# Lucid Dreaming > Dream Control >  >  Mastering Your Dreams

## BillyBob

The knowledge I'm about to impart upon you took me around three years, and hundreds of lucid dreams to acquire.
To be perfectly blunt, I perceive the information your about to read as being the most important I've ever written on the subject of dream control. Indeed, other than to expand upon the following info/explain it better, I shouldn't ever have to write another tutorial on this subject again. I think you'll agree once you finish, its quite comprehensive.

 This is the second of two tutorials I've written to try and simplify lucid dreaming in general. You can find the first: "How to Lucid Dream," here.
 
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*Mastering Your Dreams*


 "Mastering Your Dreams," doesn't that title evoke the most awe-inspiring imagery? The Hobbit standing high, gripping tight at the reigns of his hulking, blazing dragon; the amputee flinging his body over the last icy boulder at the tip of Everest... 
Mastering Your Dreams! What a monumental feat that would be. An occasion worthy of song!
...Right?


We the community of Dreamviews.com have made an enemy of our biggest ally. In our minds we have depicted the place of dreams as being a wasteland of cheap thrills and half experiences. In our collective unconsciousness dreamland is an illusionary, fragile, half-assed place where we must compromise and compromise so that we don't offend our all knowing, all powerful "subconscious."

I have come to the conclusion that we are addicted to challenge. We are given the most powerful gift any being could ever be given: our own private rule-free universe, and what do we do with it? We make up a bunch of "laws" that are "very hard" to get around. We limit ourselves so that we will have something to work towards overcoming.
Some examples:
"Sex makes your LDs super unstable!""Lucidity makes dreams less stable!"
"You can't flip a light switch!""Don't close your eyes! You'll wake up!"
This is crazy! A gross misinterpretation has been made of the dreamstate at large. We have created mythical beings: "Our subconscious, our dream guides, Angels,  Demons..." for the sole purpose of limiting ourselves. We have let our imaginations go wild: ignorantly making up insane fantasies and canons where none should exist.



Why must we limit ourselves in this incredible world? Isn't it enough that we have to eat, drink, sleep, live, and die in real life?
Leave your sense of competition in the shower, lucid dreaming should be about adventure and enjoyment, not an epic struggle against forces unknown (if you want to compete with DCs in your LDs have at it, but you should never have to fight an invisible foe: your "subconscious" for things like lucidity or dream length).

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In order I will be going over:Dream FormationLucid Dream FormationDream ControlPlease don't skip any of the sections,
they were written to be read in order.
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*Dream Formation
*(and the unconscious)
 
Wouldn't it just be beautiful if our dreams all had hidden messages in them that we could just "read" and better ourselves with?
Well, they do... Kind of.

Normal dreams are created by our brains using a very essential psychological function known as schemata. Schemata dictate how we view the world on the most primitive level. They are our unconscious mind; our expectations.
"Unconscious mind?"
To be honest, I'm not too well versed in the terminology of psychology. I say unconscious, because the word itself is fitting. Your schemata are your basic principles for reality, or, your biases.


An example of a schema (Schema= singular form of schemata) that I have is that a bird has wings.
You don't even have to think about whether a bird has wings or not, you just unconsciously know they do. This is a schema in action.

__

 So how does this relate to dreams?
With each real-life experience you have your schemata are modified. The outer world is objective, just because you think something is true doesn't mean it is. Your schemata are ever being updated to allow you to live closer to reality. 
For example, a person that has only experienced unacceptance from others may unconsciously believe that everyone is always judging him. If that same person experiences more of life, their schemata will be modified to take into account that some people are actually pretty cool and like him for who he is. He will unconsciously believe that he is ok how he is, and will thus not automatically assume that people are judging him.


Again, how does this effect dreams?
Your dreams are the outcome of rampant, unchecked schemata (expectations) building on top of one another. All dreams start as seeds. The seed is an image, just some random image that is vomited out of your collective memories. Here's an example of a dream going from seed to imaginative story:
You see a grayish outline*Schemata:* "That outline looks like a boulder"The outline becomes a boulder*Schemata:* "Boulders must mean a mountain"Your now standing on a mountain*Schemata:* "Mountains have sheep"There are sheep all around you*Schemata:* "Sheep need a shepherd"Theres a shepherd standing beside you*Schemata:* Shepherds were in that story in the bibleAngels appear and begin to singThat is extremely overly simplified. Your schemata are consulted about everything in the dream, from what color a rock is, to what shape a rock is, to the light levels of mountains that you've seen similar rocks on... Everything.

