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

First progress report: I admittedly got a late start on the year: I have an excuse, I was traveling, and extended holiday activities kept sleep off balance.

WBTB: This last night I've now finished my 2nd night of noticing wakings during the night. My "WBTB" consists so far of just sitting up on the edge of the bed. I'm working up my nerve to make it to the rocking chair beside the bed next. I also voice recorded middle of the night dreams during the night, I want to return to this habit from which I've lately gotten away.

Breath: Progress! In the major dream of the night I had two-breath-related events! The first was me building a system of breath temperature measurement. The second one was me using a breath-regulation system myself, feeling myself inhaling and exhaling into this apparatus which provided breath resistance (the point of the apparatus was to stop hyperventilation from being scared, there was a freaky alien intelligence learning how to use our computer system and activate the warships against us, you see, and I left the room scared but doors were opening automatically for me everywhere, more signs of the alien intelligence controlling our systems and probably leading me into a trap!).

Confidence: *I'm* a lucid dreamer!

Meditation: short session before bed.

I'll be really excited to see your progress this year, FryingMan!
You're off to a great start with this kind of motivation.

I was also very pleased to see that "resolucid" has made its way into another thread.
And I'm very honoured to be listed among your "Who's Who of awesome LDers", you flatter me!

Good luck, keep us posted!

Great plans, FryingMan! I wish I could bring myself to put this much time into LD'ing. May I ask what kind of meditation you do? I have just (2 days ago) started practicing Vipassana meditation (also focussing on breathing to start with) and any tips/experiences are very welcome!

^^ InnerVision I'm a total meditation newbie myself. To start with, I'm more or less following Allan Wallace's "Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind". He promotes Shamatha (concentration) meditation, focusing on the breath to start with, so that's where I'm starting. With all the WILD attempts, and focused relaxation to get back to sleep (which takes an iron will to avoid getting drawn into tempting but agitating daydreams) I've done this last year, and some meditation sessions, I find I have no trouble keeping focus on the breath for minutes at a time. Though, after about 10-12 minutes my mind starts to "fidget," so working up to sessions of 24 minutes of total focus or so is my goal.

The goal eventually is to work up to vipassana, awareness of awareness, which to me seems the very definition of lucidity.

Also, with the exception of the focused meditation sessions, it's not really much time at all away from the waking day. It does help to be able to sleep in late in case of insomnia after WBTB, but exercise (another exhausting 2-hour x/c ski session today) should take care of the body's needing sleep. It's really a matter of choosing how to live; tuned in/paying attention, or zoned out/coasting through life on auto-pilot.

I love wbtb! I like waking up to listen to music in the night!

I'm doing mindfulness training too, but still lazy at everything lol.

Good luck fryingman! Be sure we (lol I have to hitch myself into this too) are on the road to professionally! We WILL be pros, because we are dedicated to this! We LIIIIIIIVE for this...well, mainly for this (remember, LDing isn't a thing. LDing is a platform. What we're really doing, what we really want, is the things we DO in the LD! You don't buy an Xbox for it's own sake, no, you buy it for the games you play using it. Now think of the things you can do using this platform (LDing)! Pretty much ANYTHING you can imagine! Technically, we got the holy grail of pleasure, excitement, ecstasy, drama, deep emotions, creativity, etc. I still get amazed by the possibilities!)

Just remember, Laberge said that theoretically you always get better at LDing if you're training. Sooo, it's time to hit the gas even stronger, cuz we never get slower, we can only accelerate, and we'll fly! Just wait for it!

*motivational speech ends*

@Fryingman:
Thanks for the quick answer!

That sounds quite like what I am doing now. I started by reading 'Mindfulness in plain English' by Venerable Henepola Gunaratana, which was recommended to me by someone on these forums. It uses concentration as a tool for achieving awareness rather than a goal in itself, but of course to you need to improve concentration to start with.

I do recognise the drifting of the mind after some time. First, my concentration is increasing quite nicely and I can feel that I am getting deeper into my meditation, but then after some time my daily thoughts seem to slip through and I can feel my focus slowly decreasing, until the point where I give up.
That said, I've only meditated 3 times in my life so far so I'll probably encounter many many more things in the coming weeks/months

I'm also more or less (we'll see how long this lasts) dedicated to avoiding galantamine and choline supplements for a year (galantamine + choline in particular). I'll stick with melatonin for sleep when needed, and with multivitamins from time to time, but that's about it.

Fryingman; if you are reading Wallace, I'm guessing you are familiar with Dreaming Yourself Awake? If not, read it!

Yep I've gone through most of DYA, thanks though!

Night #3, lucid #2!

meditation yesterday: didn't really, boo, come ON now, find a time/place even if you have to go out into the cold!

WBTB: did it again! Only, I got confused about time: I thought it was around 5.5-6 hrs, but it was *7* hours after bedtime, no wonder I had a heck of a time getting back to sleep, but I *did* get back to sleep and another great dreaming session including a short KILD. Vivid and amazing final dream moment: astonishing eyes on a girl at a counter: violet at first (matching her shirt?) then silver/gray, captivating, amazing! Oh, and I *make it to the rocking chair!* haha maybe tonight I'll get brave and go to the kitchen. We'll see.

