The quest begins!

Today is the day that my important research begins! Armed with myths, a cheese book lent to me by friend, and of course, some cheese, I will tonight begin conducting this important scientific experimentation into the effects of cheese on sleep and dreams. I am using myself as a subject, since my application to the government for a grant to finance my research was sadly unsuccessful.

I'm sure most people have heard that cheese can improve your likelihood of dreaming (or remembering your dreams) and over the course of the coming weeks and months the world will know conclusively the truth behind the myths. Cheese is also often attributed to horrendous nightmares so I'll let you know how that works out too..

Speaking of which, and sidetracking slightly, once, several years ago, I had a lot of trouble sleeping for various reasons. So one day I went down to waitrose and bought myself some night milk or sleepy milk or something of that nature, where they milk the cows at night. The idea is the milk has more melatonin in it, therefore you sleep better. I've never had such vivid, torturous nightmares in all my life. I never touched the stuff again. Just so you know.

Also I will be practising the art of lucid dreaming as I can kill two birds in one stone here. In case you don't know, lucid dreaming is supposedly where you realise you are dreaming but can then take control of your dreams and shape them in any way you want. If you've ever hit the point in a dream that you realise you are dreaming then woken up almost straight away afterwards, that's the sweet spot. Just don't wake up, and an army of leggy models are going to be your sole companions on your long trip out to Betelgeuse..

Apparently you can dream lucidly every night, the trick is to have a 'trigger' in your dream that tells you.. this is a dream. It could be a banana wearing a hat, a green sheep, whatever. Or, perhaps, even.... Cheese!