Everybody likes to think they're special little snowflakes, even when it comes to having nightmares. You know, that Rorschach night sweat stain on the sheets is just so uniquely you. And while many dreams both delightful and dark are based on personal, individual experiences, there are broad commonalities that haunt our REM sleep. And there have to be. Otherwise dream dictionaries would need to be customized, making them replica louboutin prohibitively expensive for all but the robber barons and teen pregnancy television stars among us.

"Childbirth was totally worth it to find out what Gorilla George Washington was trying to warn me about."

Some collective bad dreams are experiential. John Cheese wrote about the recovering alcoholic's recurring nightmare of falling off the wagon. Soldiers revisit the grimmest and most terrifying moments from the battlefield.

But a few dreams cross all gender, social, and national boundaries. They seem to be fairly cheap jordans universal simply human, in fact. While we take many approaches to problem solving in our waking life, the human subconscious is far more consistent. But while we may not agree on what the dreams and nightmares mean, we're pretty well settled on what the common ones are. Here are five of mankind's bad dream greatest hits, with non dick centric theories as to why we have them.

5. Teeth Falling Out We All Fear Our MortalityIn 1958, American Anthropologist published an article titled "The Universality of Typical Dreams: Japanese vs. Americans." While it turned up some differences, the similarities between the respondents' dreams were much more striking, particularly that 20.8 percent of the American and 16.1 percent of the Japanese subjects confirmed that they'd dreamed of their teeth crumbling or tumbling from their mouths. That's a mighty lot of dreamtime chompers lost across the globe.

Instead of a shared fear of becoming scurvy riddled nickel dancers, this nightmare is thought to stem from our struggle with mortality.

Or, if you're a tooth fairy, job security.

Forget Freud and his fancy pants dream analysis when it comes to understanding what common factors in the human condition could bring about such a Lynchian nightmare, look no further than Thomas Hobbes. Hobbes brought the gavel down on this in his seminal work Leviathan (1651) when he stated that life is inherently "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." Frankly, life sucks for everybody, and it could end at any instant. Instead of making the most of our brief tenure on the planet, we're eating varying levels of crap as calendar pages rapidly fall to the ground. Like our teeth. With which we have had to eat all this crap. Or, you know, without teeth, your nourishment will be limited to McDonald's shakes and you'll die."Our milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard . the graveyard."

It doesn't matter if you're doling out cologne in a strip bar bathroom or you're Elizabeth Dole, it's likely replica christian louboutin you'll be as toothless as Thomas Hobbes at some point in the dead of night.

4. Unprepared for the Big Test We're All Anxious About Stacking UpYou're sitting at a desk, blue book and pencil in hand, armpit soaked and petrified. There are 15 minutes left on the clock, and your book is blank. Or you realize you missed this class all year just flat out didn't show jordans cheap up and now the questions on the test are reading like Russian. Oh God, it's Russian 401!

It'd be time to panic, if it weren't a nightmare. After all, you've been banned from entering any institution of higher learning for what 10? 20 years? So why freak out about tests when you could be freaking about something more interesting, like how you will ever eat your way out of a giant strawberry pie?

"You are the only one who can do this. You are the chosen one the diabetic elders prophesied."

It's because you've made at least a marginal amount of yourself and you're afraid of losing it. No matter the success we achieve, we never get rid of the insecurity that one day we won't measure up to expectations. And unless you went to some hippie school, this is one place where everyone's performance or lack thereof was evaluated in writing.

3. Falling from Incredible Height No One Wants to Lose Control

Ting Hoo/Digital Vision/Getty Images

And now you're free falling, a heart tightening plunge from a building ledge or cliff, hurtling toward an advancing ground that you never actually hit before waking up in a puddle.

Quick: What's the name of the fourth Led Zeppelin album? Led Zeppelin IV? ZoSo? Girls, Girls, Girls? No, no, and shame on you. The "title" is actually a bunch of weird signs. This is one of the best selling albums of all time, containing classics like Black Dog, Rock and Roll and Stairway to Heaven, and only two people in the world know what the title really means (one of whom has apparently forgotten it).

He could have written it down, but noooo. Groupies.