The only "intelligence" behind your dreams is schemata. Schemata do not think, they are billions of little rules that you have cached into the massive data storage unit of your brain.
The reason you can study your dreams to improve yourself is because they are a direct link to the little rulebook inside of your head. They show you your most basic beliefs on reality and what is possible, allowing you to change these as you please.

 ___
 
Keep in mind that schemata are also being created every time you watch a movie. They say: "magic is real in special cases, the Matrix is a real place, women like to have sex on the kitchen counter," etc etc.
When your watching a fantasy movie your not steadily thinking about how impossible it is to do magic, your schemata are in effect saying: "this is possible in this circumstance." In the same way, when your in a dream your not thinking about why your able to throw balls of energy, you just do it.

Expectations become dreams.
I have told you how normal dreams are formed for a reason. Very similar laws apply when lucid, except things become a bit more like reality.

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*Lucid Dream Formation
*
In the same way schemata direct everything about non-lucid dreams, they have an equally large impact on lucids. 

Though the fundamental laws of the dreamstate don't suddenly change when lucidity is achieved, they are slightly altered.
The change is the same as when you suddenly snap out of the illusion of watching a movie. One second your sitting there completely immersed, the next your back in your body, having realized that you really need a bathroom break.
The illusion of the movie was broken. Suddenly you stopped passively taking in the stream of shit it was pumping into your brain and came back to reality. You were able to objectively think: "My god, thats not how it would be in real life at all!." 
In short, you were able to switch from one set of schemata to another, from the set of "action movie," to that of "reality." You were able to consciously manipulate your expectations.


The same thing happens in lucid dreams.
When you become lucid, your able to take a step back and say: "wait a second, monsters don't exist in real life, why should I have to put up with them here?" Then your dream will change to be like real life.

This is how we control our dreams; we manipulate our expectations, which manipulates our schemata, which manipulates the dreams on the most direct level.

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*
Dream Control*

If you _believe_ something, be it: "To fly in LDs you have to wear a cape," or "When you orgasm in a dream you automatically wake up," you are creating rules for your lucid dreams.
Beliefs are schemata, and schemata are the fabric of lucid dreams.

From the moment you logged onto dreamviews your mind's collection of schemata on "what a lucid dream should be like" has been growing. Law after law has been pounded into your brain, from not being able to read, to not being able to properly use a lightswitch. Your schemata grew and grew, then you had a lucid dream.
In that lucid dream, there was no objective reality, you were in an altered state of consciousness that ran totally on schemata -- no outside forces effected your dream.

In your lucid dream you tried the things that you believed to be very hard and guess what happened? You failed.
The next day what did you do? You logged on to Dreamviews.com and posted about how you had tried that in a lucid dream, and it really is as hard as everyone made it out to be, thus planting that schema in another unsuspecting noobs noggin.

___
 
Well I'm here to spawn only one schema: lucid dreams are limitless. They don't have to be blurry, they don't have to be short, they don't have to be scary, unrealistic, or illogical.
If you wanted, all of your lucid dreams could be near perfect imitations of reality. No more having to stabilize, no more having to focus on your hands for clarity, no more placebo, and no more fighting.

Your dreams are yours for the taking. There is only one "law" that exists in lucid dreams, they don't last forever.



To achieve anything in your lucid dreams, all you must do is realize that nothing is hard to get in lucid dreams. In the world of LDing, all you need to do is know that something will happen, and it will. 
That is how you master your lucid dreams: realize that all you must master is your own belief that dreams have rules.

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## BillyBob

This tutorial was written differently than others I have written in the past.
Please tell me what you thought of it. If it gets a bad reception I'll just rewrite it  :smiley: 


And yeah, this is very similar to this thread.
That thread was crappily written and I could find no way to salvage it without totally rewriting and destroying its essence  :Sad: . 
Believe it or not, this tutorial and that one are actually quite different  :tongue2: 

I'm planning on editing the one I just linked to get rid of repeated information later. It and this one should work together for a more comprehensive effect.

