Thread: 2015: Year of the Breath, meditation, WBTB, confidence and dedication

Maybe doing some prospective memory exercises might help?

Originally Posted by Memm

Maybe doing some prospective memory exercises might help?

It's worth a shot. Doing PM and intention/reflection worked for me in the beginning. It's just so tedious continually choosing new targets that I'm bound to encounter during the day.

I'll try more daytime MILD work as well of the prior nights dreams and dreamsigns.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

It's just so tedious continually choosing new targets that I'm bound to encounter during the day.

I think the way the book suggests is pretty good, just a list of targets for the entire week, then you start from Monday again. Noticing that they never came up probably also builds PM so they don't all have to happen.

The thing is that all the targets in the book (well, many) have become permanent awareness boosts, like: putting my key in any lock, etc. With my mindfulness work I notice these things during the waking day, but somehow not during dreams. Hopefully returning to proper PM exercises will make the recognition moments "stronger."

Wouldn't it help to think that putting the keys in the lock is only a Monday PM event? On Tuesday it's irrelevant, I think the key here is to remember that you wanted to remember something including what that was, rather than simply noticing.

So I tried a different approach last night: working on "unbending intent." Creating in my mind an unshakable, absolutely overwhelming intent, utter confidence, that I would have a lucid dream. In particular, that I would have a lucid dream at 5am.

I went to bed later than I wanted, but at some point during the night, I woke with no recall and was bummed at first, but I quickly checked the level of darkness in the room and decided there was a lot more night left and drifted off back to sleep.

I then woke from a long, vivid, present, "bright", half-nightmare, semi-epic great dream. So packed with dream-signs that it's about as close to lucidity one can get without being lucid. I spent several minutes reviewing it for recording, then reached for my phone to record the main details, and noticed the time: 5:08am (cue the sound track to the Twilight Zone)!!!!!

Took me about an hour to calm down enough to fall asleep again, which I did, and continued to dream, but not like the previous dream.

I think there is something significant in this notion that "I have an appointment with lucidity" during the night, a very important appointment, one that I should be looking out for. Utter, complete confidence that I will remember to recognize the dream state.

I think this is just another way of wording Memm's notion that "the night is for (lucid) dreaming."

It bears more serious experimentation.

I think I mentioned this before but I think that amount of intensity is actually bad because the entire reason we don't realise that we're dreaming is that we're too busy (too intent / preoccupied) with what we're currently doing in the dream to even fathom that we might be dreaming.

When we were talking about PM exercises I actually dreamt that a new book on lucid dreaming came out and I was reading it and even discussing the new content, too preoccupied with that to notice it was a dream. Really aiming for a more calm and mindful approach I'd say, imagine if the dream was just about you sitting there and doing absolutely nothing, I think you'd notice it's a dream right away since you're not busy with anything in particular.

I may have made it sound more intense than it was.

I think it's the difference between "gee, I sure hope I get lucid tonight" and being more focused. Like you said before, "knowing that the night is for lucid dreaming." That lucid dreaming *is what you do* in the night. Not pass out and maybe, perhaps if the stars all align properly, perhaps once in a rare while get lucid.

Ah, yeah. It's too bad that it also takes some work just to not worry about your day / tomorrow long enough to get into that mental state that it's time to sleep and LD.

We have picked up so many bad habits.

I've been skipping out on my practise lately because my excuse is life is kinda crappy at the moment, but that's no excuse if I want to LD; so I will do meditation before bed every night no matter what from now on, and I'm going to write up a list of PM targets for each day of the week and stick to that.

No more falling off the wagon.

Oh and I'm going to journal it so that if I'm missing an entry you can tell me off.


