The Matrix Manipulation of Dreams
montalk 10/16/01
[2003: This article is outdated, needing to be corrected, updated, or removed from this site. I post it on montalk.net under the "outdated articles archive" solely as a chronicle of my learning experience over the past five years. Be advised that this article may contain faulty information, so use discernment as always. I take no responsibility for what is written here, hence this disclaimer. Visit montalk.net for current articles and updates.]
The matrix, as defined in this article, is a non-physical network or machine responsible for the wide range of metaphysical manipulation we experience from day to day. Negative synchronicities (bad luck) and emotionally draining melodramas are phenomena created by the matrix for its parasitical sustenance, keeping us emotionally, physically, and spiritually suppressed. Guarding one's internal emotional energy reservoirs and using such resources wisely is one step in protection from the matrix's insidious influence. This vigilance is coupled with constant awareness of matrix manipulation attempts, to bring such sublime acts into conscious awareness and therefore be able to create immediate defenses, repelling the invading psychic intrusions.
We may be vigilant in waking hours, but at night we fall prey to energy-marauding forces. In this lies the dilemma: what use is guarding the reservoir during the day when at night we guards fall asleep and the reservoirs are robbed? Most of us dream, and those who don't simply are not remembering their dreams. In these dreams, our sense of reality is disabled and we actively engage in the most ridiculous of melodramas exceeding in complexity and range anything the matrix can synchronistically arrange in physical reality during waking hours. Unless we continue our vigilance into sleep, we spend 1/3 of our lives in a state of naive vulnerability.
This article aims to explain the true nature of sleep and dreams, list how and why sleeping and dreaming can face external interference, and discuss ways of circumventing such interference.
Introduction
Sleep is supposed to be a multi-level regenerative function. Regeneration happens on physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual levels. Each component of sleep has unique purposes, qualities, and initiating factors associated with it. These four levels of regeneration accurately describe the true nature of sleep. Dreaming is just the conscious interpretation of what occurs at a particular level.
Physical Level
Physical regeneration is the most obvious purpose of sleep. Most modern theories adopted by materialism-based psychology and neuroscience include physical regeneration as a definite component to sleep. A lengthy period of bodily immobilization allows the unimpeded repair of tissues, restocking of physical energy resources such as carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, and the release of hormones crucial to physiological development and growth of new tissue.
Without sleep, the physical body wears out and energy levels drop. Fatigue sets in, stress hormones surge, and eventually system failure occurs with the collapse of an exhausted sleep-deprived person. When stress upon the body exceeds maintenance abilities, health declines.
One purpose of sleep then, is to allow the physical body to repair and regenerate depleted resources or damaged tissues.
Mental Level
Mental processing of sensory data involves a four stage process of sensing, buffering, processing, and storing.
Sensing happens via the 5 senses, of which sight is the most important. Data collected through the senses is sent through a memory buffer, which temporarily stores the information in short term memory. Processing involves both subconscious and conscious sorting. Subconsciously, an item of data is broken down into its archetypal and symbolic qualities. Consciously, the data item is pondered upon and reassembled into a virtual model of the mind, then sent to the memory banks. Consciousness also quickly replays it to check how effectively it has been stored in memory. Both subconscious and conscious work in tandem to tag an item and then send its linked archetypal components into the memory banks. A single data item will have several of its components in different memory locations, each of which is linked to the other.
Several things can go wrong in this process. One, information can enter the memory banks straight from the buffer and subconscious, bypassing the conscious component of the processor entirely, leading to a phenomenon better known as subliminal programming. Normally, when consciousness is part of the processing, a data item is broken down by the subconscious and reassembled as a linked set of qualities in the memory banks, comprising a virtual mental model. Without conscious processing, such data items become incomplete or nonexistent models. They still affect the memory banks and hence the operation of the mind, but not being models, they cannot be used as virtual test dummies. Such dummies are used by the mind to build "memetic antibodies" and extrapolate the behavior of a physical phenomenon the virtual model represents. Hence, without conscious processing, the mind has no model from which to build a defense against such a data item. If this unfiltered data item (or meme) is vicious, it will affect the entire mind without the permission or knowledge of the conscious.
