘fried’ with an overly stimulated dopamine pathway. Dopamine is the neurotransmitter that stimulates the feeling of WANTING to keep doing something. It’s the reason you keep scrolling through Instagram, or keep refreshing your Facebook feed to see if there are any new comments or notifications. But it’s also the SUBCONSCIOUS reason you aren’t able to lucid dream easily. In the last decade especially, there have been billions of dollars spent by big tech to essentially ‘addict you’ to their platforms. Why? Money. The more time and energy you spend on platforms like that, the more money they make. So the task has been given to artificial intelligence. The AIs often just get trained and told a few basic things: 1: Get people to spend more time on the platform 2: Get people to keep coming BACK to the platform as often as possible The ‘AI’ pays almost NO attention to what that would do to your mental health, attention span, motivation, emotions, or really anything else. Much LESS attention is paid to the effect it has on your ability to focus, or do things like, say, lucid dream. Now, the ‘dopamine cycle’ is one part of the problem, but it’s actually pretty easy to fix. There are several little pieces to what I call the ‘modern brain puzzle’. Things that just weren’t a problem 5000 years ago. You can see some of this playing out in children today. On average, children or people under the age of 15, find it MUCH easier to lucid dream than adults do. It’s because at that age, their dopamine system has not been damaged too much. This is of course changing now, as more and more children are having access to smartphones, but it’s an interesting point. In fact not only does the dopamine problem affect your ability to lucid dream, it also affects your ability to WANT to lucid dream (consciously and subconsciously). Specifically I’m talking about your motivation and focus. And you guessed it, there’s your number one cause of problems when trying to meditate, practice techniques like the WILD, or recall your dreams.

After reading this paragraph or stanza whatever,I noticed something,as a kid I had lucid dreams alot with just putting intentions.

My first lucid dream was at around 7-8 years old,and I was sinking when I realised I was dream and I tried controlling my dream and even succeeded,and I was probably there for about 10 minutes playing with underwater creatures and mermaids.

And till 7 grade I use to have alot of lucid dreams but after that I was allowed to use phone and so I was always invested in phone like all the time. By the way lucid dream was pretty normal for me and I pretty much forgot about it and never really paid attention to lucid dreaming. And then I rarely had any lucid dreams, probably 4 times ever since 8 grade and I've noticed every time I lucid dream it's always whenever I don't use any social media.

In 9 grade my phone was taken again because my mother noticed my social media addiction. And after few months I again start to lucid dream for fun easily and effortlessly but during COVID I was again allowed to have my phone and then a new laptop so now my life was revolving around social media again and for the past few year I only lucid dream whenever I don't get to use my phone more then 2 days.

Idk bout y'all but I wasn't allowed to use phones or laptop till 8th grade so the only thing I knew was TV which I only watched after coming home so like my mind was most of the te bored because I didn't had anything to keep it entertain which made it easy for me to observe around looking for things to do.

