Thread: Explain your ADA techniques

I choose certain times during the day to practice continuously in short blocks. For example, if you are focused on a particular thing one day such as your favorite hobby for the whole day, you might choose to practice whenever you move to do anything else. If you are at work, you may choose to practice on every break, at lunch, and while cooking dinner later (breakfast too), as well as when you are in the shower or at the store. This time can add up to hours on some days. Certain circumstances are (for me) mandatory self-awareness times, such as when talking to people.

What I do: I tell myself that I may be dreaming. I examine (check) my surroundings carefully, perhaps doing a reality check, but not always. Then I step outside of myself and observe. I ask myself where I am and how I got there. If there is an emotional connection to the place or circumstances, I ask the whats and whys about it while keeping a "flash image" of recent memory in my mind. Then I briefly recall what I have done for the last hour. Usually at this point I will describe certain aspects of my personality that are relevant to my situation. Finally I will rest in general self-awareness, that is, cycling through awareness of body, mind, situation and my place in it, and generally seeing myself from the outside, observing my awareness as well; all the while dreaming is on my mind. Then when I feel like it I start from the beginning and repeat.

At times I will just think about lucid dreaming in general or practice dream control to break up the monotony, and very often I will simply allow myself to lose awareness for a few minutes, or more than a few minutes.

I am sure much of this is superfluous (very sure in fact), but it keeps my mind from losing interest or becoming taxed because I change the focus continually. The only other thing I do is I run through a smaller version of this process every hour when not "continually" practicing, that is, all the rest of the day. It is at this point that I usually do Sageous's RRC and some general self-awareness and memory checks. All of this sounds like a lot, but it isn't; especially when compared to trying some of the more traditional continuous "ADA" practices.
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The first three months were not really difficult, but I had to make sure to be consistent then. These days I can skip days and forget sometimes, but because my interest in lucid dreaming never wanes, I never let it get out of control, and much of it has become (somewhat) automatic. Self-awareness does become a way of life, and as a result it also does in dreams.