Two, information can get stuck in the buffer. This happens when consciousness slightly acknowledges a piece of sensory data but abandons it before sorting has commenced. A practical example is looking at the image of an animal on television for a split second while flipping through the channels, and pondering on it for just a second more, then forgetting about the incident for the rest of the day. The data item, consisting of the image of the animal and all the memories and emotions evoked during that momentary second, lies stuck in the memory buffer. Through the day, such limbo-placed data items accumulate.
At night, an opportunity is presented to clear the buffer. This is done by dumping the buffer's contents into the cycle. When the buffer dumps its contents, it first sends it to the subconscious, which regurgitates it into the sensory stage of the system, which then sends it to the buffer again, then subconscious once more, and finally to the conscious for full processing and sorting into the memory banks. The subconscious not only receives data items from the buffer, but sometimes also from the memory banks. Recurring dreams due to emotional issues are one example of this.
As you can see, each of the four components can practically bypass any of the others. Various combinations of bypassing lead to various types of mental phenomena. So far we've talked about subliminal programming and dreaming.
In sum, sleep regenerates one mentally by engendering dreams, which serve the purpose of fully sorting ambiguous data items gathered throughout the day.
Emotional level
Emotional regeneration involves the replenishing of emotional energy. Let's be more accurate, because emotional energy is just one component of a broader term called loosh, which encompasses emotional energy and causal energy. Causal energy is simply another name for willpower or motivation. Loosh is the energy of focus in this article, and actually the crux of the matrix problem. The matrix is a parasitical machine sucking loosh from its victims. This amount of this metaphysical energy in a person determines his level of ambition, psychic power, and breadth of awareness. With low levels of loosh, one is sluggish, apathetic, naive, and dense.
There are various grades of loosh, corresponding to each of the human chakras. There are also various nonphysical entities who feed upon loosh, certain types of loosh depending on the soul-nature of the entity. Dark entities prefer loosh flavored with the frequencies of the lower human chakras of lust, depression, and hatred. It is these dark entities that presently operate the matrix to their advantage. If you think about it in terms of a dairy farm, the dark entities are the farmers, and the milking machines comprise the matrix.
During sleep, especially in the theta states and sometimes alpha, the chakras open widely. This is like a pit-stop, and fueling commences whereby loosh is pumped into the human through the energy ports or chakras, the source of this fuel being a higher metaphysical source. This source is either the Higher Self (if your soul is a leaf, then the Higher Self is the branch) or the Creator itself (the trunk and roots of the tree).
During the day, one often taps into this source as well during short involuntary slips into the alpha state which happen periodically. During the alpha state in waking hours, the chakras temporarily open to receive a small burst of loosh. However, such open chakras also invite other energies including entity attachments, as described in Dr. William Baldwin's research. (And on a mental level consciousness abdicates its processing ability, leaving one vulnerable to subliminal programming. When watching TV, for instance, the mind is almost always in an alpha state, creating a dangerous situation whereby the TV is a direct sensory interface into one's subconscious and memory banks, bypassing the conscious security system.)
What makes humans unique in this universe is that we can get our fuel directly from the Creator. In fact, it is loosh which fuels everything that is nonphysical. Thus, nonphysical beings depend entirely upon loosh for sustenance. In purely physics terms, loosh is a negatively entropic energy that fuels the generation of probabilistic attractors.
Dark entities, however, meaning demonic entities or those associated with evil and negativity, do not have access to the Creator for energy. This is either because they are intrinsically unlike humans and are artificial nonphysical beings called thoughtforms, or else are beings who have chosen to disconnect from the Creator by following the dark path. Thus, they are reduced to parasitism, feeding off each other and especially humans for their energy.
To recap, sleep on an emotional level serves to replenish emotional reserves by opening up one's chakras for reception of loosh from a higher metaphysical source.