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## TaNK

Very good, even if it is much like the Universe one (which is hardly a bad thing). I can see you've read ETWOLD (especially the expectation bit), but I should have expected someone like you to have.

Anyhow, great tutorial, most of which I agree with. People too often don't look beyond the surfaces of their dreams and are all too eager to believe what they read as fact. I have also never understood why people so strongly believe Lucidity or excitement destroys the stability of dreams, I've never had a problem with it. Same thing with dream sex. Although I never knew the bit about the light switch; I had always thought that was an accepted reality check that light switches don't work in dreams. 

Like I said, great tutorial. Keep up the good work.

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## StephenT

Sweet! Another BillyBob tutorial.

Reading it now.  ::D:

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## BillyBob

> Sweet! Another BillyBob tutorial.
> 
> Reading it now.



Doh  :tongue2: 

This tutorial is more for people that have never read the infinite universes one.
This tut and infinite universes are going to linked together. That way You'll read this first (thus seeing that anything is possible), then you'll read infinite universes.
Having read about and fully understood the properties of the dreamworld, you'll be able to more easily implement mass dream control.


This tutorial explains to you why anything is possible, then I'll have a bunch of links at the end to other tutorials I've written on actual ways of using this knowledge to get the most out of your LDs (real tutorials that tell you: "do this" etc)

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## Will N Vance

The tutorial is excellent... I think schema got the best of me today.  Thank you... you've changed my perspective on the dream world in less than fifteen minutes.

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## StephenT

Ahh I see.

Well, I just got done, I liked it very much!  It did kind of reiterate the Infinite Universes one like you just said, but it's insightful!

I actually am reading Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming right now, and I just clicked on here to see if anything new was ebing discussed.  What I'm reading in EWOLD and this go hand in hand in every way, so this was very good for me!  Especially putting it in terms of schemata.  ::D: 

The differences I got out of this and Infinite Universes was that this one is about how LD's are limitless, and Infinite Universes, though has the same point, it teaches you kind of how to impliment rules necissary for the schemata.  Like the Middle Earth examples in Universes.

I'm excited though!  This seems to be the next piece of the puzzle for me.  ::D:   I can't wait to put this controlled thinking into further use in my next lucid dream!

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## BillyBob

Thanks for all the comments guys/gals.






> I actually am reading Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming right now, and I just clicked on here to see if anything new was ebing discussed.  What I'm reading in EWOLD and this go hand in hand in every way, so this was very good for me!  Especially putting it in terms of schemata. 
> 
> I'm excited though!  This seems to be the next piece of the puzzle for me.   I can't wait to put this controlled thinking into further use in my next lucid dream!



Yes, people don't give Stephen enough credit. That guy had/has many incredible ideas that many overlook.
Not saying everything he says is hands down truth, but a good deal of it is

It took me two years after reading his book to fully understand the implications of schemata on dreams  :tongue2: 






> The tutorial is excellent... I think schema got the best of me today.  Thank you... you've changed my perspective on the dream world in less than fifteen minutes.



Wow, thanks a lot.  ::shock:: 





> Anyhow, great tutorial, most of which I agree with. People too often don't look beyond the surfaces of their dreams and are all too eager to believe what they read as fact. I have also never understood why people so strongly believe Lucidity or excitement destroys the stability of dreams, I've never had a problem with it. Same thing with dream sex. Although I never knew the bit about the light switch; I had always thought that was an accepted reality check that light switches don't work in dreams.



Thanks  :smiley: 

Yeah, new people are very impressionable. They know absolutely nothing about the subject, so they soak up any and all information they can get their hands on.
Which is pretty much the worst possible approach to lucid dreaming  :wink2:

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## StephenT

I don't really know how much credit he gets, but Stephen is pretty much the DaVince or the Shakespear of dreams it seems to me.  :tongue2: 

He did so many science based experiments to prove the scientific concepts of dreams and lucidity, but he also has all these philosophical ideas and topics.  You're right that he has all of these overlooked ideas.

I'm going to bed though... great new tutorial!

Good night!

Just gotta go post that I'm going to have a lucid dream tonight in the thread real quick.  ::D:

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## arby

I'm on to your plan.

You're gonna make so many tuts that will turn everyone into such good dreams that they won't pay attention to real life anymore thus making it easy for you to secure world domination.

