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EDIT: This is kind of E/N materiel but it's mainly firearms focused, and I think I'll get much better advice in here than in E/N. I've had two "nightmares" recently about not being able to put rounds on target when using my weapon in a self-defense situation and I'm reaching out to see if anyone else has had this kind of psychological problem. I sent a FB message to my CWP instructor seeing if he still offered advanced courses in self-defense so I can get out there and try to ease my mind and get some REAL training from military and self-defense professionals on this subject. The strangest thing is that I've never had a problem with marksmanship at the range with any weapon; I can hit index cards with the whole 10+1 with my carry weapon at 25 yards fairly effortlessly with aimed fire, and 50 yards isn't bad either, just more careful aiming is required. My 10yd rapid fire (~2.5r/s) stays within the center portion of your common paper plate. Anyone else had a problem like this before? Disclaimer: I have been on Valium (as a muscle relaxant; strange prescription but goddamn it works a hell of a lot better than the Flexoril or Baclofen did) and hydrocodone (general pain) since a car accident on 2013-02-03, and the really strange, very realistic dreams only started after that accident and subsequent medication. I have only had to draw (but not fire) my weapon in one situation and while the adrenaline rush after the situation settled down was intense, during the event I had no problem keeping my weapon sighted on target and no anxiety, just a sort of drive to survive and a calm intensity. Beach Bum fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2013 around 08:18 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 08:02 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 22:14 |
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I have a recurring dream where I realize nobody is driving the car.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 08:07 |
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Please stay away from firearms until you're off the sauce, those are pretty powerful drugs to be on.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 08:34 |
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redscare posted:Please stay away from firearms until you're off the sauce, those are pretty powerful drugs to be on. I have had no suicidal thoughts of any kind, but I did go the first week with all the ammo locked up just to be sure. After the first week with nothing bad going on in the ticker. I resumed strapping up. If I ever get even a hint of "What if" they go back in the lockbox, promise. although with these dreams appearing, you might have a good point. I just hate to be without it, it's like an old friend after two and a half years of wearing this holster. Also my pants don't right without the holster anymore 
Beach Bum fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2013 around 09:01 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 08:58 |
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Eh, I get a similar one sometimes except I can aim fine I just can't pull the trigger no matter how much I try. Always wake up with my heart going crazy and drenched in sweat. No idea what causes that dream.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 09:17 |
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While not exactly the same as your dream state troubles with weapons I have had similar problems since I was a child and it may be relational to your own, as I know the cause of mine; though the above poster I suspect it may be a similar case as my own, since I can recount many a time where pulling the trigger felt like either it was weighted to much or my finger would not move. Since I was very young, I've had dreams where I needed to use a firearm in self-defense or some sort of law enforcement situation or whatever similar case. The problem is in most cases, firing at the target results in a very wayward shot. In other cases the gun simply wouldn't fire, fell apart, or otherwise became useless. I don't have such dreams all the time, or even all that often, but it's a recurring trope in dreams where the situation appears that I am in need of a weapon. Where I finally realized what caused it for myself was when I really thought about it and past dreams one night after having a similar dream. When using firearms in dreams to defend myself from creatures, eg. not humans, I never had such problems. Replace that creature with a human, and 100% of the time, the trouble arises. Furthermore, I began to realize that it wasn't just firearms, but any weapon. I simply cannot kill a human in my dreams, even if doing so is to try to save myself. While it's obviously a subjective speculation here, I fully feel it is simply my intense aversion to being the cause of the death of a person. Now, if you place myself in a scenario in real life, I seriously doubt the mind's ability as the proprietor of my dreams would carry over into the real world and effect my accuracy in such a situation. If it is anything like my own it could simply be that. Psychologically, killing a person is very traumatic to the killer (if you're not a sociopath), and even those who do it in lauded heroic efforts usually need some pretty long lasting therapy. Spin this to your mind in a dream and it may just be trying to avoid that. I know that's what mine is doing. Now, of course, they could simply be in your case, the implementation of a fear. Just as someone may find snakes, clowns, the death of loved ones, and such as fears and thus the subject of scary or bad dreams, perhaps you fear being unable to apply your self-defense training in a scenario where it is needed, and as such, when having dreams that are playing out such fears and anxieties this is how it manifests. Either way I doubt it is any cause for concern. I mean if you had a dream where it played out as expected, it'd not be a bad dream.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 10:57 |
