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

^^ Don't try to suppress thoughts, let them happen, just notice when they happen, acknowledge them, and let them melt away & return your focus to the breath.

I've now completed two days of maintaining long/high daytime awareness (much higher/longer than usual) and despite being in a stressful life situation and being in a period of very low (for me) recall, I had two short but stunning LDs this morning.

Maybe my day work was all wrong before!? Too relaxed?

I'm finding that if I don't at least have 20 or so minutes to decompress / meditate before bed then I don't even get any dream recall let alone LDs, so maybe pushing yourself a bit is good.

thanks for the tips guys. that should help me out quite a bit knowing that. i have been able to realize i thought flowed in, and bring myself back to breath concentration. hopefully i can get a good session in tonight! best of luck to you too

DJ for the LDs this morning: both outside (kind of rare for me, both really amazing)

2015-03-08 LDs #102, #103, amazing vivid building, stunning garden - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Nice epic last night: flying/fighting: 2015-03-09 (semi-lucid) epic (flying/fighting), late weird sexy-contact moments - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

followed by some weird-ish sexy moments.

I'm happy that I've managed two more or less full days of continual breath awareness. It's really a whole new level than what I was doing before. I believe that this "stepped up game" may be precisely what I need, at least until that clever subconscious gets used to it. The more I go in this discipline, the more I think that just doing "one thing" forever just can't work -- you always need to take a slightly different tack, regularly, to keep your mind slightly off-balance, from slipping into "unaware awareness" or the illusion of awareness. Or maybe just the recognition that "false awareness" exists and acting diligently to counter it. There's always the danger of slipping into extended periods of mindlessness, we must be constantly on guard against this.

In fact in the spirit of full disclosure, I'm using 3 things now for "triggers:" the breath, each step when walking, and location(+ especially transitions). I hope I can keep this up. I'm trying to do it in a relaxed manner, not with a tight/scrunched up mind. With each step when walking I'll set up a rhythmic sort of mantra: "I'm lucid / I'm dreaming" alternating back and forth with each step. Taken together, they all three cover pretty much all waking moments and situations, helping me bring my mind back to the now more often than if I was only using one.

I have a lot of excitement about this tweak to daytime work, and that it will help accelerate my progress to the next level (more frequent lucidity, allowing me to work on sustaining high lucidity for longer periods in dreams).

Originally Posted by FryingMan

The more I go in this discipline, the more I think that just doing "one thing" forever just can't work -- you always need to take a slightly different tack, regularly, to keep your mind slightly off-balance, from slipping into "unaware awareness" or the illusion of awareness. Or maybe just the recognition that "false awareness" exists and acting diligently to counter it. There's always the danger of slipping into extended periods of mindlessness, we must be constantly on guard against this.

It's probably no different than the principal of 'accommodation' when doing resistance training. Eventually the muscles become accustomed to the same movements, sets, repetitions and they hit a plateau where further gains are increasingly diminished. So you mix it up every now and then.

I'm maintaining my boosted daytme awareness, at least at higher levels than before. The "triple trigger" combo of breath, footsteps, and location seems a winner for this.

I had a real get out of bed WBTB last night and managed to fall back asleep doing a mantra afterwards. Gaining confidence again in my back to sleep technique.

Recall continues to be on the low side, but I'm feeling very well rested. Must great recall vs good rest be a zero-sum game?

I met / thought about 2 dv members in a nonlucid last night (met dreamer, thought about /remembered seeing sivason). I did RCs in front of dreamer to show I was a LDer. After waking up and recalling this I did a big mental face palm because BOTH RCS INDICATED DREAM!!!!! My explanation that I could breath through nose pinch? I just wasn't holding my nose tightly enough, and said "ah, it's unreliable anyway!" [FALSE!] and promptly moved on. Grrrrr!

Well it's a better sign than not thinking about dreaming, and interestingly, it came fairly early in the night.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Must great recall vs good rest be a zero-sum game?

I believe it is, at least for me. Up to the point where I both feel tired, and my dream recall plummets. Here goes the dry spell! Time to forget about dreams and take a break for a few days

Well I fell off the wagon a little. I took 1x 4mg Galantamind capsule last night during a quick WBTB. I've been off of all supplements (except multi-vitamins) for about 4 months now. I've been missing the really awesome LDs and so gave in. As a result I had my best LD of 2015, and one of my best ever perhaps. I'm sort of bummed that it worked -- I really wanted to develop my natural ability. I'm sure all of my work led to this great LD so it's not really so bad in the end.

