The missing step to All Day Awareness? / Living All Day Awareness

**Fantersam** · 08-07-2015 08:48 AM

Hello my fellow lucid dreamers and those, who have yet to achieve one!
My story of me ending up here again is kind of complicated and has to do with drugs. If you are not interested, skip this paragraph please

This is not my first try on achieving awareness in dreams, but never have I felt so motivated and near my goal than now.
I had a long break from lucid dreaming, in which mostly my ignorant and careless adolescence decided how my day went by. I started experimenting with weed, which of course totally killed my dreams. Then weed became dull and at the same time I was discovering the magic of psilocybin containing mushrooms, which opened me spiritually to many things I could manifest in my life, which now contribute to my overall happiness. It's not all just tripping, seeing funny textures and colors, you also have a lot of introspection and insight. This is NOT a recommendation, I have seen friends of mine not being able to deal with what they saw and not gaining a lot of insight. Through the intoxication of magic mushrooms which comes close to a kind of "enlightenment", I learned to embrace the moment first hand for example, recognizing that this moment is all that we have ultimately. In this time, I read books about this concept by Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now) and Adyashanti (The End of Your World) which both turned my life upside down in a good way, integrating things I've learned on my numerous trips took place on a whole new level. I started meditating and stopped doing drugs altogether. Here I am now, living in the moment, full of joy, free of drugs.

What came to my mind was, that when I walk on this path, I should include the practice of lucid dreaming. Soon I began to furiously write down my dreams again, I remember around 2-3 dreams a night now in such detail that dreaming has become a whole new meaning for me. Without really noticing, I practiced ADA all day long without a problem. There is more conciousness and awareness in may day than unconciousness. I try to feel every movement I make, every breathe I do, every thought and emotion that arises, analyzing it, letting it be, but examining my reality at the same time. I try to take in as much information as possible from my surroundings, and I feel like there is no turning back to the normal mode of thinking and participating in the day mindlessly. Through that, my dreams have become many more and rich of details, which is good by itself, but there is the missing gap that allows my awareness to float over to my dreaming. I had moments where I was close, but the awareness quickly faded.
How was your success and progress with practicing awareness and dreaming? Do you have any tips, any suggestions?

**FryingMan** · 08-07-2015 09:24 AM

It takes time and continued diligent practice. Just as with progress in meditation: you put in the work, and gradually, over time, your average experience improves, with occasional new heights appearing now and then, which will happen more and more as you continue.

My personal practice is more "mindfulness" than "ADA": my recommendation is to be a bit more discerning with where you place your attention: in lucid dreaming practice of daytime attention/awareness, the goal is not to drown in a raging ocean of all possible sensory input, but to use your attention to evaluate your state. When used in a lucid dreaming practice, there is a direction/subtext to the attention: you're on the lookout for the dream state.

**DannyCool** · 08-07-2015 05:02 PM

Originally Posted by FryingMan

It takes time and continued diligent practice. Just as with progress in meditation: you put in the work, and gradually, over time, your average experience improves, with occasional new heights appearing now and then, which will happen more and more as you continue.

My personal practice is more "mindfulness" than "ADA": my recommendation is to be a bit more discerning with where you place your attention: in lucid dreaming practice of daytime attention/awareness, the goal is not to drown in a raging ocean of all possible sensory input, but to use your attention to evaluate your state. When used in a lucid dreaming practice, there is a direction/subtext to the attention: you're on the lookout for the dream state.

Like last night I dreamt of this massive black scorpion that was following me around but did not want to hurt me. I knew I was dreaming but because I don't do RCs during the day and I don't say "the next time I am dreaming I will know I am dreaming" then I kinda took it to be somewhat real so I was not really lucid although I thought the scorpion was quite cute. He was a bigger version of a big black beetle I met on the mountains. Once you have good awareness should lucidity come naturally from that or do you have to put in the effort with journaling and RCs?

**FryingMan** · 08-07-2015 07:24 PM

Originally Posted by DannyCool

Once you have good awareness should lucidity come naturally from that or do you have to put in the effort with journaling and RCs?

I like how PercyLucid says in his MILD class (I highly recommend listening, BTW): LDing is a game of chances. Everything we do increases the chances to get lucid: some more, some less. The way I like to put it is that getting lucid requires a "perfect storm" of conditions (includes timing) and preparation (day work [awareness, intent, expectation, imagination, visualization, meditation], night work [WBTB, MILD, WILD], dream recall).

It takes a very keen self-awareness to pierce through the veil of fog and dullness imposed on our minds in the dream state, and it can take a long time to build up such a self-awareness. This is a great reason to start and maintain a continual awareness practice, don't delay, as every delay puts farther off the time when you reach a "critical mass" of awareness.