So how can you reverse the ‘dopamine problem’ and several of the other issues modern life has created? By the way: This is NOT about destroying your phone and going back to live in a cave. There are actually several powerful habits you can install, that will let you KEEP using your phone, laptop etc, but without these harmful effects. Here’s the simple solution to more lucid dreams: 1. Reverse engineer your life and remove distractions, manipulation, ‘dopamine hijacking’ and harmful blue light exposure from your daily routine (along with some other ‘problem patterns’) 2. Get inside your subconscious brain and rewire yourself to WANT to practice lucid dreaming, and to effortlessly do reality checks at the right time, without even trying 3. Learn powerful ‘all day awareness’ and ‘lucid living’ techniques that give your brain superpowers in the fight 4. On top of THAT foundation, learn the most effective techniques and concepts, use our tools to stay motivated, and experience lucid mastery within 14 days. Let’s dive a little bit deeper: First, you have to ‘reverse engineer’ the problem. This can be complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing, but we’ve laid everything out step by step for you. If dopamine addiction is part of the problem, we have to break that addiction first. Then comes your mindset, and your motivation pathways. You need to actually feel GOOD when you practice these things. I see so many people saying they’re struggling to remember to do reality checks, or they just don’t want to wake up at ‘weird times’ to practice. Don’t worry, you won’t have to. It will feel good, and you’ll ENJOY practicing these things. Next, your subconscious mind. It’s SO important to fix your internal beliefs about lucid dreaming, because the chances are you have ‘internal blocks’ about becoming lucid. They’re easy to pick up, but a bit harder to ‘unlearn’. The system shows you how to ‘unlearn’ them, and install new, powerful and self affirming beliefs into your mind. This gives your brain lots more motivation to keep trying. Now, one of the most common things I hear people say is that they can’t REMEMBER to keep doing reality checks. It’s linked to the dopamine problem we mentioned earlier, but it’s also connected to a few other psychological principles that we’ll get onto. We’ll give you a new framework to ENJOY reality checks, remember them without any annoying reminders, and actually get them to SHOW UP in your dreams, 9 out of 10 times. And then finally, we’ll build the most effective techniques, methods and concepts on top of that new, strong foundation. Of course, I’m simplifying this here, but that’s the outline.

Here are some videos that may help.

If you want to know more about it or get the steps to lucid dream you can buy the book or go through a long step to get it for free but the procedure is very long and probably only for Iphone user.

You find some good articles ways to do the 'reverse dopamine' thingy.(I donot trust my research on this topic cuz I got confuse)

You may use Adambja's tape to reprogram your subconscious and this hacking the matrix tape the comments under the video was so good and I found this tape on someone's success story. You can use this two tapes to reprogram your subconscious and of course psych-k.

This is pretty much all you need digital detox,observing your surroundings and subconscious reprogramming to change your belief or assumptions.

And this will make you even more motivated that you are working on your goals as many of us have the access of devices it's hard for us to keep up with all this method and it's not like we are always busy if we are we wouldn't be scrolling through Tumblr and Pinterest all the time. If you read the the copy pasted part you'll see what I mean.

Edit: I forgot to mention it 🥲 if we follow do this we CAN HAVE lucid dream everyday.

Egyptians lucid dreaming tea

This will be quick,so I went to my aunt's place with my mother and my aunt's ran out of tea powder/leaves so she used her daughter's blue lotus tea and after getting home I took a nap and I HAD A FOKING LUCID DREAM,so basically I didn't knew that it was the tea until I was doing some research on LD and found out that in ancient Egypt they use Blue Lotus tea and I found some review about it on YouTube and people had very vivid dreams aswell. This tea basically put you in REM which y'all probably know about.

But I don't like tea😐,so if anyone have interest you can try I honestly want to but my hate for tea is on top on the list of top 5 things I hate,you can find them online people even use Blue Lotus in vape😐not encourageling y'all to smoke but if anyone does you can.

[yaekiss]

i loved that aether fic! can you pls make him a yandere for us?

꩜ Room Content: Dom! GN! Top! Reader x Sub! Yan! Bottom! Camboy! Aether, reader's dick can be read as strap, he steals your clothes, possessiveness from Aether, lmk if I missed out anything ! ꩜ A/N: Thank you for enjoying the camboy!Aether work!! It was really interesting to brainstorm about how he would behave as a yan!camboy so I got a little carried away again hehe, hope you like the ramble ! ♡

Yandere!Camboy!Aether who’s not only a slut but a slut for you ♡ His affection for you stems from how you always secretly check in on him during your streams together. Your voice is low as you ask him if the pace is alright, if you can start moving, if the position is comfortable for him. And don’t even get him started on the aftercare. The amount of care you show him contrasted with how harshly you slam into him has his mind spinning, creating some twisted contorted lust-filled version of love that he just wants to shower you with.

