It’s all about what you ask and how do you state the question. If you ask a friend how do they like it, then they probably won’t give you anything useful. Unless by useful you find flattering and telling you’re the best. But what it’s useful for? It won’t make you best, not even good, to hear that your friends like you. You want to hear what is bad and wrong about what you just did, right? Then you can go back and maybe correct it. Or you can learn for the next time. That’s the road to becoming really good, if not the best.

So ask it that way. Don’t ask how do they like it or what do they think. Don’t ask them to be honest with you, they’ll just interpret that as a call to lie more persuasively. Ask them what they don’t like, what is bad and wrong. Ask them to be harsh and brutal! And don’t just say it. Think it, honestly. Be sure that your friend takes the message. Don’t go around all happy about the work you have done. If you have to look all negative about it, do it. Even if you have to act.

Do that when you are in the mood to destroy the piece yourself. Don’t ask for the opinions right after you have finished the piece. You’re probably tired and too attached to it. Get some sleep. Go do something else. Give your brain some chance of clearing up. You’ll have a better look on your work and will be more acceptable to the critique. There is no point of hearing what’s bad about your work while you’re still swimming in the waters of inspiration.

Exhibiting

Don’t accept any flattering and positive critique before you get the negative one. Just shook your head, cut their sentence in half and move them back to finding your weak spots. Encourage them when they start bringing up what they think is bad. Once they see you are OK with their opinion and not just asking for a bit of friendly praise, they’ll start feeling free to communicate it to you. If you disagree with what they say, keep it to yourself, don’t argue. Make a mental note, rethink it later. Maybe they are right, maybe not. But don’t ruin the moment. Even if they are wrong about something, it’s a spot worth thinking about. Have in mind that somebody else might have the same feeling about that spot. So maybe it needs a bit more working on, after all.

Take a piece of paper and write it all down. Right there, while you’re talking with a friend, not after. Mind is very capable of forgetting the things we don’t like.

After all the brutal and painful job is done, you’re free to ask about the good sides of the piece. That is not consolation time, you need that part of the critique as much as you needed the bad part. You should know what you have done good. Some of those you did because you are good in what you do, but some you have done out of pure luck or maybe because you are good at it but you’re not aware of that particular strong spot of yours. Well, you should be aware of it if you want to keep it.

Good thing is that once you have established a good relationship with your peers, it’s much easier to get a quality critique. And you’ll be better in accepting it. So, get some courage and ask for it.

I won’t start a list of bad things that this nicotine stick does and/or can do to me and the environment. Those have been said enough times to make us all deaf. But I love that kick in the brain that the first couple of inhales make. And I love the taste of it. That is, in the case of a good Dutch blend that you have to roll by yourself, and not some industrial, over-advertised, additionally poisoned shit.

But, the question remains, why do I do it? It does taste good, but the taste wears off after a while. And I know much better ways to kick my brain. Though not so available and not so repeatable. I am not going to answer the question why do I do it. If I knew that answer, I wouldn’t be in the nasty situation most of the smokers are.

No matter how intelligent and special specie we like to think we are, we, humans, are just another form of life. Just another complex set of chemical processes. Sure, our intelligence helped us finding out that inhaling the tobacco smoke does something to us. Our developed fingers help us roll the cigarette. But that’s it. The rest is just the kick in the brain. The same kind as lab rat pushing the button to receive the tasty ball of food or some other pleasant stimulus. And you know, give a good enough stimulus and the rat will jerk that button until self destruction.

Have in mind that rats are an intelligent specie too. That’s why they make a connection between the button and pleasure. Fish won’t get into that trap. Fish is protected by its own stupidity. Before you draw any conclusion, let’s say that, most probably, fish would get into any pleasant self-destructing habit, if only was smart enough to find it.

There is a story about where the idea for Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds came from. (My memory fails now so keep this on the level of urban myth.) At some areas of USA, there is a river plant that blooms every several years. Trick is that, while in bloom, this plant produces some psychedelic chemical. While birds in the area eat the plant all the time, when the plant goes blooming, birds go wild. Not as aggressive as in the movie (it’s a triller, not the educational program, after all) but disoriented, reckless and… well, you know… like birds on drugs. We’ll probably never know if they like the drug. Is it a nice surprise that mother nature put something funny in their food? Or they don’t know what’s happening but don’t like it? Hardly so. Over the centuries, they have learned what else not to eat to avoid poisoning. And, those that survive the crazy ride come again the next season. No matter how small the brain is, it’s fun to screw it.