In terms of supplements, this is the smallest possible dosage, I didn't take any melatonin at bedtime, and no extra choline (the 4mg galantamind has 50mg choline and some B5 in addition to 4mg galantamine).

It was a major victory in that I got almost immediately back to sleep after taking the G -- which I've never managed to do before. My back to sleep has been very successful recently: I focus entirely on just relaxation: letting go entirely of mental and physical tension, continually letting go over and over until I fall asleep.

I wanted to get more lucids on the fumes of the galantamine, so I just kept going back to sleep on every waking. I ended up sleeping until about 11 hours after bedtime. I had more non-lucids after the LD, with just OK recall, and one entirely forgotten. Not bad, usually I don't remember much at all after about 8 hours.

I think I may return to supplementing around once a month and see how it goes.

Breathing awareness in-dream: in a non-lucid last night I was under "magical" water and was carefully testing my breathing: it felt a little weird but I could breathe.

Another in a string of botched (missed) RCs last night: on a bus, the driver takes a wacky shortcut on a precipitously sloping gravel path (tilting 45+ degrees to the left, I'm sure we'll overturn), some guy dives into the bottom shelf of a chest of drawers in the aisles and it slams shut with him inside. I think "Whoa! There's some weird stuff going on here! <Nose pinch> Hmm, air seems to be leaking out, better keep trying" and I don't get lucid. AAAAAARGH!

I suppose there's a glass half-full interpretation to this: I'm on the bleeding edge of getting lucid a lot. 3 times this week, I'm either highly semi-lucid or actively doing RCs but just ignoring the results. What gives?! Those should all have been lucids….

In my early days, just even touching my nose in a dream would make me lucid. Now, it seems like it takes much more concentration to get lucid, and nose pinch is becoming more and more vague. In fact I had to fall back to the levitate test in my last lucid after a vague nose pinch result….strange, or normal progression? Am I getting too accustomed to nose pinch somehow?

Originally Posted by FryingMan

Breathing awareness in-dream: in a non-lucid last night I was under "magical" water and was carefully testing my breathing: it felt a little weird but I could breathe.

This is what I'm worried about, that simply being aware is not enough. I've also started doing breath awareness but I'm tackling it a bit differently, I don't really care how long I can keep breathe attention I'm more concerned about when I forget about it, at that point I go "oh right, breath", it feels like a "lucid" moment and I'm back in business. I'm assuming that rather than simply being aware of my breath in my dreams it will act more as a jolt of memory and I'll start wondering what it is that I'm forgetting -> lucidity.

Other than that I've been a bit preoccupied with other things, last few weeks have been wasted on dealing with life problems, I still try to forget about it all every night, but other than good dream recall I'm not getting any lucidity, probably because I'm swimming through the day like through a fog currently, bit out of it.

re: breath awareness: I think of it both ways: 1) as a "trigger" moment when I realize I've lost it, and 2) as a continuous reminder to be aware of the moment and my state. It's great that it's showed up a few times, I hope that it will become more and more and stronger and ultimately associated with dreams.

That it did not bring lucidity right away is not a concern. Setting up the association with lucidity comes with time. First step is getting any sort of awareness into dreams.

I'm starting to think this continuous breath awareness, any "all day awareness", is way too ambitious. This kind of mindfulness is the longterm result of intensive meditation practice, including retreats, I don't think it's plausible to force it from the word go. I'm switching to Puffin's sporadic awareness model now and I think perhaps it is more of a matter of the quality of awareness at sporadic points in the day and directly before a REM period than a more diffuse continuous awareness.

Well only 8.5 months to go, so we'll see. I've seen some hopeful results from my recent raised intensity (LD, semis, doing RCs in-dream [near misses]). It's all about finding that balance. I have no opportunities for retreats, ever, so I must make every day my retreat.

I'm working in sporadic peaks of awareness/ critical reflection moments, but trying to maintain the background level of awareness at the same time.

Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

I'm starting to think this continuous breath awareness, any "all day awareness", is way too ambitious. This kind of mindfulness is the longterm result of intensive meditation practice, including retreats, I don't think it's plausible to force it from the word go. I'm switching to Puffin's sporadic awareness model now and I think perhaps it is more of a matter of the quality of awareness at sporadic points in the day and directly before a REM period than a more diffuse continuous awareness.

