Thread: How to be more critically aware?

I understand that critical awareness is what’s needed for LD’ing because critical questions push self-awareness along. Probably the most obvious example is the question “is this a dream?”. As far as I know, the only critical thing you could do during the day is reality checks, but what if you wanted to do more? Something which is similar to ADA but is centered around critical awareness like RC's etc. I haven’t seen many tutorials or descriptions of how you would do this.

I’ve heard about it a lot around forums; it may be termed ‘constant vigilance’ ‘state awareness’ ‘critical awareness’ or even just ‘self-awareness’. But how does this work without just doing RC’s so frequently that they become habitual and meaningless? Should you also be looking for dream signs? Should you have certain questions in your mind at all times, like “what am I doing?” “does this make sense?” “what was I just doing etc.?” I’m not sure what it involves or how to do it.

I would be interested to know about your strategy for doing this, if anyone would like to share. I mean, how exactly do you be ‘critically aware’ all day, or even most of the day? It is, after all, the most important form of awareness for LD’ing.

Thanks.

How about a RC that is done all day long?
The common RCs have the problem that you need to stop for them to not become mindless I guess?

I know that Oreo uses a dream-feeling RC and seems to be very effective for him.
I personally use gravity RC, which is centered on the idea of knowing two versions of gravity, one which is normal and one that is not. Normal = awake and abnormal = asleep, so by making it an habit you instinctively know when it is normal/abnormal (awake/asleep) and become lucid from this feeling. Obviously for this to work, the RC has to be done at all times, which is the most difficult part. After a while the concious practice is no longer needed, as the feeling will stay there as second nature.

Also, these RCs need to be done in a way that does not need you to do anything out of the common for your waking life. Basically, they stay in the background permanently regardless of what you are doing. Example, I check the weight of my fingers while typing right now, don't need to actually stop and then focus for it to work.

Thats how I do it, at least.

Originally Posted by Hukif

How about a RC that is done all day long?
The common RCs have the problem that you need to stop for them to not become mindless I guess?

I know that Oreo uses a dream-feeling RC and seems to be very effective for him.
I personally use gravity RC, which is centered on the idea of knowing two versions of gravity, one which is normal and one that is not. Normal = awake and abnormal = asleep, so by making it an habit you instinctively know when it is normal/abnormal (awake/asleep) and become lucid from this feeling. Obviously for this to work, the RC has to be done at all times, which is the most difficult part. After a while the concious practice is no longer needed, as the feeling will stay there as second nature.

Also, these RCs need to be done in a way that does not need you to do anything out of the common for your waking life. Basically, they stay in the background permanently regardless of what you are doing. Example, I check the weight of my fingers while typing right now, don't need to actually stop and then focus for it to work.

Thats how I do it, at least.

Wow, that would indeed be difficult; even if it is just focused on one thing. I actually tried to do something like this once (not one of my best efforts though ):

What I did was try to pay constant attention to transitions, as in dreams they’re usually very changeable and often you would go from one location to another with apparently no transition in between. So I thought by focusing intensely on everywhere I went, I would notice such an inconsistency in a dream. After a while of doing this, I just gave up on it and went back to doing regular reality checks. My issue with this kind of approach was that it was so monotonous and mentally exhausting, and apart from the fact that I thought it would take a monumental length of time before I began to see results with it, my concern about 100% lucidity also came into play. So in the end I just decided it wasn’t favorable…

I also felt like I was blocking out some important questions which may have been lingering as I paid attention to the transitions, like “does this room look as I remember it?”, “what was I doing in the last while?” I thought I could’ve spent the time asking questions which covered all aspects of my reality. So I decided to just take this approach, but unlike the gravity, transition RC’s etc. these questions quickly draw conclusions and it’s difficult to know how to continue to ‘ask’ them throughout the day with unbroken attention.

Also, I find it impressive that you were able to make the gravity RC work. It must have taken a lot of effort!

Concern about 100% lucidity?
Also, imo you were questioning wrong. If what you wanted to test was the crazy transitions it should have been more like "fluid transitions = awake" and "jumped transitions = asleep" to make it simple.

According to me, a constant RC must not focus as much on the normal questioning of reality and should focus more on the meaning behind them. Why do you know this is reality? Because transitions are fluid. Why do you remember things like that? Because this world makes sense and so on; since it is constant, taking the time to think about the questions seems like a waste of time to me and hinders waking-life because of that very reason.