So, here I am, lighting another cigarette. Smart enough to do it. Not smart enough not to do it. An another example of the specie that enjoys its own self-destruction.

The way our brain works while we are dreaming is significantly different from the way it works while we are awake. After waking there is a period we're going from one state to the other. Trick is to stay in that gray zone as long as we need so we can still access the dream but also write it down.

What do you need

• dream – obviously, you need something to remember. If you sleep you have dreams. Good healthy sleep is easier to deal with.
• notebook – also called dream diary. This is not a place to write or draw anything else. It is dedicated for your dreams and your dreams only. Be sure to start each dream on a new clean page. You don't want your eyes to jump on previous dream. Good idea is to have a bookmark left there before going to sleep. Keep dates but write them after you wrote the whole dream.  
• pencil – something that write easily, doesn't spill ink around and write in different positions. Not all pencils are suitable for writing in bed. Keep both notebook and pencil close to bed, so you can get them "with half of your brain" and with your eyes still closed, right after waking up.
• time after waking – dreams are written down first thing after waking, while you're not fully awake. No going to toilet, no even getting up. Not a single thought that is not connected to dream that is still floating around! Just get the pencil and start writing. Sure, waking natural is the best way, but if you have an alarm to wake you up, you'd have to set it up some ten of 15 minutes earlier. Don't stop it, press snooze so you're safe not to think about time or falling back to sleep as you do your morning ritual. 
• privacy – Both your act of writing and the contents of the dream diary are for your eyes only, forever and ever! I cannot stress this enough. If you feel like sharing your dreams with your friends, significant others or the whole world that is in the mood to read your dream blog, that's fine, but never ever allow anybody to get it directly from the notebook. That is a place where you, and your subconscious you, should be free to write whatever happened in dreams without any fears of judgement, exposing and over-intimacy. Maybe you think you would share anything and everything with somebody, but maybe your unconsciousness doesn't agree on that. In that case, unconsciousness will just stop cooperating. Beside that, writing a dream is a technique of communicating with yourself. Things that you can explain to yourself in one word could take whole paragraphs to anybody else. You don't have time to write paragraphs.And you shouldn't think how to formulate things for anybody else. 
• patience – as any other skill, this one takes a bit of time to develop. Just be persistent and patient. If you remember just an instant of the dream, write it down. If you don't remember anything, take your time and let your mind roam freely in the state of half awakeness. Don't force yourself. Just be there. Show that you are there for your dreams and they will start coming. Soon enough, you'll have trouble how to write it all down.  

How to write

Most important: don't force anything. Relax. Let the things flow inside your head, leave yourself and your thoughts aside to just write things down as they go. This is kind of passive writing. Trick is to keep your mind as close to inactive (inactive is completely wrong word here, but hopefully will give you a picture), sleeping state as possible. This is a skill that's easy to achieve. Maybe you'll have a bit of trouble in the beginning but just relax and in a week you'll know it's a fairly easy thing to do. Dreams are very fragile stuff. Once your brain gets in the active mode you've broke them.

Write as the dream unwinds in your memory. Don't think about handwriting or how the page looks. This is not a place to be tidy and well organized. If you feel like having it all pretty, take some time during the day to put the edited stuff in the other (I'll repeat: other!) notebook or to type it in the computer file. Right now you're taking notes. It doesn't need to be understandable or readable for anybody except you. If you can decypher what's written, then it's good. Don't waste your time and relaxed concentration trying to explain too much or to be formal. You are writing for yourself.

Chances are that, with a bit of practice, you'll have hard time to write as fast as the dream comes back to you. Use abbreviations. Also, dreams rarely unwind in a linear way. You'll see how your mind jumps from one scene to the other, then rewinds back to the details of the first scene or reveals the scene between those two. That's because you first recall those moments of the dream that has strong impact. As you write them, details will pop-up showing less engaging or stuff that your mind is censoring from you. Depending on what you do with your dreams, these can be even more interesting. As dreams reveal in such unlinear way, you'll probably find useful to leave empty spaces between the scenes so you can jump back when needed. Or you'll do numbering and arrows to connect dispersed pieces of text. Whatever you do, don't think about "the best way" to organize. Do whatever is convenient at the moment and carry on. What works best for you will develop as you get more practice. 

Accept it as it is. Don't think about the meaning of the dream or if it makes any sense. Dreams don't make much sense in the terms of awaken mind. Each to it's own. Let the mind think about the sense when you're up in the day, right now you're still on the border of the dreamland so behave according to that. 