It’s no doubt that he’s super sweet towards you off cam but I feel like he’d also be a bit of a pervert in this AU. Once, after a collab stream together, when you left the room to grab a drink, he leaps up at the opportunity to steal a piece of your undergarments before you return. He stashes it in a Ziploc bag he brought along specifically for this and immediately chucks it into his luggage, stored underneath some bulkier lighting or filming equipment so that you wouldn’t find it. The second he gets home, he's pressing it up to his face and inhaling your scent as he strokes himself. Aether’s probably also a yandere who would commission a dildo that matches your size so that he can fuck himself at home while crying out your name as he watches your streams. Tears well up in his eyes as he can’t seem to cum, the artificial blue light from his laptop unable to replicate the sheer warmth in your gaze every time you take him, your voice through his speakers is too crackly and nothing at all like how you would whisper and coo slyly into his ear. Poor baby :((

During collabs, Aether constantly battles with the dilemma of whether: 

1. On one hand, he wants the whole audience to see that only you could pound his brains out like this until he’s blubbering and whining out things that make no sense. No one else can make you feel as good as him, right? (In actual fact, you do stream with others apart from Aether, it’s just that he vehemently chooses not to watch them, scowling at the notification that pops up whenever you go live with someone other than him.) Every time you suck a hickey onto his skin, pure dopamine floods his mind. You’re leaving a mark on him-! Wahhh means you really do like him right? Right? Rightright? 🥹

2. He wants you to only focus on him, so no more of your pesky audience! Aether hates hates hates it when you look away from him to address your viewers. Whenever he watches you turn from him to face the camera, there’s a small ugly part of Aether that bristles as you address them so endearingly. Mind muddled with jealousy and lust and desire, he wants to scream, “Why do you need to ask them if they’re enjoying the view? Just look at me, am I not enough for you?” But he knows better than that, the both of you are streamers after all and he wouldn’t know what he’d do if you ever got mad at him for ruining a stream. What if you never want to stream with him ever again? What if you cut off all means of contact with him!? The risks are too high for Aether’s poor heart to bear so no matter how his hand itches to turn off the stupid blinking red webcam, he holds himself back and just pouts at you.

All in all, Yan!Camboy!Aether is a pathetic perv teehee :3c

Thanks for reading! Consider supporting me on kofi if you enjoyed this or check out my other works hehe ♡

[acerby]

Strategic Advantage

cw: abuse

Not too long ago, our little war was going poorly for my faction. Our enemies had a technological advantage over us, and we needed to bridge the gap somewhere. So naturally we looked at ways that we could make our soldiers far more efficient to train, and much more..... obedient.

We changed the course of this war thanks to our new breed of mech pilots. The old generation of operators were too slow and prone to distraction and disobedience. So we went for a new approach that could make anyone an effective and deadly pilot. Our teams of engineers and surgeons prep the “volunteers” for their new role, removing anything that isn't required to maximize the operation of their suit. Most limbs were replaced with basic robotic prosthetics. A good amount of the stomach is edited for more efficient digestion and to maximize nutrition intake. An artificial spine is mounted into the back and connected to the nervous system. Which allows for a better connection with the control matrix. And a good chunk of the brain is replaced with an advanced neural computer allowing for unparalleled synchronization with the mech’s A.I. systems.

But the genius of it comes from what we do to their minds. After the first few rounds of reprogramming with their new body, the pilots struggle to form their own thoughts. And in just a few weeks they are left as empty little things entirely needy and wanting for orders. Which is how we have kept them entirely obedient to their assigned handler. That and an on-command dopamine trigger doesn’t hurt either.

And this is what has given us the advantage over our enemies. It takes them years and thousands of dollars to train just one pilot. But we can create a combat-ready pilot in a matter of months and at a fraction of the cost. They don’t even have to be from the military. We have used college dropouts, political opponents, enemy sympathizers, pacifists, and a lot of prisoners. We even turned our enemy pilots into our obedient little dogs.

I’m even the handler of one. You should have seen her, she was so feisty when we captured her. She constantly went on and on about the freedom of her little colony planet. She screamed and called us vile monsters for what we were doing. She would go on these long-winded speeches about freedom and friendship. And that her comrades would save her any day now. It was so annoying that after we extracted any valuable information from her, I personally handed her over to our pilot “recruiters”.