Spiritual Level
Lastly, a curious phenomenon happens in sleep whereby one's mind can leave the body and travel to alternate realities or higher levels of this reality, known as the astral planes. According to Robert Monroe, who's done a lot of hands-on research into astral travel, during sleep we visit the astral planes, and can attend a 'metaphysical school' there where we get lessons and advice about our current life. We absorb this knowledge symbolically on a subconscious level, and after waking the next day our actions are guided by these subconscious impulses to follow the lessons we learned. Don't pass judgment on this seemingly ludicrous idea until you've read Robert Monroe's Far Journeys. Unfortunately, our memory banks are part of the physical and etheric brain, and during these excursions into the astral planes the experiences are not recorded into the brain's memory banks. Only by applying one's metaphysical memory (which is very difficult to do) and dumping its experiences into the brain's memory at the moment of arrival back in the body can such experiences be permanently remembered. Most of us lead two lives, one in which we are metaphysical beings running around the astral planes with full knowledge of who we really are, and the other where we are in this physical body, limited by physicality and a physical brain with no memories of our astral trips.
This ties nicely into the work of Robert Bruce, who's book Astral Dynamics is an excellent work on the subject. He came up with the concept of a mind-split, meaning we share several parallel tracks of consciousness. During sleep, these tracks separate and each does its own thing. So it's possible for your physical consciousness and sensory system to dream, while the other part of you is seeking counsel in the astral realms. All tracks are linked via the subconscious, in my opinion, and during dreams symbols can filter in from the part of oneself that is in the astral planes, reinterpreted by the dreaming consciousness as a particular dream event, item, or person. Hence, while dreams may serve the function of clearing the mental buffer, it can also be a stage for metaphysical messages.
Sleep on a spiritual level allows departure of one's astral body and associated consciousness for exploratory and enlightening trips into the astral planes.
Sleep Interference: Physical
To sleep, certain neurochemical processes must first take place. Interfering with these chemicals consequently interferes with one's ability to sleep. Melatonin is a hormone released by the pineal gland during night time which promotes sleepiness, and disrupting melatonin production is just one way that sleep can be prevented. There are many things which can inhibit melatonin production. The most natural is sunlight, which tells the pineal gland to reduce melatonin levels. At the onset of darkness, however, the pineal gland resumes melatonin production. More insidious ways of suppressing production involve chemicals and extremely low frequency electromagnetic waves. Fluoride is a substance that accumulates in the pineal gland after being swallowed through fluoridated water. Fluoride essentially crystallizes and hardens the pineal gland, disabling it of proper melatonin producing abilities. ELF radiation can have adverse effects on the pineal gland as well, depending on the frequency of radiation. According to one source, 60 Hz is most effective at affecting the gland and suppressing melatonin production. This frequency is the frequency of standard US electrical current. This means electrical appliances in your bedroom relying upon AC electricity radiate ELF waves which interfere with your pineal gland, reducing your levels of melatonin and contributing to insomnia.
Insomnia and other forms of sleep deprivation have incredibly deleterious effects on a human. It affects all four levels of sleep, physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. Without adequate sleep, the body cannot regenerate effectively, leading to fatigue and eventual disease. The mind cannot sort buffered data accurately, leading to learning deficiencies and mental cloudiness. Emotional levels are drained, and loosh supplies low, meaning one has little willpower of passion, causing apathy. Finally, without proper spiritual guidance, a sleep deprived person can get mired in the stress of physical reality and fall prey to depression.
Sleep itself is only a quantity, and it's quality that counts. Ten hours of poor sleep in which the emotional and spiritual functions are disabled might regenerate the body, but mental and spiritual health is in disastrous condition. All four components must regenerate for good health.
It is the goal of those implementing these methods of interference to keep you physically alive, but spiritually dead. It is their goal to make you a walking zombie to do their bidding without questions, vote for their politicians, watch their television shows and attend their schools. To these people, you are a natural resource, and as long as you have no freewill or initiative, you remain a liquid and pliable resource that's easy to handle and consume. A sedated population complies with draconian laws and does not question corrupt governmental practices. In fact, fluoride is known to numb the rebellious and critical part of one's mind, making one more compliant to authority. These authorities have a vested interest in keeping you stuck in a physical reality, which is a prison to your mind which has been weakened through sleep deprivation. Freeing yourself from interference must include physical measures, such as reducing electromagnetic pollution in your home and avoiding the consumption of fluoride and other dangerous substances such as aluminum, lead, and mercury.
