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Weekly Update 2020-1 (Personal)

5 years ago - Edited 5 years ago1,854 words

I'm thinking of writing posts here on a weekly schedule; "Weekly Updates", like I used to do a billion years ago. I'll post two at a time, one personal, one about that week's development progress. Here's this week's personal one, where I wonder whether my too-frequent tiredness is due to my pineal gland being cut out, and whether that'll interfere with my ability to have lucid dreams... There's also a bit about politics, because that's always a good idea!

I already posted yesterday and I am also posting this day as well, gasp!!! These posts seem to be getting less attention lately, I think? It could be the Christmas/New Year period, or maybe people are just losing interest and I've made no efforts to draw new attention to me. Oh well; that's one of my goals for this year anyway. If you're one of the few people who checks posts on this thing though, hello!! Yes, that is my message of appreciation for you. Hello.

As I write this, I'm cripplingly tired, as I often have been for an annoyingly long time now (edit: thankfully it's worn off in the 20 straight hours or whatever I've been unblinkingly writing this for). I've been trying various things to address this issue, most importantly planning a daily timetable for myself based around when I seem to be naturally inclined to do certain things. I've got one those one now which I think should work... but it falls apart when I feel debilitated by fatigue in the middle of the day. I've tried napping during the middle of the day, essentially attempting a biphasic sleep cycle, but it just usually ends up making me overly alert at night. I'm probably not sleeping enough in general, but a big part of that is because I often randomly wake up during the night, then I lie awake for like an hour trying to drift off. I'm tired at all the wrong times.

I mean, I suppose I'm glad I can sleep at all, since I couldn't for a week following the brain surgery. I suspect my sleep issues are because of that surgery, though; I literally no longer have a pineal gland (probably; the brain surgeon who literally poked and cut around that area said there was no way to be sure because it's so small and is indistinguishable from the tumour mass). The function of the pineal gland is poorly understood, according to a bunch of articles that come up when you research it, but it seems to play a role in regulating the circadian rhythm by secreting melatonin. You can get melatonin supplements, so if my issue was that my brain wasn't producing any, then perhaps taking some pills to give it some might solve the issue. The potential side effects of those supplements sound exactly like the symptoms I already have, though, so maybe it's not as simple as that.

I'll be having another check-up at the BRAIN HOSPITAL in a week. Sort of. Usually I'd have a scan and a doctor's appointment on the same day, but my doctor/oncologist retired and I've been assigned to a new one I've not yet met who insists on doing them a week apart... so that means I have to go tomorrow and next week. Annoying, especially since it takes an hour to get there and another to get back, plus all the waiting and the scan/meeting time, so I won't be able to get any work done during that period. The impending diagnosis will also be hanging over me all week. What if the tumour's starting to grow back, as the literature suggests it's likely to do?? Ugh. I'll be sure to talk about this fatigue with the new doctor when I have the chance, though. It's really getting in the way.

I've also been trying to get into lucid dreaming and similar things recently, since they're amazing experiences and I'd like to be able to have them more regularly, which you can do with practice. And they're very much related to the story I'm hoping to tell with this game I'm making. I've been familiarising myself with all the techniques like "WILD" and "WBTB" and keeping a dream journal to improve my dream recall.

What I'm wondering though is whether I actually can have lucid dreams considering the particular type of brain damage that I have. This was a big concern I had before the surgery, and I'm sure I've talked about it here before. I do seem to still have normal dreams, though - I've been able to add to my dream journal every day for the three days I've been using it so far - but perhaps there are other neurological processes involved in those more mystical experiences that I'm now locked out of? I intend to keep attempting it to find out.

Some researchers have suggested that the pineal gland secretes DMT, and that's what's responsible for mystical experiences. But it's contested, with another researcher saying that the amount of DMT required to be immediately produced and secreted to create those experiences would be like a solo indie games developer producing a full JRPG in a day. Those are the exact words that this researcher used. You have to believe me.