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Lorentz Factor posted:While not exactly the same as your dream state troubles with weapons I have had similar problems since I was a child and it may be relational to your own, as I know the cause of mine; though the above poster I suspect it may be a similar case as my own, since I can recount many a time where pulling the trigger felt like either it was weighted to much or my finger would not move. My thing was that I could only fire like once every five seconds or something and my arm just felt leaden, like something was weighing me down. The species-cide aspect rings true with me. I really did not want to shoot the guy that I had to draw on and I was glad that I didn't have to shoot him afterward. I don't wanna kill nobody but I don't wanna die, and I don't think anyone else should have to either (barring justifiable situations, of course). I suppose that's why I carry. Beach Bum fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2013 around 11:43 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 11:41 |
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Beach Bum posted:My thing was that I could only fire like once every five seconds or something and my arm just felt leaden, like something was weighing me down. Yeah, I mean if I were to write down each time in the past 33 years I've had such a dream and how it arose, there'd likely be 100s of different forms that the problem was enacted. I've also experienced the lead arm, even to the extent I couldn't raise it from my side, whether the gun was too heavy or the muscles in my arm were too underperforming to even lift the arm. Dreaming is not well understood. Psychology itself is already a difficult realm of scientific study, it is even more so with dreams which have little objective (beyond EEG and fMRI as a form of empiric research) aspects to go on. While there a lot of theories (most being more pseudoscience crap than anything more), very few if none at all have explained even the slightest in terms of content of dreams and what that represents or how it is formed. I mean last night I had a dream that I purchased some large automatic weaponry that was controlled by an android app, which I mounted atop my house (which was my grandmother's house about 10 blocks from where I actually live). The guy who sold these automated defense weapons was my ROTC/Rifle Team teacher from high school (about 15-16 years ago). I installed them on the "house". A short time later the local civil defense sirens went off (usually just used for NWS alerts such as tornadoes here). Apparently there was a giant cat wearing an old diving suit (like the ones with that big bulb helmet) without the helmet. The cat was bipedal and about 50 stories tall. It was marching around outside of downtown which I'm a few blocks away from, knocking crap over. Not much sure what happened then, but I was in a small plastic electric powered child's car, that was made for one person, but I was driving it from the front sitting on the "hood" while my girlfriend was controlling the speed, this went on for a very short period of time after which the car rolled over. After that I don't remember much aside from wandering around some really crappy part of Atlanta trying to find a store for something. Made little sense. Not at all. Though I can probably piece together a few reasons for various inclusions. The night before we'd watched some videos about the tornadoes that came through here back in april of 2011, I mentioned my ROTC sergeant in passing earlier that day as well. Thinking back I remember considering installing bioshock 2 on steam, when I was looking over my games. Throw all that together and you have the tornado siren, the rotc teacher, and the diving suit the cat wore. I'm sure if I had a better memory of everything from the days prior I could piece together more. The point of all this is that dreams are chaotic. They're made up of completely arbitrary stuff along side hashed together memories and thoughts. It is much more likely that you had that dream, it bothered you enough to post about it here and thus I'll assume it bothered you enough in some sense that you thought about it a good bit, which likely accounts for the repeat play of it. I really wouldn't worry much of it, dreams are just odd. If you really want a good time with it, slap on a nicotine patch before ya go to bed.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 12:10 |
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Lorentz Factor posted:Apparently there was a giant cat wearing an old diving suit (like the ones with that big bulb helmet) without the helmet. The cat was bipedal and about 50 stories tall. It was marching around outside of downtown which I'm a few blocks away from, knocking crap over. Sounds like a standard rear end in a top hat cat. I'm picturing it walking around like my family cats used to on tabletops, knocking over glasses of water because they're assholes. Also, on the topic: yeah, dreams really aren't representative of a psychological problem. I've had a bunch of dreams where I needed to shoot someone but couldn't pull the trigger because it was too heavy or whatever. I've also had dreams where I forgot I had that 7th period high school class and I haven't been to it all year and now there's going to be a test if I can find out where it is -- I'm out of college and still have those dreams now and then. The point is that unless you start having persistent nightmares that interfere with your ability to sleep or are significantly upsetting to you, dreams aren't indicative of a problem.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 12:42 |
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I wouldn't worry about the dreams, that one (or similar versions) seem to be pretty common. I can't analyze it, but I've had dreams like that since I was young only in those I was too slow/weak/whatever in a fist or knife fight. Once I started getting into guns the theme was the same, but it was difficult to pull the trigger or I couldn't hit anything.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 12:49 |