There are fancy ways of messing with one's sleep. Besides the 60 Hz ELF, there are more direct means using microwaves, radio waves, ELF waves and information encoded in the scalar component of such waves to directly affect a person's quality of sleep.
Physical interference, however, is merely one half of the problem.
Sleep Interference: Metaphysical
And now we arrive at the most insidious and important topic of this article, the metaphysical manipulation of one's dreams by the matrix. As stated before, the matrix has two goals: tap your supply of loosh and thwart your efforts to escape its grasp by creating negative synchronicity for you.
The first goal, tapping your loosh supply, happens in the waking state by the induction of frustration and stress within you. This is done in several ways. First, it can harass you within the bounds of Murphy's Law and make things go wrong at just the right moments. It's not a matter of breaking the laws of physics, but just making the improbably probable, something anything conscious can do. You may be on your way to finishing up a project or plan, and an accident or computer glitch occurs which disrupts it, blocking you from progressing. Since it's mere harassment, the matrix lets you get on with your plans a while later, but not before asserting itself as the dominant and disruptive force in your life at that moment. The matrix and its controllers are very egotistical, cocky, and cunning. Second, it can manipulate people around you (who aren't aware of the matrix phenomenon) and make them act unusually aggressive, emotional, or annoying. These people in an altered state of emotion and mind are sent your way, to keep you busy or else immerse you in their artificially induced melodramas. These people don't know what's going on and actually think they are in control of themselves, but their shallow level of awareness hides a puppet master deep beneath the surface. The stress and emotional drain you experience as a consequence is really the matrix tapping your loosh supply. Third, the matrix can induce grand synchronicities in your life which involve many people and stem from their actions taken quite a while ago. Such synchronicities can be used either to drain your loosh, disrupt your plans, or both. For example, you may be involved in an improbable car accident, which couldn't have transpired without key twists of fate having happened in the past which brought the involved parties together in that final collision. This suggests the ability of the matrix (or its controllers) to be able to manipulate the past to recreate the present to their desires. As suggested in my other article "Synchronicity and Reality Manipulation," emotional energy is needed as a cleaving force into the past to alter it, explaining another reason why the matrix and its controllers seek our loosh.
As clever as the matrix is, however, physical reality provides some limitations since the characters involved in synchronicities have freewill to a certain extent. This means the matrix is limited in what synchronicities it can arrange, and the complexity of those synchronicities. Also, a person such as yourself can insulate against the emotional manipulations of the matrix by just being observant of your reaction to such artificial melodramas, choosing not to get emotional about it and therefore denying the matrix of its expected loosh harvest.
All these problems are nonexistent during the dream state. First, dream characters have no freewill since they are just phantasmagorical figments of one's sleeping mind. Second, dreams are not bound by the laws of physical reality. Third, your "reality check" sensor, associated with the temporal lobe, is usually disabled in dream mode. This is why you can have the most bizarre dream and not question your "reality." Several times have I tried to rationally explain away such bizarre phenomena while dreaming, coming up with all kinds of solutions except for the one that really explained it all: that I was dreaming. It is this reality sensor that when disabled also disables your defenses against the matrix. Because it disables your conscious processor, such dreams can engage in direct subliminal programming. While some dream characters and events may be projections from your subconscious, other characters and events may be artificially introduced by the matrix to program your subconscious, and to do in dream what it can't do in physical reality: the perfect and efficient milking of one's loosh.
Dreams which are matrix-induced scripts designed to tap your loosh, tax almost every metaphysical component of yourself. It taxes your mental component by giving it baroque problems to ponder upon senselessly and self-circularly and taxes your emotional component by setting up ridiculous soap operas in dreams that you naively engage in. It cannot do anything to your spiritual self because that part lies outside the domain and jurisdiction of the matrix. [portion of this text concerning melatonin removed for review and correction [click here] ]
During sleep, your chakras open and you receive a steady loosh supply from a higher source. Simultaneously, the matrix engages in dream manipulation to drain off much of this incoming loosh supply. It is because of this that even with 8 hours of sleep, we still suffer at some level from sleep deprivation. While you may feel fine physically, the emotional, mental, and spiritual problems will eventually surface. Some people have forgotten what it's like to be truly awake, and thus take their level of zombification as the norm, thinking they're fine with 5, 6, or 7 hours of sleep. And yet their sleep deprivation, or at least poor quality sleep, is responsible for their naive nature, knowing or sensing nothing wrong with the establishment or reality. If that level of sleeping slavery is the norm to them, then along with everyone else who's a walking zombie, they're living a false utopia.