I'm thinking the most important times to practice are when under stress, just like in a dream, it's easy when you don't have anything to do but when you're in the middle of something like talking to people or driving then those are the times you need to have a "lucid" moment.

Originally Posted by Memm

I'm thinking the most important times to practice are when under stress, just like in a dream, it's easy when you don't have anything to do but when you're in the middle of something like talking to people or driving then those are the times you need to have a "lucid" moment.

These are clearly key times, any sort of engagement to the point of losing mindfulness, entering action/reaction "reflex" cycles.

But there are also a number of quiet/contemplative/thinking moments in dreams: my goal is to catch all these moments: the calm and the action-packed alike.

It's a hopeful sign that I at least recognized the dream-like scenario, even if there was too much "action" going on to properly convert the RC into lucidity. I mean, the bus was going to tip over!

i think DV glitched out and my post never made it up, if there is a duplicate can a mod delete it? i cant see. but i hit post and it disappeared.

anyway i had said i liked reading these daily updates. lots of usefull info really. these conversations offer a lot. i like how you use spoilers in your DJ to basically censor sexual content, that way you can really post what you experienced and keep it suitable for a wider audience of readers. i had my first LD with full "caveman" mode last night and i used your idea of spoilers to cover the graphic scenes and that way i could detail the whole dream into the DJ and make it so those who dont wanna see it dont have to.

also your breathing techniques and awareness stuff has helped shape how i do mine. its definitely kept me on track with breath exercises and its now becoming better and more attainable.

^^ Glad to have a happy reader! Your dream was awesome, by the way. Very long, nice work!
Loved your spoiler sections, also very good length . Love those leggings…

Originally Posted by FryingMan

^^ Glad to have a happy reader! Your dream was awesome, by the way. Very long, nice work!
Loved your spoiler sections, also very good length . Love those leggings…

appreciate the feedback! Thats one thing i always liked to have as well, people who read dream journals i posted. its fun to share dream, no two are alike! and agreed, love the leggings lol

edit: added more detail and changed a few things in the spoilers, think it makes them sound more appealing. I doubt i will put this much effort into typing my next lucid though lol. I hate english class here at college, but I typed more and with more detail in this dream journal than i do most assignments i get, and i did it for fun and had a bit of a passion doing it, but when it comes to english papers i hate writing them lol.

I think the more detail you write on a regular basis is good for your recall. You're also teaching your subconscious that dream memories are important to you.

Hey FMan, check out this thread by cusp: http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...usey-mild.html

Seems a little silly maybe, but looks like a strong non-verbal anchor if you're still struggling with throat-lotus

I'm going to keep up with throat-dot/lotus. I've never gotten anywhere with body separation approaches: I'm always awake and when I move I lose the progress of the relaxation and have to start all over again. I'll keep this in my back pocket, though, thanks!

Day work down a bit for a few days, but starting yesterday I picked it up again at high intensity. Lucid walks are excellent to re-establish WL awareness focus.

I'm getting in "21 breaths" sessions here and there but not enough, NOT ENOUGH!

I'm using mantras connected to my footsteps to bring back awareness in the day. With each footstep I'll go through this little ditty (one line per step), rhythmically:

I'm lucid
I'm dreaming
I'm walking (footstep / gravity awareness)
I'm breathing
Location
Location
Location
Location

then start over. So an 8-step pattern. I keep it up until I feel like I'm "fully back".

I've been doing lots more hand checks. I'm trying to de-emphasize nose pinch IWL to avoid sinus issues.

Taking one day at a time. "Just for today, I will work really diligently on maintaining continual awareness." Really watching location transitions: in dreams I usually don't notice footsteps, if I'm moving and transitioning location and I don't notice footsteps, I'm probably dreaming.

Is this a waking location? Keep an eye out for dream signs. Pay close attention to conversations. How odd is this?

And in general, "What's the situation, here & now? Dream-like?" I'm trying to do this a lot, and working for continuous questioning eventually.

Starting some prospective memory targets during the day, as well. It's hard to always choose new and unexpected targets that still have a good chance of encountering during the day. Some I get, some I miss.

Waking a lot around 5-6 hours, and generally always getting back to sleep. Early night recall has been really low but I'm not emphasizing early wakings. I generally always come out of late morning with 5-10 scenes.