We all dream weird things. We all dream things that we'd rather not or that we wouldn't confess. Well, don't confess them then. Whether it's a sex, death, emotions you're not comfortable with or whatever, just write it down. And while writing them is not the moment to judge. That's why privacy of your notebook is sacred. Dreams tend to turn things upside down. Dreams speak language that is not the daylight language and many things get different shape. Also, there are many reasons something can appear in your dream. Some things come out from our desires, some from our fears or daily stress. Some are leftovers from the previous day. 

If the strong association from daylife comes up, or meaning of  a specific detail comes to you, open a bracket and note it. Same goes for previous day's leftovers. Don't insist on these, do that only if they come up spontaneously.

Thinking about the meaning of a dream is another big no-no in the dreamland. Once you start thinking about those things you activated the brain and teared the dream. You have probably turned on the judgement of your dreams too. Leave that for later. 

Research dreams. Read books. I mean good books about dreams, not symbol dictionaries that are ultimate crap in 95%of cases. More you know about dreams easier it will be to remember them and easier it will be to cope with their content. C. G. Jung should be a good start. Have in mind that there is a difference between common theory and you, so turn on critical thinking while reading. 

Don't stop on the pleasurable scenes. Write them down and go on. Sure you'll be tempted to stop on a specific spot and get a bit more of whatever was the sweet dream while you're still in soft and warm bed. Go over it and write the rest of the dream. After a while, you'll be able to recall the scene later in the day if you want it. Just don't become a dream junkie that spends a large part of daytime rerunning own dreams. 

This should be enough to give you a good start. If you have questions, concerns and stories to share please do in the comments.

Happy dreaming! 

Recently, somebody in Google thought to be smart enough and to make us happy with the new design of iGoogle, personalized home page where Google users can access their email, news, weather, RSS feeds and whatever they feel like. What made this thingy so useful and popular was the possibility of customization: you decided what and where will show up on your own home page. Until a week ago. 

I don't want to argue if the new layout is better, prettier, more useful or not. It's mostly the matter of taste, habit and personal use. Since it's so personal it was expected that there is some "change layout" option. I mean, if I can customize all the content on the page it would be reasonable to expect that I can choose the layout that suits me, right? No.

So what can you do? You can go to your preferences page and switch to some non-US country. That way you're buying some time before they force the new design over the whole world. You can sign a petition for optional rollback of new Google design. Or join the FaceBook group against forced design changes. Or you can start spamming Google employees with ranting emails. I guess it won't take long before we see Firefox plug-in that forces old layout no matter what Google thinks of it. But all that leaves a serious question.

Layout of homepage is a thing worth kilobyte or two. It doesn't take much to offer multiple choices or page design. So, why Google is insisting on one? Why do they provoke thousands of users to send angry emails around? Have in mind that the idea of web is to separate the data and the way it's presented. Google is, for years, one that insist on that logic.Then, it is really weird thing to do to own user base? Yes, Google is really big and can afford being rude. But being rude over an insignificant and cheap feature like this could lead to really nasty consequences in the future. 

If we have to spam them and find hacks now, what shall we do when really big issues come? More and more, it looks like we won't wait long for that.

On the other side, just open some of the magazines or walk the street and see the billboards in that same Western world. Or turn on the TV. See all the girls (and some boys) in the advertisements. Is oversexualized the right word?

You might think that those that are trying to ban anything sex-related and nude from public space and those that use nudity for marketing are on the opposite sides. Wrong! At least one don’t see it that way, and is even prone to finance the other.

No matter what is your sex, gender or sexual orientation, you are going to notice breasts when they are around. And they will provoke the subconscious reaction.

Most probably, the first food you have ever taken in your life came from that direction. It doesn’t matter that you can’t remember those moments, you will never lose the feeling of pleasure from the depths of your mind. Then add the sexual dimension, be it attraction or identification, and the impact is full.

So you’re going to notice the advertisement if there are boobs or anything similar in it. It doesn’t matter that you maybe won’t pay any attention on what the advertisement wants to sell you. Your brain does a lot more work than you’re aware of. Brand and image of the product will be somewhere in your mind and, even more, it will be associated with the feelings of pleasure and attractiveness. Dirty job is done.

But if somebody around is free to show those precious parts of our bodies without commercial intent, then they are ruining the business. If there is too much nakedness around, those on billboards will not attract the precious views. So, to protect its territory, corporate world will do anything to keep the exclusivity of showing you the nipples and the rest. If that means they should finance the party that wants to ban nudes from advertisements too, they’ll go for it. It’s all about the right measure.