You see, in 1971 Led Zeppelin decided to release an album without any text or markings of any kind on the LP cover, which only depicted a cryptic image of an old man carrying a bundle of sticks. It would be lazy of us to attribute this decision to drugs but, OK, yeah, that's probably it. In lieu of a name, Atlantic Records asked the press to refer to the record as a series of four metaphysical symbols, even distributing graphics in various sizes that they could use:

"And now let's hear 'Stairway to Heaven' from, uh . let's say, the Rolling Stones."

Each symbol was selected by one of the four band members to represent himself. Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham have been upfront about the meanings of their respective symbols: the two in the middle come from The Book of Signs, and the one with the feather was created by Plant to represent the fabled lost continent of Mu. Bonham's mystical avatar is also rumored to be inspired by the Ballantine beer logo, because apparently the man was known to enjoy a drink or two every now and then (he's dead now).

Forty shots of vodka can do that.

But the first one, the one that looks like it says "ZoSo," was designed by guitarist Jimmy Page . and no one knows what the fuck it means. Well, almost no one.

Jimmy Page himself and (maybe) Robert Plant.

Simple by consistently refusing to explain what it means for 40 years. The symbol has become a kind of stand in for the fourth album's title and is also indicative of Led Zeppelin as a whole it continued to be used by the band during subsequent tours and in promotional art, while most of wholesale nfl jerseys the rest did not. It's also the only one that looks like someone spent more than 15 seconds thinking it up.

"Jimmy, hurry up. Robert's so bored he's just parked his car in a tree."

What makes this extra mysterious is that Page is known for being pretty well versed in arcane knowledge: he was (and possibly still is) a huge collector of occult paraphernalia and a devout follower of the works of Aleister Crowley. According to one theory, the symbol was derived from a 16th century arcane glyph representing planet Saturn:

As for what it means in terms of Jimmy Page, the only person he's ever told is bandmate Robert Plant. Plant was so shocked by the revelation that he went ahead and forgot all about it. In his own words: "You may not believe this, but Pagey once took me aside and said 'Look, I'm going to tell you the meaning of this once, and then I shan't ever mention it again or at least, not for a long, long time anyway.' And would you believe that I have since forgotten what it was, and now Pagey won't tell me."

The closest we've gotten to a straight answer was the time the two were doing an interview for an Australian TV show and an audience member interrupted them to ask about the symbol. Plant, who may or may not have forgotten the real answer at that point, jumped in and replied "It means frying tonight." We'll probably have to wait 40 more years to figure out what in the hell that means.

But expect to see "Led Zep's Whole Lotta Bacon" any day now.

4. The Results of the Academy Awards

As much as we've mocked the Oscars in the past, we still think it's pretty impressive that, even in this era of phone hacking tabloids and sleazy celebrity gossip websites, the Oscar winners have never, wholesale nhl jerseys from china ever leaked out before the actual ceremony. In 83 years. Neither have the Golden Globe winners, but that's slightly less impressive because no one cares about them.

Run along now, we're talking about grown up stuff.

After all, the Academy Awards ceremony is one the most viewed television events every year, and each year bookies all over the world take huge bets on the winners even Vegas is considering getting in on the action on an official, legal basis. That's how good the security is on this thing. That's all thanks to PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants, who handle all of the ballots on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Each year, these two men know who will win in all 24 categories approximately 48 hours before the ceremony because they counted it their damn selves.

This means they got to say "Marisa Tomei? Really?" before anyone else wholesale nhl jerseys in the world.

Each ballot also includes an electronic control number, so that if a ballot is lost or stolen, that control number is immediately stricken and a replacement sent out. Other than that, though, nothing is computerized; the main reason they've never been hacked is simply that there's nothing to hack. The two accountants use good old pen and paper to sort through the ballots sent in by the members of the Academy, which are marked in pencil, pen or, in at least one case, crayon.

Oh, and everything is counted in a windowless, secure Cheap Jerseys From China room in a secret location. On the night of the Oscars, LAPD officers in tuxedos escort each man, via separate routes, to the ceremony. Each carries a suitcase containing half of the winning envelopes, presumably so that if one is hijacked or exploded by terrorists, at least they can go through with half the show and fill the rest of the air time with awkward comedy and dance numbers.

No one would really notice the difference.

Even after they're arrived at the theater, though, the accountants still aren't allowed to let the envelopes out of their sight. They have to literally stand at the edge of the stage all night, without bathroom breaks, personally passing out said envelopes to the presenters. Also, they have to memorize all the results in case of slip ups or Kanye esque outbursts.