Woke up during the night but didn't record until WBTB, if I had WBTB'd at the proper time (5 hours probably) I would have entered into my key dreaming time (5.5-7 hours) with more awareness, instead in this time I had a fairly long almost-epic non-lucid.

Back to sleep victory: woohoo, even at 7 hours (took a while though, and indulged in daydreams a bit too much, but eventually gathered the will to settle down to get dreaming). It's such hard work to quiet the mind, but it's so worth it.

Dreams were generally pretty awesome and fairly aware all night long.

Breath awareness: a number of times throughout the day, none in dreams.

Confidence: feeling *excited* for tonight! *I* am a lucid dreamer!

I concur sir, making 2015 the year of the no-technique, just practice!

My routine is going to be something along the lines of:

- Feel a connection with my dream(s) upon waking up before doing anything else (connecting instead of just remembering)
- WBTB (notice more micro awakenings)
- Staying in touch with Openness (Unbounded Space / Inner Refuge / whatever you wish to call it) during the day
- Taking at least 10 minutes to settle down away from the computer and other technology before bed
- Not focusing on any technique or anything while falling asleep, just letting the mind wander to whatever takes up its attention and just being mindful of this (I have this current theory that focusing while falling asleep is leading to focused, tunnel-vision dreams and that being more open is actually better for vividness and presence, I'll see how this goes)

^^ Nice, Memm! I tend to "hold on too tightly" when falling asleep, going into a long sequence of "just set ONE more intention, ONE more", hoping that the more I set intention, the more I'll remember to recognize the dream state in-dream. Does it work? I don't think so. Instead it just makes it harder/longer to fall asleep as my mind becomes more active. The "relaxation effect" comes up here and has something to say I believe that the more relaxed one is, not looking for particular specific results, the more the positive results happen. We'll see!

Do the awareness work during the day, and at bedtime, "Let's see what's out there!".

Sounds good.

By the way that STNG link contains Star Trek the original S01E22, Space Seed, which I probably haven't seen in around (well many) years, that's awesome television, "they don't make 'em like they used to!" Even for ST episodes that is probably one of the all time great ones.

Sounds like a great plan! Being a rookie at LDing I'm not going to comment on those aspects of your intentions, however I do have a few things to share about meditation. I sit 30 minutes every night between dinner and bedtime and try to get an additional one or two 45 minute session in during the day on weekends. I either attend breath or for a more expansive state I attend awareness itself. Sometimes I vary within a sitting. Depends on the 'feel' of the flow of the sitting and which technique seems to best fit.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Meditation:
In addition, I'm dedicated to daily meditation sessions, wherever I can grab them. Total quiet and lack of disturbance is hard to come by in 30-minute chunks in our crowded/noisy/small home, but I live near a park and figure I can at least go sit under a tree there (or on a bench now since there's snow everywhere).

My experience is as you becomes more familiar with the territory and that state of being, external noises and distractions will bother you less and less. In fact it's a great aid in exercising attention and awareness when you're ready for it. The example of outdoor meditation can be quite amazing. Direct perception without filters of all the sensations the outdoors can deliver to our senses. The way I would describe it is being an integral participant in nature's dance, which if you think about it we are. It's a oneness and it's expansive.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Breathing:
In particular, a number of times a day, I notice that I'm breathing, take a deep breath, and tell myself "I'm now aware that I'm breathing," and try to maintain that awareness, and make a strong "lucid moment" each time that happens.

During the day I use breath in a similar manner, but I also use it to center myself when I want to practice mindfulness of anything. Walking, driving, cooking, showering, eating, whatever. It's a great compliment to, and reinforcement of my formal practice.

WBTB is not all sunshine and roses, this is why I (used to say) I hate it: up at 5 hours for about 20 minutes, and haven't slept a wink since then and it's now about 9 hours. There will be ups and downs, this is clearly my major, major challenge.

Next time, maybe don't go to the rocking chair, just sit up on the side of the bed briefly.

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

During the day I use breath in a similar manner, but I also use it to center myself when I want to practice mindfulness of anything. Walking, driving, cooking, showering, eating, whatever. It's a great compliment to, and reinforcement of my formal practice.

Yes I do this too, ala Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life" -- using the breath as a initiator of a "stop... be present, pay attention" moment.

Thanks for the other notes as well on meditation!

Originally Posted by FryingMan

WBTB is not all sunshine and roses, this is why I (used to say) I hate it: up at 5 hours for about 20 minutes, and haven't slept a wink since then and it's now about 9 hours. There will be ups and downs, this is clearly my major, major challenge.

Next time, maybe don't go to the rocking chair, just sit up on the side of the bed briefly.

WBTB is absolutely essential for myself as well. I keep it under 15 minutes to ensure that I can get back to sleep, and make sure its after 5 hrs. of sleep so that if things go off the rails I can still function in the day ahead. I have made a commitment to get up every night, even if just to use the restroom, perform a state test, and MILD off to sleep in 5 minutes. For myself, without WBTB I think my chances of lucidity drop into the basement.

