Bad Awareness

Finally! I managed to record my dreams for a full week :U

Unfortunately no lucid dreams though :/ Well, I had some general semi-lucidity I think, such as where I know I have dream powers, but where I still sort of consider the people and situations in the dream real e.e It's a fairly common thing for me.

Anyways, now that my recall has been pretty consistent I want to focus more on getting lucid. It's really hard to gain full lucidity though -___- I've been having the problem where a lot of my dreams are about playing video games so then the fantastical situations seem normal. I think my main problem is that I just need general awareness even in waking life so that maybe it will carry on into my dreams, because if I was even slightly paying attention in my dreams then I would realize how ridiculous the situations are >__>

I've also been looking for dream signs so that I can maybe do reality checks throughout the day. I really don't like doing them though :/ but perhaps it's necessary. However, one of my biggest dream signs I think is being with my family. Currently I am living in another city away from them so I don't really see them for months, but they're in almost all of my dreams, especially my two younger sisters :0 I'm not sure how I'd use them as a dream sign though. Also, the video game stuff is probably a good dream sign '_____' I should probably be paying more attention when I'm playing games. How often though?

What do you guys do for awareness? Do you just back-track your day every once in a while? Evaluate why you're doing something when you do it? What are your techniques?

I have trouble remembering to do reality checks based on waking life activities (e.g. "every time I walk through a door I'll check to see if I'm dreaming" or watching for dream signs that don't occur during waking life "e.g. the next time I'm in Rome, I'll know I must be dreaming".)

I have had much better luck doing reality checks throughout the day with an external prompt, and that external prompt continues to be occasionally present while I'm asleep.

I currently have an app on my phone (think its called Reality Check) which prompts me semi-randomly about once an hour to perform a reality check. I leave it on at night while I'm asleep, as well as while I'm awake, and it occasionally prompts me during REM sleep, and I automatically do a reality check, and become lucid.

Before I starting using the app I wore a watch with an hour chime, during the day and while asleep, and every time the hour chime beeped I did an RC. After doing this for about a week, I started having lucid dreams.

For me doing some kind of reality checks frequently throughout the day was key to becoming lucid at night. Setting my intention before bed wasn't enough.

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What do you guys do for awareness? Do you just back-track your day every once in a while? Evaluate why you're doing something when you do it? What are your techniques?

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Awareness is paying attention. Practice paying attention during waking life: learn to notice when you've zoned out, and mindfully tune back in. Memory and (self-)awareness are intertwined: you can't remember something that you weren't paying attention to, so awareness and (waking/dream) recall go hand in hand. Doing a day review of memories at bedtime is a good way to activte access to memory. Having a number of quick "look-back" to the last 15 minutes or so helps keep this active during the day.

The more you pay attention (to anything, but particularly to your thoughts/emotions/reactions), the more you'll do it, for longer periods. Don't force it, just practice it more and more and make it part of your daily life.

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Originally Posted by SkylightMT

"every time I walk through a door I'll check to see if I'm dreaming"

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I have seen dreamers report trying doors as an RC trigger only to realize they rarely if ever go thru them in non-lucid dreams

I know I go thru them sometimes as often I will open a door see a dead relative and trigger as a result

In lucid dreams I also use door handles now when in the void to restore sight, by finding a door handle and opening the door to regain vision.

So before using this for RC ask youself do you really go thru doors in your non lucid dreams or do you just find yourself inside then outside or vice versa, as skipping is very common in dreams. I have even done it in luicd dreams. After solving a dream problem to get out of a canyon without knocking down a building because I had made myself 90 feet tall, when I did figure a way to get out of the canyon safely, I was just inside the building, I never entered it, I skipped into it the second I got out of the canyon. Earlier in the dream I entered and left a building following a suspicious DC (before lucidity), but did I go thru the door? I don't know that I did, I remember being inside and then outside. So careful in depending on doors they aren't necessary in dreams

I do have the power to create them in Lucids when I am trapped I just back into walls with my left shoulder and the wall opens as a door :)
(has worked with solid metal and even stone walls)
also works when I encounter locked doors just lean into them and they open. :)

^^ This is a good point as I also for a while used doors as an awareness-boost in waking practice before I realized I almost *never* noticed or ever used doors in non-lucid dreams. But *location* transitions occur all the time in dreams, so I started focusing more on location awareness. Now I work on a more "gestalt"-like "is this a dream-like scenario, a dream-like feeling?", but still use motion and location transitions (especially major ones like inside to outside and vice versa. Review your dreams and find those common situations and thoughts that you have, and focus on visualizing those and seeing yourself getting lucid in the dream ("day time MILD").

Also it's much more fruitful to use awareness spikes to *maintain* the mindfulness for extended periods of time. If every time you go through a door you just do a quick RC with almost no thought and then immediately go back to full autopilot mode then there probably will be little to no benefit on lucidity in dreams.

Yeah I tried doors as well a few years ago but never got Lucid from it once.
I remember a vivid non Lucid where I walked through a door and thought "I better RC".
I was carrying something in my hands though so thought "I'll RC when I put it down".
When I put it down though I'd completely forgotten and stayed non Lucid.