Here's a quick PM list, may modify it as I get new ideas:

Code:

Monday
- see a red car
- feed cat
- read a comic

Tuesday
- go on dreamviews
- drink water
- hear a loud noise 

Wednesday
- check facebook
- open door for cat
- stop at a red light

Thursday
- practice anything taichi related
- get txt
- see a bicycle

Friday
- charge phone
- eat something sweet
- talk to someone

Saturday
- play a game
- feel something metallic
- notice a strong smell

Sunday
- get an email
- shower
- be in a dream

I've been skipping out on my practise lately because my excuse is life is kinda crappy at the moment, but that's no excuse if I want to LD

Sounds like my insomnia moments. Wallowing there feeling sorry for myself for having this stupid brain that doesn't go back to sleep on command and generate hour-long vivid stable LDs. I have to build firm resolve, and say, "OK, you want to LD, or even just to dream some more? Get your a$$ down to relaxing and falling asleep. You know what it takes, so stop wasting time."

Relaxation is hard work!

Haha very true, also that trick of just meditating instead of worrying about falling asleep knocks me out pretty fast, it's really good.

Catch-22. If I would just calm down and be aware of my thoughts and surroundings in a dream, I'd surely stop moving/reacting and notice the dream state frequently. But I'm too busy moving & reacting to slow down and notice.

Imagine stopping at a dream sign while you're driving through the dream.

Data!

Clipboard-1.jpg

So far I've noticed:

- The more vague the PM the harder it is to notice it, play the *some game* instead of play a game. Attach senses see / touch feel / smell etc...
- If you can't get decent sleep it doesn't seem to matter what else you do

The meditation I'm getting in is mostly of the walking-variety.

Daytime awareness tweak: I'm working on strong location awareness on transitions, with one-two deep breaths to get centered in the present moment on all major location transitions. Just a few seconds, but really trying to peak up the critical faculties on a reasonably frequent basis throughout the day.

Very late nights working this week on an important project deadline, so 2 nights of basically no recall and being very very tired, but last night I had several semi-epics and a semi-lucid sexy time at the end (and one either real or a false WILD partial-transition where I felt vibrations, my dream body separating loose from my waking body, and I called to my father to "pick me up" [meaning pick up my dream body], so I could enter the dream, but no visual dream formed).

full dj: 2015-04-17 the universe owed me a couple semi-epics and a sex-fest after 2 no recall nights - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Originally Posted by Fedor Emelianenko

«You have to force yourself to do something even when you don't have any desire. This is how your spirit and character is tempered. You have to overcome yourself, to step over your ego, your weakness. When you don't have any power left you have to move further relying on your spirit»

Went on a nice dream/meditation walk today, by the end of it I was a bit tired of thinking about dreaming, doing RCs, building intention for the night, etc. But I'm going to keep on doing it, anyway .

I did actual physical handwriting last night for about 15 minutes for setting intention. Turned up intention to very high, because I think it just hasn't been strong enough recently. Fitful, not restful sleep for what seemed the first half of the night (that happens when intention is too strong/forceful sometimes at bedtime), stayed in bed a long time, made it back to sleep in the late morning with the help of breathing/lotus-in-throat meditation, and ended up with a lot of little pieces of dreams recalled.

I still have great hope for meditation: it's really clear how my dreaming mind is jumpy, fogged, unclear, unsettled…if I can just get the practice of observing my mind strong enough for long enough, I think this will result in more lucidity.

Haven't really been setting goals, other than general ones, for dream actions or for getting lucid. Need to get back to that, and to tracking the night I think via waking recording of dream recall, and to noticing wakings more throughout the night.

Non-lucid dreaming generally still very very good, lots of recall, a lot of presence ("I'm there"), boldness with the dream ladies , just need to get lucidity back higher on the importance scale.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I still have great hope for meditation: it's really clear how my dreaming mind is jumpy, fogged, unclear, unsettled…

While I was driving home today I had the thought: what's the difference between my current state of mind / awareness and how I am in my dreams?

And I realised there was no difference.

I wasn't even considering that question in a particularly lucid way, I could have just as easily been pondering it in a dream.

So I remembered what being lucid felt like in a dream and tried to apply that instead, it did produce an entirely different feeling. But it was also very fleeting.

Might try applying the "lucid feeling" to my meditation just to see if that produces anything interesting.

My current meditation practice has definitely increased my happiness / focus level, but I think perhaps mindfulness hasn't been building as fast, mostly just single-pointedness. So I can't say I'm disappointed in my progress, at least for life in general. : )

Now that I'm a bit happier I'm sure focusing on LDing will be easier too.

