Dreaming that things are assigned to me

I am spending too much time programming these days, so I dream that things are assigned to me, that I am product of the stimuli I am exposed to :

I also dream that I invoke memories like functions :

It really is awful. However, it makes me realize that I may benefit from changing my environment, try and play with it, to see how my feelings may vary, positively.

There are two things I can do, one or the other, or both. First thing is “Begin!”, that is, start working on something new. The other is to “Go without x for y days”.

I remember from doing The Artist’s Way a couple of years back (on my own and up to week 4, I think) that there’s a week in there where you have to go without reading. Seven days where you can only read what is necessary to NOT loose your job. That involves not going online if you can help it (reading blogs, and emails from friends), and Julia Cameron I think goes so far as recommending against reading ingredients on boxes if you can avoid it. Seems silly ? Well, no. It is very ingenious. Surprisingly difficult, yet in theory it is a very possible thing to do for seven days. The idea is that when you cut something off, you give room for something else to emerge. You create a variation in what you are exposed to, hence increasing the chances for new experiences.

In The Creative Habit (a most excellent read) by choreographer Twyla Tharp, one of the exercises is to go on a diet of anything — except food. Here are suggestions she offers on what we can do without for a week, to which items I added my suggestions and comments :

• Mirrors : go a week without looking in mirrors. “See what happens to your sense of self.”
• Clocks : “stop relying on timepieces to gauge the passing of time.”
• Newspapers (print and online ones, and the news on TV) : “don’t make it a permanent diet, it breeds ignorance”, she adds.
• Speaking : wow, imagine that. Like in Bergman’s film Persona.
• Telephone.
• Computer.
• Just the Internet.
• Reading.
• Your car : imagine taking the bus for a week, not for ecological reasons : just to experience something different.
• The television. I have been doing without for close to 4 years now. Yeah!
• Talking to your mother.

The goal here is not to restrict yourself but to change your stimuli.

If you are anything like me, one week may be too long. (Here I go, making it easier for myself.) Try a two-days diet of only one thing. And don’t flog yourself if you fail. But do write it down. I, ____, am going on a diet of ____ starting now, and ending on ____ at ____ (am/pm). And put that on the fridge.

Also I recommend once in a while to respect your own non-religious shabbat : enforce do-nothing days. Especially when you feel guilty about not doing enough. Often that will motivate you to do more. Reversed psychology.