So basically, when doing a constant RC instead of questioning or asking with unbroken attention, it is like "knowing" and passing through the day with the understanding that things are normal/fluid/heightened/whatever and knowing that any change means you are dreaming. I sadly cannot say this for sure, since there aren't enough people who have stuck with this and tried; so far its only worked for me, Azul and Oreo I believe (And sinister, ofc). From what WakingNomad described in the omnilucidity thread, Mylynes also uses a constant RC but can't say for sure.

As I always say, the worst part were the first three months, as I would constantly forget to check gravity and go through long periods of time without checking. But once I managed to do it all day a few times, it simply slipped to the back of my mind and became second nature until some life problems got in the way, but I am back on the game once again.

Originally Posted by Hukif

Concern about 100% lucidity?

Ha, yes. I feel like I would have to rest eventually!

Originally Posted by Hukif

Also, imo you were questioning wrong. If what you wanted to test was the crazy transitions it should have been more like "fluid transitions = awake" and "jumped transitions = asleep" to make it simple.

According to me, a constant RC must not focus as much on the normal questioning of reality and should focus more on the meaning behind them. Why do you know this is reality? Because transitions are fluid. Why do you remember things like that? Because this world makes sense and so on; since it is constant, taking the time to think about the questions seems like a waste of time to me and hinders waking-life because of that very reason.

So basically, when doing a constant RC instead of questioning or asking with unbroken attention, it is like "knowing" and passing through the day with the understanding that things are normal/fluid/heightened/whatever and knowing that any change means you are dreaming. I sadly cannot say this for sure, since there aren't enough people who have stuck with this and tried; so far its only worked for me, Azul and Oreo I believe (And sinister, ofc). From what WakingNomad described in the omnilucidity thread, Mylynes also uses a constant RC but can't say for sure.

As I always say, the worst part were the first three months, as I would constantly forget to check gravity and go through long periods of time without checking. But once I managed to do it all day a few times, it simply slipped to the back of my mind and became second nature until some life problems got in the way, but I am back on the game once again.

Yes the concept of this kind of RC is interesting; I think a lot of LD ‘awareness’ practices are aimed at making the practitioner get a feel for what a dream is like, by gearing your awareness towards specific things which are inherent in dreams. Maybe this is why LaBerge presses the idea of dream signs so much, to get you to be critically aware during the day, except the dream signs he talks about are not ones which are default to the dream state (like gravity, transitions etc.), but ones he encourages you to categorize in your dream journal…

It really would make sense, considering that after the initial awareness you would put into a continuous RC like this, eventually it just sinks into the background and becomes and unconscious process. So you wouldn’t even have to exert any awareness during the day, because your mind has internalized it and you know what it means. It was probably also the intention of RC’s, to help get you into a questioning state of mind (which is probably why RC’s tend not to work unless you do them very often and meaningfully).

Thanks for your advice, Hukif; I think I was perhaps paying too much attention to the ‘questioning’ and not the meaning of it (which was a problem I used to have with RC’s). I may still may consider this kind of approach and stick with the transitions RC. I’ll certainly look into it a bit more.

Originally Posted by VagalTone

I didn't know there was already a member using dream feeling RC. I started a thread while ago, suggesting it could be a nice idea. I never tried it.

I saw that as well, VagalTone; thought it was a good idea!

Very nice to read guys! Very happy to see Hukif around here too.

I didn't know there was already a member using dream feeling RC. I started a thread while ago, suggesting it could be a nice idea. I never tried it. Must have a conversation with Oreo if he is still around.

Part of ADA IS vigilance. I get what you are saying about your standard RC getting meaningless but there are ways to do it in a manner that gives it more meaning. For example, your riding passenger in a car down a highway near the coast, you look off to the side of the road and see a bilboard with a seafood advertisement and there is a giant crab on top of the bill board. obviously the logical side of your brain will tell you the crab is fake, but ignore that. notice it, notice that it is not normal, its weird, it out of place, ect. and assume you are in a dream, i mean where else do you see odd giant crabs? question your reality, get a sense of everything else around you, and then do a RC. basically, you question anything that seems very weird, or out of place. convince yourself you actually are dreaming, and your job is to PROVE it with your RC. the reality check may not even be used in the actual dream. in my last lucid, I saw a flying picture, determined it was way out of place, and knew i was dreaming. maybe you dont want to be constantly aware all day, but train yourself to recognize weird things when you come across them and question them until your sure you are dreaming or awake, after all, dreams feel just as real as reality, why not check? hope that helps!