 I much prefer her now. Quiet and obedient, I would even call her cute. She is so much more pleasant to be around. You should see the way she bounces right before she is placed into her mech. She practically vibrates with excitement and arousal. Not to mention the little moans she lets out whenever I praise her for eliminating a target. You know, It took us almost a week to clean the cockpit after she slaughtered an entire enemy battalion single-handedly. And the way she cries whenever she's taken out of what she calls her “real body”, it's adorable. I even allowed her the privilege of sleeping in it for a night after our latest successful campaign.

Why am I telling you this? Well dear, our data has told us that the two of you were friends before we took her. I wanted to tell you what happened to her before we do the same to you. Don’t worry I’m friends with your future handler and I will personally ensure you are placed in her unit. We could even schedule enrichment time for you two. See now we are not all vile monsters. 

[physalian]

There’s this unskippable Google AI ad on YouTube where this girl consults the robot about how to cancel dinner plans with the people across the table in the most annoying voice (likely because I have seen this ad now and had to listen to her asinine questions 20 times at least) and this ad, right here, speaks to my frustration around AI:

It disincentivizes critical thinking.

I know the ad is a joke and meant to be lighthearted and I’m only this annoyed because it’s unskippable and irritating af, but every time I see it all I can think is “if you can’t manage enough creativity and critical thinking to come up with your own excuse to cancel on your friends, maybe you shouldn’t have those friends.”

I have a relative who is firmly in the ChatGPT camp and, for example, yesterday I was trying to figure out how to compress a video file and was venting to them about it. They sent me back something I didn’t read from ChatGPT. Meanwhile, I looked up a YouTube video and figured out how to do the rest on my own, and getting the file compressed was immensely satisfying. Far more than mindlessly and thoughtlessly consulting the robot.

“It’s just like a YouTube video!” They’d told me.

No, a real person put time and effort into that video. That robot stole their content without their consent, didn’t credit them, and spat it back out. I used to patronizingly refer to ChatGPT as "the magic conch" and now I can barely do that anymore because that metaphor is becoming all-too real.

While I can understand the barriers it lowers—like if you struggle with writing the robot does it for you, or if you need a piece of art and are too poor, you can generate it for free. Mindless, repetitive tasks that eat up creative juices that can just be automated by a robot, too (even though everyone can tell when a response is canned and artificial and no one appreciates talking to a machine).

If you keep consulting ChatGPT for how to articulate what you want to say, or just straight-up having it do the hard work for you, you’re never going to learn. Yes it’s taken me 8 years to reach the quality and skill of writing I have but as another Tumblr post out there said: The time will pass anyway.

I can’t draw to the skill level that I’d like to. Doesn’t mean I’m not going to keep practicing until I get there. I thrive off that sense of accomplishment. There’s no little hit of dopamine from typing in a prompt and clicking a button and I certainly don’t appreciate the final product scalped without consequence from real artists.

Or, like when I had to fire a beta reader for flagrant abuse of AI in her work: I can copy-paste my manuscript into ChatGPT, too. I’d paid her for a human response, not garbage feedback that couldn’t understand what I was writing beyond that there were words on the page. I wanted so badly to ask her why she does a job in a creative field if she's just going to have a robot do all the fun parts? I beta read at a great loss of profit because I enjoy beta reading and it's a fiercely competetive market. Surely if she wanted to scam people, she could have done so in so many other ways. You don't need to know how to pen complex prose in your every day life, but by god, you do need to know how to effectively communicate, contextualize, and argue your perspective and this ridiculous ad joking about cancelling dinner plans sure is funny, until it isn't.

And I know the people who made AI probably did so with the best of intentions but people can be lazy and cheap and we love taking shortcuts to save money and I stand by this: "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

So. Yeah. This is a writing advice blog and this post has almost nothing to do with it, but that ad annoys me to no end and I had to say something somewhere about it. Bottom line: Robots were supposed to make the hard jobs, the monotonous jobs, the overcomplicated jobs, the belittling jobs easier, not make us all into pudding-boned Wall-E people. If you want to write, learning is absolutely free - write on the back of your grocery receipts for all I care. If you want to draw, pick up a notebook and pack of pencils from the local dollar store and start drawing.

