I discovered this completely by accident, and technically speaking, when I say "discovered" I really mean "stumbled upon" something already known by doctors, but not really known by the general public.
"Vivid dreams" are a known side effect, but goddamn, that's an understatement.
And the culprite? Nicotine Patches. Yep. Good old nicotine patches.
I've been trying and succeeding to quit smoking, and to help me I bought a pack of the strongest patches I could find.
So I put one on. On the first day of my campaign, all goes well...
...until, that is, I finally go to sleep.
Then I get assaulted by the most intense and vivid dreams and nightmares I've ever experienced. It's now been a week on the patches, and every single night I've had the most mindblowing and bizarre dreams of my life.
I've kept a dream-journal for about ten years now, and I've often had long, vivid and coherent dreams worthy (to my mind) of being recorded.
But this shit takes it to the next level. Some of the dreams are so totally bizarre that it was almost impossible to record what happens.
About three nights ago I dreamed that seven evil "time-wizards", each with a form of "time magic" and accompanied by massive un-reality clocks (one with a huge chainsaw-pendulum, another flanked by reality-severing spinning sun-dials) were fighting seven champions, and "transforming" (transformers cgi style) the reality around them into bladed gauntlet gateways into hell. The good warriors tricked the evil wizards by training to run through "blade" reality and avoided dying until the ultimate doom clock struck 11:00 and all the magic in the world ended, the heros were thrown into a single group running through the blade reality, knowing they would die, until I woke up.
Yesterday I read this (Warhammer 40k Nerd-Alert!):
"In the end, Horus was defeated by the Emperor, and the bulk of the Traitor Legions retreated into the Eye of Terror. Before his Legion followed suit, Perturabo devised and enacted the one real victory for the Iron Warriors in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. He crafted a trap on Sebastus IV, designed to ensnare Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists, with whom Perturabo and his warriors harboured a bitter rivalry. The trap was known as the Eternal Fortress, a keep centred within twenty square miles of bunkers, towers, minefields, trenches, tank traps and redoubts. Upon hearing of this, Rogal Dorn publicly declared that he "would dig Perturabo out of his hole and bring him back to Terra in an iron cage".
Rogal Dorn expected an honourable battle, but this was not to be. Beginning by isolating the four Companies of the Imperial Fists from their orbital support, Perturabo began to carefully divide his enemy and destroy them piecemeal. Some Imperial Fists managed to penetrate the defences and reach the center of the Eternal Fortress, only to find there was no central keep - simply an open space watched by yet more defenses. The fortress was a decoy of no real value. By the sixth day of the siege, Imperial Fists Space Marines were fighting individually, without support, using the bodies of their own battle brothers for cover.
The siege of the Eternal Fortress (later referred as the "Iron Cage") lasted for a further three weeks. Relief came in the form of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines, but the siege left Rogal Dorn a broken man, rendered the Imperial Fists Chapter unable to fight for nineteen years, and paved the way for Perturabo's ascension to Daemon Prince, after the sacrifice of over four hundred loyalist Marines' gene-seed..."
... and dreamed all that from Rogal Dorn's perspective.
Anyway, the point is, it was fucked up. Amazing and inspirational sometimes, horifically terrifying at others.
But worth it. I've never dreamed anything so trippy, and in the past I've used my fair share of illicit substances.
If you don't do drugs (or do), slap one of these babies on your arm before you go to sleep and see what happens.
Get to it soldiers, and report back, stat!
:Cliffs: wearing a nicotine patch to sleep can and probably will give you the most intense dreams you've experienced.
"Vivid dreams" are a known side effect, but goddamn, that's an understatement.
And the culprite? Nicotine Patches. Yep. Good old nicotine patches.
I've been trying and succeeding to quit smoking, and to help me I bought a pack of the strongest patches I could find.
So I put one on. On the first day of my campaign, all goes well...
...until, that is, I finally go to sleep.
Then I get assaulted by the most intense and vivid dreams and nightmares I've ever experienced. It's now been a week on the patches, and every single night I've had the most mindblowing and bizarre dreams of my life.
I've kept a dream-journal for about ten years now, and I've often had long, vivid and coherent dreams worthy (to my mind) of being recorded.
But this shit takes it to the next level. Some of the dreams are so totally bizarre that it was almost impossible to record what happens.
About three nights ago I dreamed that seven evil "time-wizards", each with a form of "time magic" and accompanied by massive un-reality clocks (one with a huge chainsaw-pendulum, another flanked by reality-severing spinning sun-dials) were fighting seven champions, and "transforming" (transformers cgi style) the reality around them into bladed gauntlet gateways into hell. The good warriors tricked the evil wizards by training to run through "blade" reality and avoided dying until the ultimate doom clock struck 11:00 and all the magic in the world ended, the heros were thrown into a single group running through the blade reality, knowing they would die, until I woke up.
Yesterday I read this (Warhammer 40k Nerd-Alert!):
"In the end, Horus was defeated by the Emperor, and the bulk of the Traitor Legions retreated into the Eye of Terror. Before his Legion followed suit, Perturabo devised and enacted the one real victory for the Iron Warriors in the aftermath of the Horus Heresy. He crafted a trap on Sebastus IV, designed to ensnare Rogal Dorn and the Imperial Fists, with whom Perturabo and his warriors harboured a bitter rivalry. The trap was known as the Eternal Fortress, a keep centred within twenty square miles of bunkers, towers, minefields, trenches, tank traps and redoubts. Upon hearing of this, Rogal Dorn publicly declared that he "would dig Perturabo out of his hole and bring him back to Terra in an iron cage".
Rogal Dorn expected an honourable battle, but this was not to be. Beginning by isolating the four Companies of the Imperial Fists from their orbital support, Perturabo began to carefully divide his enemy and destroy them piecemeal. Some Imperial Fists managed to penetrate the defences and reach the center of the Eternal Fortress, only to find there was no central keep - simply an open space watched by yet more defenses. The fortress was a decoy of no real value. By the sixth day of the siege, Imperial Fists Space Marines were fighting individually, without support, using the bodies of their own battle brothers for cover.
The siege of the Eternal Fortress (later referred as the "Iron Cage") lasted for a further three weeks. Relief came in the form of Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines, but the siege left Rogal Dorn a broken man, rendered the Imperial Fists Chapter unable to fight for nineteen years, and paved the way for Perturabo's ascension to Daemon Prince, after the sacrifice of over four hundred loyalist Marines' gene-seed..."
... and dreamed all that from Rogal Dorn's perspective.
Anyway, the point is, it was fucked up. Amazing and inspirational sometimes, horifically terrifying at others.
But worth it. I've never dreamed anything so trippy, and in the past I've used my fair share of illicit substances.
If you don't do drugs (or do), slap one of these babies on your arm before you go to sleep and see what happens.
Get to it soldiers, and report back, stat!
:Cliffs: wearing a nicotine patch to sleep can and probably will give you the most intense dreams you've experienced.