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I've had dreams where trigger pull is so heavy as to be impossible - I wouldn't fret about it. It's a common dream that's manifesting itself in a way that's familiar to you. I've also had ones where I was in a fistfight and couldn't throw a straight punch.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 13:04 |
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Admiral Bosch posted:I've had dreams where trigger pull is so heavy as to be impossible - I wouldn't fret about it. It's a common dream that's manifesting itself in a way that's familiar to you. I've also had ones where I was in a fistfight and couldn't throw a straight punch. A lot of cops have this dream in some variation or the other. I used to have a dream for years that the trigger wouldn't pull on my weapon. It would just be frozen. Beach Bum, I have a weird question for you: Have you ever shot steel targets? Domini Cane fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2013 around 13:22 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 13:19 |
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Its been said that when things are very important to you, you will experience anxiety over them. I also remember having lots of dreams where my trigger weighed 11,000 pounds and had a foot of trigger pull, or I'd hit the perp but nothing would happen. I'd relieve these worries by going to the range that day and reassuring myself my gun had a crisp 6.5lb trigger pull and zero over travel 
Protons fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2013 around 13:28 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 13:26 |
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In my variation of this dream, I'm just plinking away at steel targets with a revolver on my usual range. Line up the sights with the 50 yard plate, press the trigger. As the trigger breaks, I get one of those "everything about this shot is going just right" feelings. One of those moments where everything feels like slow motion and you are certain that you've made the shot, even before you hear the ping. Then the bullet slows to a stop 10 yards in front of me, hangs in the air momentarily, and falls straight to the ground. I think this sort of thing is completely normal for any activity that you try to be good at. Back when I was really into Tetris, I'd get a lot of dreams where I would get endless streaks of crazy shaped pieces that couldn't possibly fit together.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 13:45 |
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How was this thread one of the top ten most popular on the front page?! I've had this dream several times where I need to shoot somebody and the weapon never works. Occasionally it falls apart, or the rounds are somehow duds, and there's always time pressure when I need to shoot, but I frequently get a reprieve from the danger somehow and try to fix the problem, whether changing magazines or cycling the weapon, or picking up a different weapon, but it never fixes the problem. I find it very hard to actually shoot anybody (or anything) in my dreams.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 20:31 |
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Admiral Bosch posted:I've had dreams where trigger pull is so heavy as to be impossible - I wouldn't fret about it. It's a common dream that's manifesting itself in a way that's familiar to you. I've also had ones where I was in a fistfight and couldn't throw a straight punch. Yeah, this. Also where as soon as my fist would get close to making contact it was like I was punching through water and had no momentum, and the other person would be completely unfazed by my hit.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 20:35 |
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Guns tend not to work for me in dreams either. The trigger's too heavy to pull, or it clicks but doesn't go boom, or something like that. You could probably construct some Freudian metaphor if you wanted, but the boring truth is probably just that stuff tends not to work in dreams. Reading, running, typing, writing, fighting - lots of times, it's all molasses. I don't worry about it. That's just the way dreams are.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 20:43 |
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Things generally don't work in your favor when you have a nightmare.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:11 |
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 you all have broken penises
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:19 |
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Vivid dreams are a side-effect of most opiates. Benzos like valium also screw with your sleep state as well so that's not helping. It's a pharmacological problem, get off the vicodin and you'll stop having these dreams. edit: You will still have stress dreams on occasion, they just won't be vivid and strange once you get off the vicodin. I apologize if my wording offended any poster's masculinity Chobdab fucked around with this message at Feb 25, 2013 around 21:48 |
| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:31 |
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Chobdab posted:It's a pharmacological problem, get off the vicodin and you'll stop having these dreams.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:34 |
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BarkingSquirrel posted:I haven't had a prescription drug in 16 years and I don't do drugs. Smug less. Was talking to the OP... narcissist rear end in a top hat less?
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:34 |
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Chobdab posted:Was talking to the OP... narcissist rear end in a top hat less?
