Originally Posted by FryingMan
I'm at work so can't give a comprehensive response, but absolutely nowhere in my message do I "reject" self-awareness or fundamentals!
Yeah, sorry about that bit about rejection; I should've known better than to say that to you, of all people -- I just seem to be defending the importance of self-awareness to LD'ing fairly frequently lately.
At the risk of repetition, here are few more thoughts/responses (sorry in advance for the parsing, BTW):
I just think that state awareness is a fundamental itself, not necessarily tied in lockstep to self-awareness. I see all the fundamentals as being connected by variably-stretchy cords: they affect one another in a magnitude that varies according to somewhat mysterious condition
State awareness is certainly a vital aspect of LD'ing. That is why I think RC's (aka, state tests) are so important. But is it fundamental, or is it just a subset or perhaps a process of self-awareness? I'm not sure.
For instance, you do not need to do a RC to transition from NLD to LD; indeed, I believe RC's only work in a dream after you've begun to question your surroundings (thanks to the presence of your self-awareness). If state awareness was fundamental, wouldn't RC's always work, even when not lucid at all? And yet they do not: you can dream that you are doing a RC very easily, and then dream that it failed, making you assume that you are in reality and not dreaming. In other words, your state awareness is a product of your conscious condition in a dream: if you are self-aware, you are also aware of your state, if you are not self-aware, then state awareness is whatever your dreaming minds deems it to be.
That said, state awareness is critical during those first few seconds of lucidity. You must know, and know quickly, that you are dreaming in order to fully charge your lucidity. It is not so much moving in lockstep with self-awareness, but it certainly marches in the same column... I never said otherwise (or at least didn't mean to).
Your phrasing in the Q&A answer today Of "what does self-awareness feel like" was great ((1) I am here, interacting with my local reality, with a sense of importance). I just think that it is state-awareness of the dream state that gives the further "(2) this experience is all in my mind" rather than self-awareness.
I suppose that state awareness would be the tool you would use to register that "all this is in my mind," but self-awareness is necessary, I think, to grasp that concept and take it beyond the "Ah-Ha" moment and into a proper lucid dream.
I think my problem with state awareness, and why these responses here seem so stilted, is that to me state awareness is not a condition of consciousness unto itself at all, but simply regular awareness being referenced by your self-aware self. Because of this I don't think it ought to be added to the LDing lexicon, since that might only float a whole new raft of "state awareness" techniques that further complicate the path to lucidity and give dreamers yet another conscious condition to worry about. I would stick to calling the results of RC's simply "awake" or "dreaming," I think... I'm guessing you disagree with that!
So: State awareness matters, sure, but it only matters when waking-life self-awareness is present.
The reason I say that is that I have experienced (1) countless times in non-lucid dreams. I felt like "me" entirely. And it seems like "self-awareness" ought to encompass "feeling like me."
Of course you've felt like you in dreams, as have the rest of us, every night!
What else would you feel like than "you" in a dream? "Feeling like me" has very little to do with self-awareness, or else we would all be fully self-aware during every waking moment, right? Don't we always feel like ourselves when awake? Your dreaming mind does a very good job creating your dream character "you," and a major part of that is your body feeling pretty much normal, as it would during waking-life.
I think self-awareness, as I describe it and as it pertains to/equals lucidity, transcends the natural awareness that we have for our body (including basic consciousness). Yes, you are aware that you are feeling like you, but when self-aware you are also aware of the presence of your body and mind, plus you are aware of your existence, your identity (with the help of memory), your past, your place in reality, and probably some other things as well.
So: Sure self-awareness encompasses "feeling like me," but it encompasses much more than that. Plus, the lack of self-awareness also encompasses "feeling like me," or else we would all be fully self aware throughout waking-life.
[EDIT: Also, "I am here, interacting with my local reality, with a sense of importance," has a significant bit tagged on the end that I did not say, or at least mean: that sense of importance. The actual quote, "...that involvement feels important" should not have implied a feeling of self-importance. When self-aware, you actually must take a moment to gather your significance, to make yourself matter in the larger swirl of reality in which you swim. noting your own self-importance is a fairly non-lucid thing to do. In NLD's that sense of importance tends to be pretty normal, given that the dream schemata have been designed specifically for your consumption. I may have misunderstood you, but in case I didn't, I thought I'd belatedly throw in this thought.]
So in summary, I prefer to separate state awareness from self-awareness, and you seem to bundle them together. Neither I think is "right" or "wrong", just a personal framing of the complex mufti-faceted factors that make up awareness, plus preference for term usage.
Agreed. The bundling, for me, is important, though, because it helps keep things simple. However, I can see that we generally agree and the rest is just words.
I think BTW the others in this thread who rated "critical awareness" (I'd call this state awareness, or perhaps describe it as a component of state awareness) higher than "self-awareness" share a similar point of view. Both are required for lucidity.
Agreed again, and I'm pretty sure I already said the same above.
All I was really saying, in the end, was that self-awareness is not a technique but the actual state of mind you are pursuing when seeking lucidity. To reduce your very goal in all this to just another technique or tool is simply not helpful.
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