Good ol' placebo tho =)

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## seeker28

*THANK YOU!!*

This is exactly my philosophy on lucid dreaming, only much more clear than I've ever managed to say it!  You are my hero! ::bowdown::

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## Wildman

Though this is similar to the universes one as has been mentioned, it's still a bit different and awesome either way. Thank you. (And is there a way to get some of these put in the tutorials section? It's worth it.)

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## god incarnate

dude. that is some insightful shizzle!

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## Redrivertears

Heya,

Very nicely written. You manage to effectively and clearly summarize a very difficult concept there, that has huge implications on one's dreamlife indeed. Excellently done!

In my experience though, realising your dreams are formed by these schemata (or associations, to use the psychoanalytical term) is just the first step. The hard part is, to me at least, is reshaping them. The mind doesn't easily let go of the things it believes in  :smiley: 

-Redrivertears-

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## beorn

::bump::  
... by request  :smiley: 

Seriously, though, it's a good post.

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## BillyBob

> ... by request 
> 
> Seriously, though, it's a good post.



Argh,
If you want it done right...  :tongue2: 

 ::bump::

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## italianmonkey

you're great, and your infinite universes thread helped me a lot

just one doubt: if being"addicted to challenge"brings fun, why throw it away?

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## fatcatcog

Holy crap - everything you wrote makes complete sense in the most amazing and eye opening ways ever! DUDE... THANK YOU for this post its awesome

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## ruba

I totally agree with your statement, and from the beginning when I found DV, I took everything with a grain of salt ,because some laws didn't apply to my previous dreams at all, and therefore learned anything is possible. Some people find flying, teleporting or spawning etc hard and think they'll have to have extreme concentration to achieve such things, but it's just because they think they do, that they'll have to.

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## The Cusp

Great job on this tutorial BillyBob!  Everything is very clear and concise.

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## MatrixMaster92

This should be required reading for all new DV members.  :smiley:

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## SilverBullet

> This should be required reading for all new DV members.



Yes, totally! This really changed my views on things. People need to stop making laws for themselves. I think just by reading this my dream control got a huge boost  ::D: .
Thanks for that.

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## matthew123

at the start when you say we dont have to fight our subconscious is like an ld i had i almost forgot to stabilize my dream and a DC said: "arent you forgetting something?" i instantly remembered i needed to stabilize. It's like my subconscious was help me stay lucid  ::D:

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## moongrass

thankyou, very helpful!

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## Snowboy

Very quickly after I read this I got a MASSIVE amount of control in my dreams. Just gotta hold them up and I will be able to do lots of stuff...

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## whiterain

this is a very well written explanation cheers. if there is one thing that flying on dreams teaches you, its that things will only happen for you when you believe and know them to be possible.

i could try and sum it up in one sentence. your beliefs direct your dreams so limiting your beliefs will only limit your dreams.  :wink2: 

all i know is that since i got into this kind of thing, life has become a continual process of proving the impossible to be possible.

its very much like people who meditate and practice spirituality all their lives, believing that lucid living/enlightenment is the hardest thing in the world to acheive. then once they crack it they realise all they had to do was stop doing and start being and there was nothing to acheive in the first place  :tongue2: 

thanks again billy

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## Pheenix

But wait, I don't understand. If your schema has managed to make you think that a monster should be roaming that mountainside you are seeing, how can you suddenly realize that this is untrue, and gain lucidity?

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## Snowboy

> But wait, I don't understand. If your schema has managed to make you think that a monster should be roaming that mountainside you are seeing, how can you suddenly realize that this is untrue, and gain lucidity?



You don't. Once you become lucid you can get rid of it, though!  ::D:

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## The Cusp

> But wait, I don't understand. If your schema has managed to make you think that a monster should be roaming that mountainside you are seeing, how can you suddenly realize that this is untrue, and gain lucidity?



Any schemata is only active because you are focused on it.  You don't have to realize it's untrue, you just have to focus on something different.

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## Marsupilama

> From the moment you logged onto dreamviews your mind's collection of schemata on "what a lucid dream should be like" has been growing. Law after law has been pounded into your brain, from not being able to read, to not being able to properly use a lightswitch.
> [...]
> The next day what did you do? You logged on to Dreamviews.com and posted about how you had tried that in a lucid dream, and it really is as hard as everyone made it out to be, thus planting that schema in another unsuspecting noobs noggin.



