18 April, 2006 10:25 p.m.

About an hour before meditating, I watched the match, and drank a coffee. When I started to meditate, I noticed a distinct alertness, that I haven't had before while meditating at night. I think the coffee may have something to do with it!
I started by counting my breath, first on the out breath, to 30. Then on the in breath, again to 30. Then I let go of the counting, and continually kept reminding myself to return to the present, the here and now.
After 10 minutes or so, I noticed my mind 'shifting a gear', it seemed to slow down. After 20 minutes, my mind had simply relaxed, there was very little mental chatter at all. I came into a tranquil state, which lasted for a few minutes. I remembered not to hang onto this, and it passed. My mind came back to the present. I said my prayer,"May all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness...." during the prayer, my mind went very tranquil again, almost daydreaming.
I finished my prayer, and remembered not to become attached to this experience, so as not to have expectations on my next meditation.

I had a strange dream. I was playing the guitar(I can barely play a few chords!), I was playing full songs, and singing! Then, I noticed a tiger living in the shrubs in my old garden. He was sick. I fed him some meat from the fridge, and decided to nurse him back to help. I wondered when I awoke, did this dream have some bearing on my life/self improvement? Ah well, I will let it go....