All that for a stupid awards show. If the security at the Electoral College was half that good, chances are at least one of our presidents would have never been elected. You all know who we're talking about.

That's right, President Whiskers (1904 1908).

This isn't some secret nerd dialect created for a Star Trek fan fiction the Ayapaneco language has been used in Mexico since before there was a Mexico. It survived the Spanish invasion and was a "vibrant" tongue in the Tabasco area as recently as 50 years ago. Then Spanish became mandatory in schools, and locals started moving away. Ayapaneco, like many other native Mexican dialects, began dying out simply out of apathy.

Eggs, flour, milk (or water, but milk is better), oil. Fillings whatever strikes your fancy at the time. I like nutella, bananas, and alcohol (amaretto, rum, etc) but peanut butter and chocolate syrup would be basically a knock off nutella. You can add coconut flakes, walnuts, apples, whatever you find around your pantry!

posted by vegartanipla at 7:50 PM on February 2, 2012

Flavor butter/sugar combo with any ingredient you like and have lying around. Nuts, chocolate chips, anise, etc. Also add a teaspoon of vanilla/lemon flavor/almond extract.

In separate bowl, mix 2 cups flour and replica michael kors handbags 3/4 tsp salt. Add to egg mixture, and mix until JUST mixed. Roll dough into cylinder, wrap in plastic wrap, refrigerate about 1 hr till firm.

Preheat oven to 325, slice dough into cookies, cook apx 15 minutes.

This usually give around 15 cookies, which are great with coffee etc and aren't too sweet.

posted by nasayre at 7:51 PM on February 2, 2012 [3 favorites]

milk + sugar + cornstarch + (chocolate or maple) syrup will give you plenty of pudding from scratch in 20 minutes.

posted by plastic_animals at 7:52 PM on February 2, 2012

sorry. Add to BUTTER mixture. No eggs in shortbread.

posted by nasayre at 7:53 PM on February 2, 2012

I also like cinnimon toast bread, butter, cinnimon, sugar. Mmmm.

posted by jb at 7:53 PM on February 2, 2012 [3 favorites]

My Mom bought a microwave in 1979 or something that included a cookbook with a recipe for microwave bread pudding that's very much like this one online, which I make whenever I want something sweet in not very much time.

posted by xingcat at 7:57 PM on February 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Ooh. or just make hot chocolate from scratch. Adding a little bit of whiskey at the end is great too, if you are into that sort of thing.

posted by nasayre at 7:58 PM on February 2, 2012 [4 favorites]

Rice pudding! It's quick (thirty minutes or so), and it's pretty much just rice, milk, sugar, and maybe some vanilla extract, cinnamon, raisins, whatever.

There are a thousand recipes and ways to make it, but I make it with almond milk on the stove. Make 3/4 cup rice, mix in four cups of your milk (or milk substitute), add 1/2 cup to 1 cup cheap michael kors handbags sugar depending on how sweet you want your pudding to be, and stir continuously on medium heat until it becomes gloopy pudding goodness. I add vanilla extract after I take the pot off the burner, sprinkle a little cinnamon on top, and then I eat it far too much of it standing over the stove.

posted by ablazingsaddle at 8:00 PM on February 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Definitely shortbread. That's what I make when I'm craving a quick dessert, and the nice thing is you don't have to keep eggs or milk on hand, both of which I rarely have. Most recipes are so easy you can pretty much just memorize them, and I don't think they're too messy or troublesome. Mmm shortbread. The one given above requires the hour of refrigeration, but many of the ones I've tried (quite tasty, too) do not require that step.

posted by Arethusa at 8:05 PM on February 2, 2012

Spoonful of cream cheese with some dark chocolate chips stuck in it. It's like one bite of cheesecake. (I have sugar free chocolate chips and like replica michael kors handbags to pretend I'm being all low carb.)

posted by artychoke at 8:14 PM on February 2, 2012 [5 favorites]

Here are the two things I make when I want quick homemade dessert: Banana pancake fritter things with golden syrup and Strawberry Crumble.

Sometimes I'll make crumble mix (one part caster sugar to two parts plain flour, with a pinch of salt and bunch of cold unsalted butter rubbed in) ahead of time and keep it in a ziplock bag in the freezer. When I want crumble, I just chop some fruit into a pie dish and top with a couple of handfuls of the crumble mix. Any fruit will do, really: strawberries, apples, pears, plums, nectarines whatever fresh fruit I have to hand, or frozen berries from the freezer. If I feel like it I'll also add crushed nuts or oats to the topping as I'm assembling it. With icecream or custard, it is so good.

