Question About All Day Awareness

So I was walking last night from a Cafe me and my friends go to, after losing a game of Chess, and I tried to notice every feeling, sound, and visual I could. The air didn't smell like anything but fresh air. I did this several times for a minute at a time when walking. Am I supposed to mentally confirm that I'm in a dream? Or do you just notice everything?

I kept losing focus when I did this, though, since a girl I know said she'd hang out with me yesterday, but ended up going out with her girlfriend instead, and then not answering my call afterwards. Still feel quite let down, at the moment, and am going to call her in four hours.

Yes you definitely need to check and see if your dreaming for sure from time to time. Awareness of your environment won't do anything if that true "lucid mindset" isn't there. I know some people who have been doing ADA and they started becoming aware in the dreams, but not lucid. Sounds weird I know, but if you don't have all the key components for ADA then it won't work out the way you planned.
That being said, myself, along with many others feel that ADA really is one of the harder "techniques" of course I'm not speaking for everyone though.
With awareness, from my own experience, that thought process is constant in a way. After a while of practicing any awareness technique your mind will usually get a hang of that thought process and you'll be doing it as though it were second nature to you, so it wont be as dominant a thing in your mind, nor will awareness be anywhere as hard to sustain throughout the day.
So to answer your questions directly, yes you do need to mentally confirm whether you are in a dream or not from time to time. How often you do that is whatever feels comfortable and right to you, and it may take some time to figure that out.
Also, Yes you do need to notice everything, but also to a level that is comfortable enough to you while at the same time the technique can still do its job in bringing you that awareness in dreams.
As for the whole thing with that girl, many people trying to sustain awareness will find themselves distracted by events that were important to them, so you are not alone man. I've that happen to me a few times as well bro, it happens. Just stick with the awareness dude and you'll get the hang of it.

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Originally Posted by OneUp

Yes you definitely need to check and see if your dreaming for sure from time to time. Awareness of your environment won't do anything if that true "lucid mindset" isn't there. I know some people who have been doing ADA and they started becoming aware in the dreams, but not lucid. Sounds weird I know, but if you don't have all the key components for ADA then it won't work out the way you planned.
That being said, myself, along with many others feel that ADA really is one of the harder "techniques" of course I'm not speaking for everyone though.
With awareness, from my own experience, that thought process is constant in a way. After a while of practicing any awareness technique your mind will usually get a hang of that thought process and you'll be doing it as though it were second nature to you, so it wont be as dominant a thing in your mind, nor will awareness be anywhere as hard to sustain throughout the day.
So to answer your questions directly, yes you do need to mentally confirm whether you are in a dream or not from time to time. How often you do that is whatever feels comfortable and right to you, and it may take some time to figure that out.
Also, Yes you do need to notice everything, but also to a level that is comfortable enough to you while at the same time the technique can still do its job in bringing you that awareness in dreams.
As for the whole thing with that girl, many people trying to sustain awareness will find themselves distracted by events that were important to them, so you are not alone man. I've that happen to me a few times as well bro, it happens. Just stick with the awareness dude and you'll get the hang of it.

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Makes sense, reality checks don't work too well either if you don't mentally confirm if you're dreaming or not, so I was suspecting this was a similar deal.

Yeah, my friend doesn't like to be at her house very much, her mother doesn't like it when she goes out alone, so she'll take any opportunity to get out, if someone asks her. That's my guess on what happened. All I can do is pretty much just keep trying to get her to hang out with me, since she would definitely if I was the only person who would that day. :P

ADA is good i guess....but at times it was too much for me....
i eventually had to re-evaluate how my own mind works......


ADA is good....but I had times where i felt too overwhelmed by it......so i started to analyze every time i became lucid, and why...

I never became lucid from what i smelled
I never became lucid from what I tasted
I never became lucid from what I touched or felt
I never even became lucid from anything I ever HEARD....

Every time I became lucid, it was because of what I SAW....
My sense of sight, has triggered my lucidity, and has been the single most prevalent sense every time to trigger me off...
so instead if me trying to take in all my senses at once, i decided to start with just one....my sense of sight.....

and when i say this, i mean, i had to focus....not just SEE THINGS, but really COMPREHEND what i was seeing....
even vocalizing what i was seeing quietly to myself to keep my brain going....


Not to go against ADA or anything, but sometimes you have to do a little tweaking....to get you started.....

after i started doing "all-day-sight-awareness"......then i moved on to my sense of sound, then touch......

sort of like doing a SSILD method, but you're doing it in waking life.....

ADA is by far the hardest technique to master.

You have to pretty much do RC's 16 hours a day, and notice every little detail in the world.
Constant awareness is easier to achieve if you meditate. I suggest doing that at some point.

ADA pays off. High effort, high reward.