Drugs for happiness

People say that half of the people in the US is using some kind of mental health drugs. I'm quite sure it is not that many, but it certainly is a lot. Especially people who are middle-aged and older, divorced,...
Often, one considers these people inferior, "puppets" without free will because of the influence of drugs on the mind of the user. I used to agree - my mind is the most (the only?) useful thing I have and I do not want to damage it or alter it any way (yeah, I don't do drugs).
However, I don't agree anymore. Many drugs are designed to minimize negative consequences and many are not addictive. And they make their users happy. Why not to use them? If somebody had a difficult life, uncountable tragic experiences and memories, doesn't it make sense to suppress them a little? What's wrong with being simply happy? Who cares that it is not "natural" happiness? The drug user cannot tell and why should people around him care?
I won't start taking them myself, not now anyway. But I think it is an option one should consider. There is just one happiness. And it feels great.

Studying all-night long? Think again

I always go to sleep when studying. I never do "all-nighters". Never. I believe that it is a stupid idea, mostly because staying up and learning are two different things and brain always processes new information during the sleep and moves it from short-term memory to the long-term one. So, if you do not sleep, the information is there, but it is assorted, unconnected to other information and it is very short term.
If you are also tired before the exam (and you need to wait for it, before oral part of the exam), I believe you do worse than if you are relaxed and fresh. Maybe you could have learned 2% more, but what you already know, you know well, you can reproduce it and comment it in the relevant context.
So I don't do all-nighters. And now there is a research that confirms that : http://www.wtop.com/?nid=316&sid=1310354

Dreams&Nightmares

I have a theory that the dreams are related to how the brain sorts and stores information you learned during a day.So when you learn/see a lot of new things, you have more dreams in night.This makes me happy when I have a dream - it means I did not wasted the previous day completely.
Since changing the place where you live exposes you to a lot of new things, it was no big surprise to me that first couple of nights I had a lot of dreams. Still,I have a lot - so far no surprise.
What is beginning driving me crazy is that I keep having a nightmare. It is not the same nightmare over and over again, as it often happens, but it always a different one with the same topic!
The topic is that I flew back to CR after about a month here. Then I'm in CR, wondering why I wasted so much time (and money) on completely pointless trip back?
I'm not sure what this recurring nightmare is trying to say. Either I love it here and I don't want to go back, or I hate it here and I want to go back. On the conscious level, I don't feel either way, so I really cannot tell.