We only need as much sleep as the body requires for rest and regeneration. This is around 3-4 hours per night. Under ideal conditions, the mental, spiritual, and emotional regeneration happens in less time, probably around 1.5 hours. The reason we sleep two to three times longer than we need under ideal conditions is that our conditions are far from ideal. We have chemical, electromagnetic, and metaphysical interference, draining our physical, mental, and emotional energies. All that extra time sleeping is spent gathering up what little loosh we have left by the time we wake up. Often, the matrix tries extra hard to give us disturbing dreams in the last hour before waking, or else subliminally program us all night long, so that we have a negative mindset the day to follow which aids in the matrix's further induction of synchronicities and loosh-harvestings.
Defense Against Matrix Dream Manipulation
The only way to defend yourself during sleep against matrix manipulation is to become as aware in the dream state as you are during waking hours. This is called lucid dreaming.
Lucid dreaming is one of the best skills you can learn in life. Aside from all this matrix stuff, it opens up a whole new world for you. Lucid dreaming simply means knowing while dreaming that you are dreaming, and taking advantage of the fact. At present, most lucid dreaming sites on the net focus on lucid dreaming only for its value as entertainment of personal growth, and some of the more esoteric sites suggest its applicability in being a launchpad for astral projection, something I can confirm from personal experience.
But my main point here is that lucid dreaming can also be a defensive tool. By being aware during the dream state that your dream might be a source of manipulation, you can emotionally disengage from artificially melodramatic scenes. Also, since the dream is for the most part a projection of your own mind, you can learn to take control of it. You're essentially wrestling away the remote control from the matrix and choosing what you want to watch. No more soap operas, if you choose so.
Learning to lucid dream, and using it as a defensive tool will allow you to get by with less sleep and without negative consequences. There is only one caveat to all this: learning to lucid dream is not easy. The techniques are easy, but perseverance and patience is not. There are many sites on the net giving tips on how to lucid dream, but I'll recap the basics here:
1) First you must be able to recall your dreams. If you don't dream, you're just not remembering it. So keep a journal or tape recorder by your bed, and as soon as you wake from a dream, no matter how tired you are, you must write down keywords or phrases describing your dream. Keep this up for a couple days or weeks and you'll start remembering your dreams more easily.
2) Once you can recall your dreams, you must work on reminding yourself while dreaming to ask yourself if you are dreaming. The only thing that usually survives the transition from waking to dreaming is your lower self, that ingrained with habit. So if you can build a habit of asking yourself throughout the day if you're dreaming or not, then during dream state you'll have a habit of asking yourself as well. Other than habit, you can watch for common dream signs, meaning elements in your dreams that often appear in your dreams but not so much in waking reality. This may be anything, like a person, an animal, color, element, etc... Analyze your dreams or your dream journal for common dream signs. Then throughout the day, when you encounter such a sign in reality, ask yourself if you are dreaming. Keep this up until it's automatic, and soon you'll do it in dreams. In addition to this, while going to sleep you can will yourself to become lucid later on, just like you would on an ordinary day where you can will yourself to remember to keep an appointment. All these techniques take time to work, but usually no more than two weeks. Doing reality checks throughout the day seems easy, but after a couple days it's easy to slack. Don't allow this to happen, just keep it up and think of the rewards.
3) After asking yourself if you're dreaming, you must do a reality check. No matter how real things look, it might all be a dream unless you check things with certain tests. The best test is to look down at your hands and watch them. Count your fingers, make sure they have the right number of joints, make sure they look normal. Watch them, and if the change shape or have anything odd about them, then you're dreaming of course. Another thing to do is read something in a dream, look away, and read it again. If it changes or the characters look funny, then you're dreaming. Be sure to read something long, because once I read a two word phrase, looked away, looked back and read the same thing, and concluded I wasn't dreaming even though I was.
