lucidity in the "waking" world
I had an experience when I was 18 that made me feel lucid in the "waking world" that quickly led to dramatically increased dream recall and eventually a lucid dream. I think that the spiritual experience I had, caused an entire self reality check, a sort of nudge to a sleeping mind.. I'm going to kinda skim some of the key points that I feel like I've been focusing on, to maybe add to either previously established concepts, or assert more variety to the path of lucidity.
First of all, my spiritual experience was a first taste of illumination or mindfulness. A sort of instant gratification without any work. I quickly lost this state of lucidity. I was astonished that I had a lucid dream and was overwhelmed and afraid to let go when I accidentally begin to Wild later on. and also at the time I smoked a lot of pot which in this case was negative simply because I lost dream recall efficiency, and actually felt spiritually asleep in the waking world. Also I reverted in some ways back to the state of being before the "awakening" because I chose to not act upon a lot of epiphanies.
Blah blah blah. So anyway, here are some of the things I've learned on my path back to lucidity.
Patience. A lot of times, I mess up my transition to the dream state by giving in to the desire to stretch, roll over, itch, let an impulsive thought wake me. Or sometimes "over reality check" either when I'm still not fully "asleep" or actually catch the moment an actual sudden transition of the way my thoughts are articulated and I think "whoa, what the heck am I thinking about.. this is nonsense" Anyway, this is due to my lack of patience, which is something that must be learned in the "waking" world. A night where you feel frustrated or tossy turny could actually just be you meddling around in the made up concept of time! The way I see it, we are Always awake, or conscious. But we are not indoctrinated to understand our dreams from an early age so they are a sort of uncontrolled delusion. Like not understanding how to take the reigns of a horse.
Which brings me to the next point. If we are always awake, then it would seem that without human measurements like time, calendars, dualism and direction; this life is one moment. From the time you arrive to the time you leave, one "second" in the eternity? Whatever you would call it. So basically if you lose those preconceptions, it may seem as though learning to lucid dream isn't about how well you try to become lucid in a dream, but maybe how lucid you are in the waking life! This seems obvious, since we are seemingly fully conscious in the waking life. But I encourage one to question this!!
So, reality checks. I see them not as just looking at a clock to see if the language center is down for the night, but actually thinking hmm.... how did I get in this situation? Because dreams don't always seem weird until after they're over. I'll reiterate: this life is all one conscious moment. If you just stopped every now and then, when you're for example driving to the store, and think: Hmm, why did I decide to go to the store, look around, look at words etc. Any experience in your waking life could actually be the dream! a sneaky little trick of the mind.
Another thing. It seems as though there is a framework which creates parameters in the waking reality making it very difficult "possibly" impossible to control the waking dream. In the sleeping world, once conquered, you find that it's easily malleable. Sometimes, it's hard to let go of the habit of subscribing to the frame-worked waking world.
My biggest problem, is fear! I get nervous when I feel changes occurring in my body or the sensation of beginning to let go of the framework, or astral project and I freak out and purposefully roll over etc and eventually manage to sneak passed the wild.
Patience,
Mindfulness,
Lucidity,
Courage,
Selflessness
Are a few factors that could make a huge difference in any new psychonaut!
Like I said I had an experience and it's been two years to get close to that point again. So instant gratification may not be in the cards when trying to lucid dream.