Also I'm still keeping records in Excel but it occurred to me that there's much more going on usually than the data I'm building, so it doesn't really paint much of a complete picture, although it's fun seeing trends in the numbers.

Originally Posted by Memm

While I was driving home today I had the thought: what's the difference between my current state of mind / awareness and how I am in my dreams?

And I realised there was no difference.

Well for me there's one HUGE difference: in dreams, unless I'm lucid (or nearly so), I'm almost *never* thinking about dreaming. And this is somewhat odd, since in waking life, for the past 1 3/4 years, I've been thinking about lucid dreaming all through the day, every day. I even made some half-jokes about this, that my absolutely guaranteed dream sign in every dream is: not thinking about dreaming. But this is serious, too: just getting the thought of "dream" into a dream can be enough to snowball into lucidity. Such a small thing, yet…so huge.

In the early days of practice, this thinking of dreams was new and showed up in dreams, but now I seem to have become accustomed to thinking of dreams during the day, and seems to be filtered out by my brain's "day residue accumulator" that decides what subjects to present in dreams… how to combat this? Stop thinking of dreaming during the day for a while? Think of dreaming less during the day? Somehow that seems not right, but...

LaBerge may have recognized the fundamental truth back in ETWOLD: lucid dreaming is all about remembering to remember...

What is this (not remembering dreaming) a failure of? Memory (general/life)? Intention? Prospective memory?

Also, in dreams, my mind is usually firmly stuck in action/reaction loops. Only once recently in a dream do I recall recognizing my rising frenzied reaction to a stressful situation and calming myself down.

Another thing: a lot of my dreams are quite short (as best I can determine from my recall): scenes jump around a lot. With each scene change it's like the universe begins anew and I must start from scratch fighting for lucidity. With longer, vivid, more stable dreams, lucidity seems more attainable. I use this as one of my critical reflection questions: have I been in one stable location for a long time? But if my mind/memory gets fully "reset" each time, that's harder to accomplish.

Meta-cognition, being aware of one's thoughts (which is, basically, meditation/mindfulness), also seems the key.

So, as always, it comes down to: self-awareness, and memory….

I set strong intention again last night, and had a long insomnia period in the middle of the night. I officially tried a WILD at one point and got almost all the way to sleep, perhaps even a flash of a dreamlet, before I got too uncomfortable, and had to turn over, and just aimed directly for sleep.
Maybe this strong intention is doing precisely its job: disturbing my unconscious/unaware sleep? That's sort of unfortunate if true, because the quality of sleep is worse. Maybe I just need to work on returning to sleep faster from the wakings.

Recalled some nice scenes later, including a magical crystal/snowflake/fractal cloud in the night sky, and a beautiful petite girlfriend who was a government official whose official uniform really turned me on . Although, I was also stuck in a loop of concern about all my high tech items (laptops, video cameras) getting stolen, and how I really shouldn't put them out on the fence outside.

April wrap-up: some great non-lucids, but not much happening lucidly.

May has begun with LDs two days in a row in the first week. Flying is making a major appearance recently, to the point of being a major dream sign (including the urge to fly). 7 out of 8 dreams recently in one night were flying dreams, that was a really amazing night with recall spread over multiple sleep cycles.

Breathing awareness…..bleah, not happening much. Getting the odd meditation session in, just the other day I did 30 minutes. Seated sure makes a difference versus lying supine for avoiding laxity.

I've slowly been working back in location awareness. But maybe that's ill-considered. Ctharlhie says "use your strengths," which for me is (generally) recall. What does having great recall mean? It means I'm very familiar with my dreams. There are so many dream signs, though, should I pick one or think of all of them? In the end, perhaps what this means is that "dream feeling" ADA/RC style may be the way to go. Location takes a lot of cognition. "Dream feeling" is more of a instant holistic check of the overall situation.

So I may supplant breathing with ADA/RC "dream feeling" for a few months, maybe the rest of the year. It has a good feel to it (haha).

And nothing matters more than good sleep. Without sufficient rest, the night is just one big black box of nothingness.