4) Once realizing that you're dreaming, you'll probably get hysterical with the freedom, which will just as soon end your dream. Staying calm is not easy, but take a breath calmly and start walking around, looking at things. If your dream starts to fade, use the spin technique. Just spin around with your arms out three times, and tell yourself with each spin that when you stop spinning, you'll be in a dream. You'll actually feel yourself spin and sometimes get the sensation of dizziness. Stop spinning after three times and look around. You'll think you're awake in all likelihood, but do a reality check to prove to yourself that you're not. Then enjoy your lucid dream.
5) In a lucid dream, you have control of characters and the environment, as well as control over the laws of physics in the dreams. If you ever encounter a situation where neither the world nor the characters respond to your attempts to change it, then you're probably out of your body and in an astral world. Be respectful of the people. If you don't want to engage in their interactions, then just leave.
Now, you'll encounter a curious phenomenon sometimes. After becoming lucid, you might realize that you knew it all along, that it was a dream but that you simply didn't want to admit it to yourself. This, however, is deception. There is an external force trying to keep you from admitting and realizing that you're dreaming. This force is the matrix, or even a part of your mind that as Carlos Castaneda describes in his books, is a predator which may or may not be synonymous with the matrix or its controllers.
It is this "predator" in the mind that keeps your reality switch turned off during the dream state. Learning to lucid dream means overcoming the will of the predator, and if you don't succeed in lucid dreaming after trying for a couple weeks, don't despair. Give it a rest and try it again the next week. Perseverance is all you need.
Conclusion
In any case, lucid dreaming can be used as a defensive tool against the matrix. This, along with being lucid while awake as well, implying guarding against emotional manipulation in physical reality, will prevent much of your loosh supply from being drained away by malevolent sources. There is still a problem of loosh leakage and soul loss caused by emotional traumas experienced during the course of one's life, which only shamanic soul retrieval, self-hypnotic soul retrieval, or shamanic recapitulation can thoroughly heal.
Nevertheless, one must start somewhere. Sleep is the fountain of youth, but this fountain has been dried by the voracious suckling of a loosh-hungry matrix. Lucid dreaming is the only way known to me that helps to prevent matrix dream manipulation. By insulating our dreams against manipulation, we gain energy and require less sleep, allowing us to accomplish our goals more efficiently, quickly, effectively, and with more lucidity.
Notes: [return] As stated in this article, there are numerous environmental factors interfering with sleep and natural melatonin production in the brain. Chemical factors include toxins in food, water, and air that mimic hormones or else suppress them. Electromagnetic factors include 60 Hz EM radiation (which directly affects the pineal gland, as stated on trufax.org) and lower ELF frequencies (high alpha and beta) which keep one from easily slipping into delta waves required for deep sleep. It is during deep sleep that the majority of our spiritual regeneration takes place. While some regeneration does occur during the alpha state when the etheric body's energy ports expand to receive low-quality energy from the environment, only during deep sleep or deep meditation are high quality energy and additional tune-ups and "defragmentations" received. Other factors involve artificial lighting beyond sunset, which is the most "mainstream" explanation for what is interfering with sleep cycles.
Melatonin itself is a hormone that helps switch one's consciousness from daily awareness into metaphysical awareness. It aids in detaching consciousness from the physical senses and gives it access to more metaphysical ones. The process of dreaming begins when consciousness "implodes" and creates its own virtual reality, a launchpad from which portions of consciousness can do their job (dream, regenerate, and mediate). Melatonin, in addition to helping the implosion process (which accompanies the process of detachment from physical senses) also aids in opening up one's access to metaphysical resources, such as those most thoroughly accessed during deep sleep or meditation. Thus, adequate melatonin levels are required for good psychic/metaphysical health.