What you made will always mean more to you than something that didn't cost you time, effort, brain power, or even money to obtain.

[tobiasdrake]

What's the best depiction of/metaphor for addiction you've seen in fiction?

I don't know if I'd call it the best; I have a hard time remembering all of the media I've consumed when given general questions like that. But the one that stands out most in my mind, at least, is Willow Rosenberg's four-season decline into overdependence and eventual substance abuse of magic in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

A point I really like about the way BTVS handles addiction is that it doesn't blame the substance. The message isn't, "Magic is bad for you; It makes you an addict." The problem is never magic, and we see other characters both using magic responsibly and confronting Willow for the way she uses it throughout the series.

The problem, the message that BTVS conveys through Willow's addiction plotline, is addiction. The problem with addiction is addiction. You can be addicted to all kinds of things, not just controlled substances like drugs and alcohol. Caffeine can be addictive. Sugar. Video games. Fast food. Gambling. Sex. The internet. Money. Whatever gives your brain that dopamine hit that makes life worth living, that can form an addiction.

The problem in BTVS isn't magic. It's Willow's dependency on it. The way she makes it her personality, replacing who she was before. The way she leans on it as a crutch whenever things are physically or emotionally difficult. The way it substitutes for her lack of self-esteem, validating her with an artificial confidence boost by making her feel powerful and uniquely capable.

It starts in season two, with Willow casting her very first spell in the season finale to restore Angel's soul. Giles warns her then and there that casting this spell will "open a door that you may never be able to close". She doesn't really know what that means and neither do we.

But from season three onwards as Willow begins to learn about magic, we see her constantly turning to magic whenever things get hard - against advisement from the rest of the cast. People think the addiction storyline began somewhere in season six, but it actually began in episode 03x08 "Lovers Walk".

Willow and Xander, at this point, had begun cheating on their boy/girlfriends Oz and Cordelia with each other. Willow feels intensely guilty for it. At this point, they have three options in front of them:

1 - Break up with Oz and Cordelia, and get together. 2 - Do a better job of controlling their attaction to one another and remain faithful to their partners. 3 - See if Oz and Cordelia would be up for a polycule.

Willow decides to take a fourth option: She decides unilaterally that she should cast an anti-love spell on herself and Xander to magically erase their feelings for one another. She doesn't even consult him on it; In fact, she actively lies to him to keep him from realizing what she's doing.

She's put in a difficult but relatable situation; This is her first time having to make a choice between two people she's interested in. It's a situation where she needs to figure out what she wants for herself. And her response is "I can lobotomize us with magic".

It's gonna be a bumpy ride from here. This is Willow's chief character flaw. When things are hard either physically or emotionally, she leans on magic - Whether it's appropriate or not. Something that both Giles and Tara criticize her for as the seasons progress, to which her response is to sneak around behind their backs and do spells without their knowing - Such as trying to curse Oz after their breakup or giving Dawn guidance to perform an ill-advised resurrection spell on her mom.

Again, the problem is never that she does magic. Magic is shown to be tremendously useful in making the impossible possible. The problem is that she keeps leaping to extreme gestures of magic to do what was already possible. That she uses it as an emotional crutch, as a surrogate for her own self-esteem.

Magic makes her feel powerful. It makes her feel valid. That's something she didn't have before she had magic, and something she doesn't have when she isn't using magic. So she overindulges and rides the high of being able to crinkle her nose and make party favors go up, or stab a god with knives, or make anyone she loses come back to life because she is Willow Almighty and magic has made her omnipotent.

She likes being Willow Almighty. It's an awful lot better than Willow the Put-Upon Nerd. So she lets an otherwise benign activity become her entire personality, and she is made worse because of it.