The editors here at HuffPost Style are all proud four eyed girls. But like lots of women, when we throw on our eyeglasses we tend to neglect doing our makeup. No one's really going to notice our crooked cat eye liner behind our tortoise shell frames, right? Wrong, according to Bobbi Brown.

The makeup artist and cosmetics creator believes that most women who wear glasses need wholesale jerseys to at least put on mascara and liner. While that might sound pretty simple, Brown is making it foolproof with her new book aptly titled, "Everything Eyes."

Inside the 120 page beauty book, Brown breaks down simple tips like the five essential brushes you need to do your eye makeup and what to look for in an eye cream. Plus, the second half focuses on how to choose the perfect glasses for your face shape and personal style.

After spending hours delving into "Everything Eyes," we've rounded up seven makeup mistakes girls who wear glasses should avoid. Check them out below!

1. If your brows are messy and unruly, apply a clear brow shaper AFTER color application.

This mascara like wand with liquid color both tames and defines brows. For a subtle cheap jerseys look, you can simply brush up your brows with a brow shaper.

2. If you have a lot of under eye darkness, skip lining the lower lash line as it will only draw attention to the problem.

Instead, just use waterproof mascara on the lower lashes. To soften the line, just use your finger or a cotton swab to smudge slightly. Powder liner can soften a too harsh gel liner and make it look diffused.

3. Always curl your lashes before you apply mascara, otherwise you may break your lashes.

Crimp at the base of the lashes, then hold the curler for five to ten seconds as you lift up and go. Just once is enough. For a quick pick me up you can just use your fingers, holding the lashes in a curl with your fingertips for a few seconds.

4. The glass in your frames can highlight under eye discoloration and darkness.

So corrector and concealer underneath the eye and in creases is essential. Apply corrector with a brush to china wholesale jerseys the inner corner of the eye area, placing it only where you see darkness. Then, gently blend with your fingers. Next, clean your brush with a tissue before applying concealer.

5. If you have redness around your eyes, stay away from shadows with red or purple undertones.

These colors will exacerbate the redness. For a foolproof eye, layer shadows from light to dark. Start with the palest shadow as the base, then layer a medium shade, and apply the darkest shade last.

6. The color of your eyeshadow shouldn't compete with the color of your glasses.

If you want to do the same color as your frames on your eyelids, try a base hue that's a shade lighter, and go a few shades darker cheap jerseys china for the crease color. Finish with black liner and mascara.

Blame it on SRK's six pack magic, Aamir's eight pack charisma or Priyanka's hot bikini bod, but flaunting the flattest tummy and a set of well toned abs is the latest dream for many youngsters.

But, they usually tend to forget that it takes more than just basic crunches and crash dieting to carve a drool worthy, flat stomach. Explains fitness trainer, Deanne Pandey, "Ab exercises + nfl jerseys china cardio exercises + right diet this is the most effective formula to achieve well toned abdominal muscles. Missing upon any one of these will take away the real impact of an abs workout."

"An ideal diet and workout for every individual depends upon his/her weight loss requirement, body type and body shape," suggests Pandey. For instance, a pear shaped person may indulge in a less strenuous workout and minimal diet modifications to get the desired tummy in comparison to an apple shaped body, who is usually heavy in the tummy area.

Here are a set of workout and physical activities, which when combined with an ideal eating plan and cardio workouts can assure you of the killer abs that you always dreamt of.

1. Naukasana A common yoga posture that works wonders on your abs.

Method: Lie flat on the ground, with your back on the floor. Raise your upper body and legs to an angle of 30 degrees and hold the posture for 30 40 seconds, then relax. Repeat this asana for 10 times to begin with, graduating to wholesale nfl jerseys china 30 times. Breathe normally all through the work out.

"Holding onto the posture tightens and contracts your upper and lower abs while repeating the movement tones them up," tells yoga expert Usha Chegappa of Bharat Thankur's Artistic Yoga.

2. Ushtrasana: It is the counter pose to naukasana.

Method: Stand on your knees, with heels facing upwards. Arch your back, placing your hands on your knees one by one. Hold your head behind pushing your belly outwards. Hold this posture for 30 seconds and repeat 30 times.