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:36 |
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BarkingSquirrel posted:The OP having the same dreams as we do. Dumbass less. You see people have stress dreams for many reasons and sometimes they are purely psychological. Dreams are not purely psychological when they appear at the same time that you start taking prescription medicine. That's the difference between the OP and every other poster who's had a stress dream.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:40 |
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Cyrano4747 posted:
I was going to go with "you all are either too gay or not gay enough". All of my nightmares are stupid hyper realistic "bad day at work dreams" but with a single totally off the wall element. Like, a normal day installing an event but for some reason the show floor is covered in like 12" of water. Or there is a pack of wild dogs loose in the hotel.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:43 |
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Kinda glad to hear i'm not the only one who can't punch for poo poo in my dreams
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:46 |
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I've had a few gun-not-working dreams, but they tend to be pretty surreal and not discernibly related to real life problems. Usually they involve the gun being some impossible mashup of different parts rather than mysteriously inoperable. The latest one I can remember involved trying to find usable weapons in an abandoned police car and wondering why the gently caress local cops would be cruising around with so much loose .32 Long under their seats and no guns to use it in. 
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 21:55 |
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Admiral Bosch posted:I've had dreams where trigger pull is so heavy as to be impossible - I wouldn't fret about it. It's a common dream that's manifesting itself in a way that's familiar to you. I've also had ones where I was in a fistfight and couldn't throw a straight punch. Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup. "Pull pull pull why isn't the trigger breaking oh god" is a regular one.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 22:00 |
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Get your rear end to a USPSA match* and see what you do on the clock. You will revert to roughly 30% of your performance, and you'll also see what people look like who practice that sort of thing. * as long as you are not under the influence of any psychoactive substance.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 22:02 |
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Cyrano4747 posted:
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 22:05 |
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No Freudian way to interpret any of these. No sir.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 22:09 |
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My opinion is that you're assigning too much importance to your dreams. I have had reoccurring dreams in which I've stabbed, struck, or shot someone many times over with no affect (in a military capacity); while stressful, they're only dreams. I've also had a series of dreams wherein I turn into an old black man. Until I either put four magazines into an actual and unrelenting foe or become an old Mississippi Delta blues man, I will not put any stock in the real-world validity of such dreams. Also, I agree that you shouldn't be carrying while on prescription drugs of that nature.
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| # ? Feb 25, 2013 22:33 |
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smoke weed
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 03:24 |
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 03:26 |
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In my dreams I never have a problem with my marksmanship or not being able to pull the trigger. It's that they're all disassembled in various states of upgrades or repair or not sighted in. Also had the wrong kind of ammo a few times. I solve this problem by never having that set of circumstances happen in real life. I was watching Aliens videos too late one night and fell asleep with that on the brain. The xenos were attacking and my SCAR H was all torn apart and I had a poo poo ton of ammo for it, but My AR was together but I had no ammo for it 
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 03:31 |
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There is a belief that nightmares are your subconsciousness trying to prepare yourself for reality. The fear of falling stems from when humans still slept in trees and falling out was a real factor. Dreams such as yours where life or death failures are a common factor fall into the same genere. Past few months I have spent my nights dreaming about my best friend shooting himself in front of me. No matter how loud I scream he cant hear me and is facing away from me; I cant see his face. He shot himself Dec 15 when I turned my back and I cant seem to dream about anything else. JEEVES420 fucked around with this message at Feb 26, 2013 around 04:09 |
| # ? Feb 26, 2013 04:06 |
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Lorentz Factor posted:Apparently there was a giant cat wearing an old diving suit (like the ones with that big bulb helmet) without the helmet. The cat was bipedal and about 50 stories tall. It was marching around outside of downtown which I'm a few blocks away from, knocking crap over. WE NEED MEGAZORD POWER NOW
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 04:48 |
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I had a dream were I was fighting in Syria and my gun wouldn't shoot no matter how hard I pulled the trigger.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 04:54 |
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JEEVES420 posted:Past few months I have spent my nights dreaming about my best friend shooting himself in front of me. No matter how loud I scream he cant hear me and is facing away from me; I cant see his face. He shot himself Dec 15 when I turned my back and I cant seem to dream about anything else.  Are you getting help dealing with this trauma?
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 05:00 |
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| # ? May 19, 2013 22:14 |
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DJExile posted:smoke weed Every day of the month in a Dutch Master fuckin' blunt.
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| # ? Feb 26, 2013 05:15 |
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