Speaking of which, I've made some significant progress on what I'll likely be calling Divine Dreams during these first few days of the year! I was going to talk about that in a second half of this post... but since I imagine more people will care about that than my broken brain (I am wounded by the thought, truly I am! O woe, what a world!), I'll split it into two separate posts, I SUPPOSE.



If I'm doing that, here's some more about my highly exciting life: I've already made some baby-steps progress on my 2020 goals. I've been browsing Reddit for the past year or more, but I never got the mobile app or even had an account, so I've got both of those now and I've joined a bunch of communities relevant to indie games (and lucid dreaming). It's a tiny, petty little thing that most people can do without stupid avoidance issues interfering, but for me just looking at these things from rivals! feels like some small progress. I notice that a lot of other developers in a similar position to me post their progress pictures/gifs which aren't too different to what I've been posting (not infrequently) on Twitter lately, so maybe eventually I'll be able to start doing the same, only to end up being ignored and/or breaking some written or unwritten rule out of naivete, or saying some horrible thing that'll have terrible consequences like expressing something other than revulsion towards Jordan Peterson.

...I say, since YouTube randomly recommended me this video yesterday:



It's five minutes of him talking as a psychologist - it is his profession, after all - about how high creativity is a rare curse rather than a wholly desirable trait shared by all, no contentious political views involved, and I tweeted about it because what he's saying is essentially my experience at the moment, and it's nice to hear it in someone else's words. Having high creativity/openness leads to feelings of failing to fulfill your purpose if it's not pursued - I don't think I could do anything other than make things - but it's tough to monetise it, though it can be extremely profitable in the rare cases that it does succeed. It's a high-risk, high-reward strategy. He sensibly recommends getting a job to pay the bills and indulging creativity on the side, but pfft! I'm either going to make this stupid path work, or die trying!!!! I'm in my flimsy rocket on a one-way trip to the moon!!!!!

I've been wondering a lot about tweeting that though, since (unsurprisingly) it got even less attention than my barely-noticed tweets usually do, and I wondered whether that's because it's a link to a youtube video few people would be inclined to click, or because just the name of the speaker would fill people's minds with negative associations and they would think less of me - or put me in certain categories - because I mentioned him. And that sets off a train of thought about how it's a shame that we can miss out on valuable bits of information if our mental belief structures prevent us from listening to them in the first place. A shame!

I don't really want to get into politics again since I freely admit I'm both ignorant about and largely uninterested in it, but there was an election recently, and my step-dad convinced me to go and vote with him, so I did a little bit of research first. I found this thing called the ∞ 'political compass' ∞, which you may have heard of, and got ∞ this result ∞. I got the impression when Jordan Peterson etc came up months ago that some people probably assumed I was some alt-right Nazi or something for finding value in anything he said, and I'd been assuming I was somewhere more in the middle myself, but apparently I'm very far to the left, closer to Gandhi than any of the other example political figures. I don't care about politics, but I don't like people getting hurt, or perceiving people in terms of their group identities rather than as individuals, so all my values come from that. I can't stand the idea of 'cancelling' or 'shutting down' someone for something they've done, or for holding views I disagree with; I'd rather listen to them and understand why they think or behave the way they do. I wish we as a race were more forgiving and less judgemental. It's a naive attitude to have though, not really compatible with success in the world, sadly.

Finally, I'm aiming to spend a couple of hours a day playing indie games, and while some of you have already suggested some, I'm open to more suggestions! I didn't play one today because I wasn't sure what to start with. (I chose GRIS largely because it was a lone suggestion that made the decision easy for me.)



As I said in the intro, I'm planning to post here in the form of 'Weekly Updates', like I used to on Fig Hunter back when we weren't all constantly attached to our smartphones (so strange how recent that was). I'll do them in pairs, so each day - probably a Sunday - I'll have a personal ("Taming the Mind") post like this, and a progress report for the MARDEK Reimagining/Divine Dreams. Probably. Let's see how it goes! (I'm expecting the development ones to get many more views than these personal ones, but it helps to write them out.)

If I play indie games though, I'll also write a post about them when I finish, like yesterday's GRIS one, apart from that schedule.