But getting lucid (on a regular basis) for most mere mortals *always* takes effort.

**TheHomeBeef** · 08-09-2015 12:34 AM

Smoking weed seriously kills any chance of me having a lucid dream that night I do it, too much serotonin which gives a lot of non-rem sleep. You think you one would get rem rebound from smoking weed but I never do, my dreams are stuffy, few, and short after smoking marijuana.
Interesting take on your shrooms experience as well Fantersam. I took shrooms once and it was for me as well enlightening in a way, however seeing how my world view had changed so much it made me depressed for a while.
Also shrooms are more enlightening and fun then LSD in my opinion.

**Fantersam** · 08-10-2015 12:37 PM

Originally Posted by TheHomeBeef

Smoking weed seriously kills any chance of me having a lucid dream that night I do it, too much serotonin which gives a lot of non-rem sleep. You think you one would get rem rebound from smoking weed but I never do, my dreams are stuffy, few, and short after smoking marijuana.
Interesting take on your shrooms experience as well Fantersam. I took shrooms once and it was for me as well enlightening in a way, however seeing how my world view had changed so much it made me depressed for a while.
Also shrooms are more enlightening and fun then LSD in my opinion.

That depression is quite usual for some people who experience that kind of awakening or enlightenment, however it is only temporary, just as the 'drug induced enlightenment' itself. However I think it's good to get that kind of realistic, outside view on our very existence, but it can be a burden too. A popular saying hints: "Before enlightenment, chop wood carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood carry water" Let me tell you that there is way more to this enlightenment than you may think, and you don't need drugs to experience that. I can only recommend reading further, because there is a basis for that which you experienced on shrooms.

FryingMan, thank you for your input. I really got your point, read further and hope to have success with my adjusted awareness in the not too distant future.

**midnightfire** · 08-10-2015 01:19 PM

Thanks for sharing your journey, Fantersam, it is good to hear that you have found a way to progress spiritually without the use of “drugs”.

I used to be really against use of all drugs, and I still don’t encourage them, but I’ve come to see certain plants as having very important messages and perceptions to teach us. For some people, they might take a much longer time to start to see the world differently if it was not for their experiences while on weed or shrooms. For other people, it just becomes a crutch.
That book looks interesting by Adyashanti, I am adding it to my reading list

I’ve been thinking about what you said. I’m pretty new to lucid dreaming but it seems to me that increasing awareness is incredibly important. But after reading FryingMan’s comment I have a different understanding.

The kind of awareness that you talk about is very useful for clearing the mind, doing ‘active meditation’, catching yourself before you react in everyday life ie. if you used to react angrily to certain triggers, when you practice awareness you are less likely to.
But, perhaps it is not as helpful in lucid dreaming terms because it is more of a passive behaviour? It probably would help with vividness of dreams and dream recall but not so much with actually becoming lucid.

Like I said for me, it’s only recently that I have really dug into lucid dreaming practices but it seems like the missing link (or one of them) might be the importance of lucid dreaming.

I think that it is important to spend some time reflecting and being really clear in your mind why exactly you want to lucid dream. What can lucid dreaming give you/teach you/bring to you that meditation in ‘waking life’ can’t? Do you truly desire and believe that lucid dreaming is important on all aspects, in other words does your ‘subconscious’?

For many years I have wanted to lucid dream, but I was constantly fighting with other aspects of myself that didn’t think it was that important compared to all the other things in my life. It was very confusing because there were times when I was sure that lucid dreaming was of vital importance, and other times when I felt like I should be putting my energy elsewhere. Point is I have to look deep inside to see what the different ‘egos’ within me are thinking. I have to bring them to the surface and examine them and dig deep to truly understand if I have enough energy and intent and desire towards lucid dreaming. And if you are very clear about why you want to lucid dream and why you are practising increased awareness, perhaps that will help to concentrate and direct your awareness into useful mindfulness in your dreams

**VagalTone** · 08-10-2015 11:03 PM

How was your success and progress with practicing awareness and dreaming? Do you have any tips, any suggestions?

I would recommend « go slowly» and practice a little everyday. It's not so dificult as we have pictured it, but it is essential to remember to do a little bit of practice everyday. That should be the question: how to remember to practice a little bit everyday ?

Regarding awareness or minduflness alone, i must say that there is no evidence that it is so effective for lucid dreaming purposes. Probably coupling awareness with critical questioning is much much more effective. I have experienced bursts of lucidity from intense days of awareness+critical questioning, but not from awareness only.