^^ Yes I am dedicated to finding the magic balance. My latest idea is to count breaths rather than keep checking the time, and stay in a near-sleep dreamy state as much as possible. I completely woke up this morning during my WBTB.

I wasn't totally wired awake the entire time after the BTB, most of the time was drifting near sleep: in fact, I *almost* made it back to sleep; I may have made it back to NREM for a bit, but no more REM/dreaming. I think I saw a dream scene forming at one point but focused on it too quickly and it vanished. Wife's snoring this time was just a bit too much for me to process and hit sleep, so a short night it was. Fabulous early dream though of a magical night sky scene so it wasn't a total loss, waking at that time allowed good recall of it.

WBTB: last night: no sleep issues, woke a lot during the night, including several times with a "buzzy dreamy" feeling, recorded a few times, sat up on the edge of the bed briefly, said a few mantras, went right back to bed (couldn't take 2 nights of 1/2 a night's sleep), but no lucidity.

meditation: briefly before bed, with distractions

dreaming: lots (dozen or more) of disconnected scenes

WBTB on 2015-01-15: short, got back to sleep fine

WBTB on 2015-01-16: seems like I've been doing WBTB *forever* but it's only been 6 days/a week? Last night I tried adding drinking a cup of milk and one small piece of dark bread, I had them by the bedside, just ate them and after quick pee went right back to bed. It was another slooooow back to sleep despite several hours of swimming. Shows that it's most likely mental excitement keeping me awake.

Several wakings though: 3 hrs (no recall), 4.5-5 hours (big recall, WBTB), probably 2 hr BTS then 9.5 hrs (big recall). Resumed "Opti-Men" vitamins, I find a big difference: with them, recall is consistently coherent and story-like, stretching the limits of memory to recall it all. When I went a week or so without the vitamins recall started to become more fragmented.

Getting a quiet moment in before bed but not a 20 minute meditation session…gotta stop procrastinating!

It's not going great so far. Not finding quiet enough places for meditation, WBTB more often than not results in a back-to-sleep fail and insomnia, and no lucids after the first couple a week ago. Recall is generally up and high, though, and dreaming is still pretty good. That's to be expected with more noticed wakings, thus more chances to recall/record earlier dreams. I'm naturally hitting the 5hr window fairly often. Back to sleep fails and not drastically increased lucidity is impacting confidence.

Generally by the end of the day, though, my confidence and excitement about the night has returned and is high. I'm a bit frustrated that by this time I'm not more often recognizing the dream state.

Just. Need. To. Get. Back. To. Sleep. Faster. Somehow. Somehow!

Concerning meditation, have you tried meditating under less than optimal conditions? Granted that's not an easy thing to do initially, but the real gain is in being distracted and gently bringing attention back to the object being attended (breath, mantra, candle, etc...).

Another possibility is taking advantage of any small space of time during the day where you have quiet. I know this might sound odd, but at work I sometimes do a 5 minute bathroom meditation. Just go into a stall, sit on the throne and get 5 or so minutes in. It all adds up over time.

Yes I need to grab those quiet interludes where I can, good idea. I understand there is a benefit to practicing under non-optimal conditions (especially since my primary focus is using meditation as a tool for recognizing the dream state, with all its distractions), but sometimes it's just tooooo much. Well, onwards. The year is young, and this thread is only a week old, haha it seems like it's been forever already!

And another thought: maybe I'm just trying too hard overall. Working in some of the "relaxation effect" may be beneficial.

I really do like the "Let's see what's out there!" mindset. That jives with the relaxation effect.

I just recently saw an article (lost the link) that had a Buddhist practitioner (monk if I remember right) saying that our minds are already multitasking on so many things and you should set one of those tasks to be following your breath, even if you're doing something else at least some part of you is still working with the breath.

Found this to be an interesting idea, will probably take some reminding before it becomes an actual habit but I suppose eventually calmly breathing will be part of the mind's background tasks.

Also I'm finding that it takes vigilance to not fall into the "trying" mentality, I woke up this morning thinking "damn, didn't have an LD" and almost automatically tensing up with the need for effort, but effort to do what? Meditate until my legs fall off? The only way to progress with anything is in a relaxed manner, tensing up just fills the mind with "why didn't it work? It should have worked, right? How come it didn't work?" and then while you're spending all that time discussing the issue with yourself, RCing or following the breath or just being aware gets thrown right out the window.

Disappointment does create energy though, but it gets soaked up by the tension almost immediately, so once disappointed I feel I must quickly remove the tension then I'm just left with the energy that I can direct towards something actually productive. It's also almost impossible to come up with any real solutions while being closed and busy wallowing in disappointment.

I have found it's really easy to integrate the breath into physical activity. It especially comes natural to walking or running, but also things like rowing a boat, paddling a canoe or kayak, or riding a bicycle. I've even applied it to fishing, both on casting and retrieving. The possibilities are only limited by imagination. I think most people do this naturally without being mindful of it, so it's just a matter of being aware.