Man, this is so spot-on! Thanks for the great article!

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## Vesterguard

Great guide mate, defo serve to reset expectations on dream control. Which I agree with from reading various guides on dream control, something is only hard cause you make it so.

Regarding the whole Schemata approach to lucid dreaming, think the only real competitive theories point to meditative states, and even these don't discard the schemata concept, only tells you that in lucid dreaming it is viable to go above them. Think it is termed supra consciousness or a supra state (heard it at a lecture on evolutional psychology a couple of years back, so might not be accurate) where it is possible to remain conscious though you have abandoned your model of the world, model of self and model of self in the world (there may be more schemata to be mentioned, but these seems the most relevant^^).

Just to be clear, love your guide, competing theories only allow you even greater control than supplied by the concept of schemata, which is a way to "rise above them" if that is what you so would want. Think the primary advocate of this meditative approach is a Jane Gachenback, who used to study and cary out research with LaBerge. Which is more correct? I have got no clue about (yet!) but it might be in order to provide a balanced viewpoint  :smiley: .

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## Marm

Finally someone who believes that we can go beyond our so called "limitations." It's very common for humans to set certain parameters and stick with them loyally, but with something so uncertain and free such as the art of lucid dreaming, we have to keep an open mind.

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## Enargo

this is how I control all of my dreams, I think the right mentality is "I'm in a dream, I can do what ever I want, when ever I want, and where ever I want. The rules of logic do not apply here", usually when I affirm that I really can acheive anything. With a small backyard I managed to run at a high speed I was never able to do without breaking a sweat. Jumping fences much higher then I could think possible with ease. My only problem is even with this affirmation, even with the affirmations I won't leave immediately after I get lucid, I break out of the dream. Got any tips for that?

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## SuddenGun007

It was said that all you have to do is believe in yourself and you can do it. That was the rule given too me in order too fly, once I finally believed in myself I was able to fly. Now with this, we should create a set of rules that allow newer members who have never LDed before, to attain lucidity faster, and easier! I just don't know where to begin. Almost like planting seeds in their brain, that says Lucid dreaming isn't difficult to do!

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## moongrass

"The seed that we planted in this man's mind may change everything."

Haha, but seriously I totally agree.

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## Spyguy

So... if i'm getting this right, stabilization is unnecessary, and my LD's only failed because i believed stabilizing to be necessary?! That's epic, time to get some pwnage dreams  ::D:

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## unda

It's a good tutorial and I agree with the general message, a lot of people make ill-informed posts that can generate expectations which can be harmful to impressionable beginners. However, whilst expectations certainly affect dreams they are not the only factor. 





> No more having to stabilize, no more having to focus on your hands for clarity, no more placebo, and no more fighting.



I feel you should have made it clear that simply believing a dream will be stable will not necessarily make it so, many lucid dreamers have independently discovered common difficulties which seem to occur, such as light switches not working and text mutating.





> So... if i'm getting this right, stabilization is unnecessary, and my LD's only failed because i believed stabilizing to be necessary?!



As in this case, you could be yourself enforcing potentially harmful expectations. It's probably true that believing dreams will always be unstable until you take action can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it's equally true that dreams often are unstable for reasons other than mere expectation. Spyguy, my advice would be to bear this in mind!

I don't wish to criticise the tutorial too harshly as it's clear you've put a lot of effort into it and it's very accurate for the most part!

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## fOrceez

This is something i have repeatedly come back to to read. Unfortunately, i have fulled grasped that concept within my dreams.. "dream logic" >_>"

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## Barry

> This is something i have repeatedly come back to to read. Unfortunately, i have fulled grasped that concept within my dreams.. "dream logic" >_>"



You have created a schemata that your logic in your dreams will be different to your logic in reality  :Cheeky:

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## Davis1891

I wish I read these guides before reading everything else first. Being "new and impressionable" has probably subjected me to alot of misinformation that has to be forgotten now. But great read! Thanks!

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## Kaiern9

One of the best ''tutorials'' i have seen.

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## Keggruel

This has defiantly open upped my eyes, and I will be sure to keep all of this in mind.

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