Disclaimer:

“Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of law” –Aleister Crowley

            Here’s a little experiment you can try in the safety of your own home. The test subject is yourself, and your instrument in this test will be your own nervous system.

            People don’t realize how much television sets and computer screens affect their consciousness. They stare for endless hours into them without so much of a thought of what it may be doing to them, being under the impression that things only affect them when they want them to, which is false.

            To prove my point, you will perform a test utilizing said screens and using a little bit of creativity, you will be able to influence the course of your own dreams.

            Begin by drawing a sigil of what you want to happen in your dream. If you want something like DEATH, write down DEATH or any other words describing what you want, and take out all the vowels. So DEATH becomes DTH. Next, take out all the repeated consonants. DTH has none, so I don’t need to do anymore reducing. What you have left is what is called a Glyph String. Using a writing too and some paper, draw out your Glyph String as a picture. Perhaps in the shape of something that goes with the theme. Continue to draw and redraw it until it no longer looks “magical”. Don’t worry if you’re a bad drafter, simplicity is best as you will need to draw it again on the computer.

            Next, take your sigil and open a paint program on your computer (I trust you have access to one). I like to use Adobe Photoshop as it has more features to it and it is quite an exacting tool, but MSPAINT or anything else will work just fine. Now, make a picture that will fit the entirety of your screen. IE: If you have the resolution set to 640x400, make a new document of 640x400 pixels, etc. Using the fill tool, make the entire thing black. Next, using the pencil, paintbrush, line tool, or whatever, recreate your sigil on the screen to the best of your ability. Again, it doesn’t matter if it looks like shit. Just so long as your intention is focused, you should be fine.

            When you are done, save the document and wait until bed time to open it using a picture viewer that enables a full screen view. Now your computer should be displaying your sigil and only your sigil. Here comes the difficult part:

            Clear your mind as best as you can. Sit up straight, Don’t Move. Stare directly into the screen and try not to move your eyes. Slight shifts are normal; just don’t let your attention become distracted by something else. Just stare into the screen for as long as possible, allowing the image to expose itself on the seeing centers of your brain.

            When you feel that you’ve stared long enough, or just feel plain tired and want to go to sleep, go ahead. Turn off the computer and go straight to bed. Don’t do anything else between looking at your sigil and going to sleep, so make sure to brush your teeth and wash your anus beforehand.

            After you wake up, try to recall everything that happened in the dream and write it down (have a pen and pad handy next to the bed). Compare the sigil and word string to the dream journal. The results should be interesting to say the least. You can repeat this experiment as much as you like, I just don’t recommend you do it EVERY night. Give yourself some time to recuperate and allow your brain to do its recharging. Remember to always keep a dream journal and never say that TV doesn’t affect you.