"During naukasana, the ab muscles contract building up tension in the area, while ushtrasana releases the tension by giving your tummy a good stretch. It is important to practice ushtrasana after naukasana to save one's back from injury," explains Usha.

3. Basic crunch: The good old crunch still remains the best exercise to bag the perfect abs.

Method: Lie on the floor with your legs off the floor in a right angle. Keep your shoulders just above the floor. Breathe in and bring your knees in towards your chest, while lifting your upper body to an angle of 30 degrees and breathe out while you relax. Repeat this exercise 15 20 times to begin with.

"Don't arch your back. The crunches will help you contract your abdomninal muscles giving them an effective workout," suggests Deanne.

4. Bridging: Stretch till you feel the burn!

Method: Lie flat on the floor with your hands resting by your sides, feet flat on the floor, shoulder width apart and knees bent. Now, contract your abdominals, lower back and gluts and slowly lift your midsection to form a bridge from your knees, through your hips to your shoulders. Hold this position for a few seconds, and then slowly lower. Fitness expert Kiran Swahney suggests, "Avoid this exercise in case you are suffering from lower back problems."

5. Lying Torso Twists: Twisting motion stretches the oblique muscles.

Method: Lie on the floor with knees pulled over your chest. Place a ball between your knees and stretch arms to the sides like an airplane, palms facing up. Contract your abs and twist your hips to the right, bringing knees towards the floor Don't touch the floor, but use your abs to bring your knees back to the start and go to the other side.

"Make china wholesale nfl jerseys sure your shoulders lie flat on the floor and keep breathing normally," advises Kiran.

6. Cycling: Not on the cycle, but on the floor.

Method: Lie on the floor and raise your legs. Make slow pedaling motions with both your legs alternatively. Keep breathing normally. Touch your left elbow to your right knee, then your right elbow to your left knee.

"The slower and controlled are the motions, more is the pressure exerted on your abs giving better results," explains Deanne.

7. Side plank: targeted to your oblique muscles or side abs.

Method: Lie down on your side with elbows supporting your body above the ground. Now lift your body sideways. This will make you feel the stretch on your oblique muscles giving them a good workout. 2 3 sets of 15 20 movements are ideal.

"Make sure your body is in one line without any bends and arches. If indulging in a strenuous workout is on your mind, hold in the position and pulsate," adds Deanne.

8. Dancing wonders: Feel the pulse

"Stomach muscles are core muscles involved in any kind of dancing. A toned china cheap nfl jerseys stomach accentuates your moves, while dance movements make your stomach sexy. It's a co related process," says dance instructor, Nanda Kundu.

Some of the dance forms that can help you tone your stomach include Lindy Hop, Jive, cha cha and belly dancing. "All these forms of dance involve lots of lifts, dips and tricks which give a great workout to the stomach muscles," adds Nanda.

The above mentioned abdominal muscles are required to be repeated over a period of time to get desired results. "Give sufficient rest between abdominal exercises and sets. Increase the amount of repetitions that you perform each week by two times, until you can comfortably perform 20 repititions of each abdominal exercise," advises Kiran.

For the study, Drs. Hanneke den Ouden and Roshan Cools from the Donders Institute and New York Cheap NFL Jerseys University investigated how thebrain chemicalsdopamine andserotoninhelp determine our sensitivity to reward and punishment.

used a simple computer game to test the genetic influence of the genes DAT1 and SERT, as these genes influence dopamine and serotonin. We discovered that the dopamine gene affects how we learn from the long term consequences of our choices, while the serotonin gene affects our choices in the short www.wholesalejerseysusa.us.com term, said den Ouden.

nearly 700 people we analyzed which variant of the SERT and the DAT1 genes they had, said den Ouden. anonline game, we investigated how well people are able to adjust their choice strategy after receiving a reward or a punishment. the study, participants would repeatedly choose one of two symbols: symbol A, which usually resulted in a reward, or symbol B, which usually resulted in punishment. Halfway through the game, however, these rules were reversed.

This unexpected twist allowed researchers to measure how flexible people were in adjusting their choices. But it also revealed whether people impulsively changed their choice when the computer gave misleading feedback.

players use different strategies, which depend on their genetic material. People tendency to change their choice immediately after receiving a punishment depends on which serotonin gene variantthey inherited from their parents. It also offers a better understanding of the relationship between brain chemicals and behavior in healthy people, which will ultimately help provide researchers with a better understanding of neuropsychiatric disorders.