Some BTS successes, and some failures. More seated meditation is required to tame this unruly mind so that it performs on cue.

So, it's been a while.

I've noticed something that might be interesting the last week or so, if I focus on vision while falling asleep (just looking at the darkness) and ignore thoughts I seem to get much more vivid and easier to remember dreams.

I know there are areas of the body that have interesting affects if focused on, maybe good to experiment with some of the ones related to dreaming.

I've had quite a week! 5 LDs Saturday night, 3 Sunday night (TOTM basic(I)), and one last night (TOTM advanced (I)). The two nights in between I got to bed too late and didn't do WBTB. Getting to bed early and being well rested and sleeping long enough, surprise surprise, seems incredibly I portent to getting lucid. Oh, I'm on a business trip so I'm sleeping alone in a very dark room (blackout curtains! Hooray!). I hope this stays with me upon return. I think keeping yourself off balance and not stuck in a routine helps with lucidity as well.

I basically dedicated all of Saturday to one giant lucid / critical evaluation fest. It seems to have worked in a big way! (combined with the early-to-bed timing)

And another LD last night. That's 9-10 in 7 days, LDing in 4 out of the 7 last nights (5, 2-3 [across 3 cycles], 1, 1), beating my previous best of 7 in 10 days (ignoring the 10-15 DEILD chain I had in a single night last summer). Better than the quantity is the quality: about half with high awareness ("TOTM-worthy": I got both totm basic (i) and totm advanced (i), my first totm advanced).

It seems as if my awareness has been waiting for me to get my sleep right. On the nights where I've gotten lucid this week I've gotten to bed "early" (10pm is early for me), and I have avoided alcohol. I drank 2 nights ago and hardly recalled anything at all. Alcohol + too-late to bed = bad dreaming, no alcohol and to bed reasonably on time = excellent dreaming.

I've long suspected my higher erratic bedtimes (varying by as much as 3-4 hours per night) we keeping me off my best. This seems like solid proof of that theory.

Last night I remembered my goal to engage the dream. I turned on a sink in a kitchen and stuck my hands in the running water. Felt totally waking-like, and doing this really brightened the dream and brought it into good focus. I also read the lettering on the dishwasher. Took a piece of pizza out of the fridge and ate it (without much attention unfortunately, but it was uncooked anyway). Then I went out a door and encountered a fast, wide river of meat: like flattened bacon or prociuto. Went on for a while longer. Several solid minutes of awareness, very enjoyable!

For LDing to happen there must be a "perfect storm" of "just right" conditions (at least for me). I'm learning that sleep schedule is extremely important for me and is a major part of those conditions.

Keep that day work up, keep it high, build dream recall super high, get your sleep right, and at some point, all the pieces will come together.

2 more LDs last night: 1 pseudo (or real maybe) WILD, then one short DILD where I just "instantly knew" I was dreaming and sort of "forced" myself into lucidity. The thinking was like "come one, this *must* be a dream" with no outstanding clues that I could think of. Maybe a connection to memory that I intended to get lucid again after waking from the first WILD-like dream?

2 WBTBs, (fairly short, just getting up to pee, but fairly long BTS). I even had 2 glasses of wine in the evening (non-lucid recall was crap, though).

I've got a big reservoir of confidence going. It's a good place to be. This is possibly my biggest/best run yet, LDs in 5 out of the last 8 nights. Sleep conditions excellent: alone in bed, dark room, very quiet (still had earplugs in). I'm travelling and last night was yet another new location (well I've been here before, with family, but still a non-typical location).

Major achievement last night in the WILD in that I initiated a sexy-time where the DC did not shrink to doll-size and I got a waking-level visual detailed POV eyeful of the "good bits" right there in front of me. Initiated action with the steady POV view. None of the usual dream-like sexy time troubles: nothing was vague, and things "fit" just right. Still woke in just a few seconds into it, but I was so elated that I finally reached this milestone.

So basically, I'm hitting on all my goals right now (well, minus meditation, but day awareness work still high): confidence, dedication, WBTB are really in full swing.

You're really on a roll FryingMan congrats!