Needless to say, many people's pineal glands produce lower than necessary levels of melatonin. Levels can be so low, in fact, that ability to sleep is affected, not just psychic quality. If you have trouble going to sleep and trouble waking up in the morning according to your required schedule (such as school or work), then you probably have melatonin deficiencies. The author, without melatonin supplements, prefers going to bed at 4:30 AM and waking up at 1 PM, for example. Unlike other types of substances which induce sleep (like common over-the-counter drugs or prescribed ones), only melatonin supplements additionally provide for the psychic or metaphysical component of sleep. This is because melatonin, as consumed in pill form, is identical to melatonin as produced by the pineal gland ... OTC drugs induce physical sleepiness but since they do not replicate what makes us naturally sleepy and stay asleep, they are imperfect and even harmful.
Once melatonin levels have been supplemented to a minimum level, physical sleep will become easier. Any additional melatonin will aid in the metaphysical function of sleep. Thus, the benefits of taking melatonin supplements is not only to fix one's sleep cycle, but also to increase the metaphysical quality of sleep, which will have a corresponding impact on one's daily mental, physical, and spiritual health.
Commonly reported side-effects of melatonin include dizziness, grogginess, vivid dreams and nightmares. According to some sources long term effects may include depression, but this is not conclusive and requires more research. Concerning nightmares, it appears that disturbing dreams are a temporary phase, only affecting some melatonin users. According to one study, 10% of melatonin users reported nightmares. This temporary side-effect could have several possible reasons, but all involve what has been termed a type of "ascension." This is simply due to the opening of higher perceptions, induced by increased melatonin levels. Some melatonin-associated nightmares might simply be the processing of previously buried psychological issues (inaccessible by a brain deficient of melatonin). Other nightmares may be distractions by either resistant aspects of one's own consciousness which prefer a dumbed-down existence, or distractions by negative astral entities (as occurs to some astral projectors during the initial take-off). If this temporary phase is seen as a type of initiation process, it shouldn't be of much worry to you. Nightmares also present one an opportunity to practice lucid dreaming, so take advantage of them. In lucid dreaming, confronting a nightmarish character will often reveal something far less frightening, which may be a more literal source of the buried psychological issue which symbolically manifested itself as the scary figure. While such dreams do generate loosh, you have plenty to spare...in this case, "no pain, no gain" does apply. Expending loosh without a return benefit of increased awareness or movement toward positive evolution is what we are trying to avoid.
Amounts of melatonin to take must be determined by the individual. More importantly, however, is the quality of melatonin. As stated on most sites, avoid melatonin that is derived from animal brains...these may be contaminated with prions. While most bottles will not indicate that their source includes animal (or other!) brains, those that have a special brand name for their type of melatonin (such as "melapure" by Natrol brand, available at Wal-Mart) and are not the cheapest one's on the shelf are pretty good. Another possible problem with some melatonin supplements is that their active ingredient may not be purely melatonin...they may contain other sleepiness-inducing additives which are cheaper to produce. Once again, avoid the cheapest kind.
While there is no known toxicity level for melatonin, three milligrams is usually a bit much for most. Results for them will be a groggy feeling in the morning. If you can spare the time in the morning to sleep in, then do so with a full dose. Otherwise, experiment with half pills, quarter pills, etc... until you can get to sleep easily and wake up refreshed after reasonable amount of hours (taking melatonin won't allow you to cram eight hours of non-lucid sleep into four, though you will feel better after 8 hours with melatonin supplement than without).Some have expressed a concern that taking melatonin pills continuously will weaken the body's ability to produce its own melatonin as it would become dependent on the pills. Considering, however, that the body's ability to produce the hormone is already impaired by environmental factors, without the supplements the body has no chance of getting back to its "natural" production levels anyway. It is unlikely that the pineal gland will give up its own melatonin-functions, since from the fact that melatonin has been taken -- without proportionate side-effects -- in doses thousands of times larger than what the body naturally produces, perhaps "you can't have too much melatonin" would mean the pineal gland doesn't have to lower its output to accommodate the supplement. Thus, taking one pill a night can be done indefinitely without harm. The author began taking melatonin supplements in November 1998 and has continued to do so since, with various intermediate non-supplemented periods for experimental purposes. No lingering alteration of the author's "natural" sleep cycle has occurred.
There exist many arguments for and against the use of melatonin supplements; you are advised to do your own research on the matter and weigh the evidence with awareness of possible bias of its sources.
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