Thread: How important is keeping an overview for general lucidity

Hi, I don´t know if it is the same but i see a very intimate connection between a lifestyle of attentiveness to the present moment, cultivating a calm and relaxed way of life, and knowing how reality interacts with our expectations.
The problem is, our lifestyle is so demanding and busy, and there's very little time to smell the roses. We human are enslaved by our culture. Against our will, we become zombies in waking life, and so it requires a good amount of persistance to cultivate a more lucid way of life, a way of attentiveness and singletasking

i don't know if it's the same eithe but; when I think of knowing how reality interacts with our expectations. I think that reality never lives up to expectations. And they are always false. It's way better to be attentive to what is. And becoming aware of expectations is becoming aware of false beliefs. That's how I feels on this particular subject. You may feel otherwise. Or perhaps you are alluding to other psychic processes at work. Which I agree have a presence in every day living. But it is not (to my mind) expectation. That's just the wrong word imo

But yes, taking time out of tasks we humans do and actually taking the time to smell scents unseen. Becoming aware of things we as a whole commonly don't pay much attention to. And what I mean is actually intergrating the information and doing something with it. As a natural cause of intergrating information. For example; A homeless man on the streets, do we see him? What emotions, fears, thoughts run through his head. When you become aware of that. Will we ignore the homeless man then. Just as an example. Internal psychic worlds are massive unseen landscapes for me. Especially with Autism more and more people have trouble being present to other people's psychic landscapes. Maybe I am ranting a little but..

Also singletasking is not something I brought up here but is something I pay much attention to lately. I find it very pleasant as a meditative and practical practice. My question to you is, what do you single-task on. How do you personally intergrate this into a practice?

Aight looking forward to ur reply

Originally Posted by Threeofeight

i don't know if it's the same eithe but; when I think of knowing how reality interacts with our expectations. I think that reality never lives up to expectations. And they are always false. It's way better to be attentive to what is. And becoming aware of expectations is becoming aware of false beliefs. That's how I feels on this particular subject. You may feel otherwise. Or perhaps you are alluding to other psychic processes at work. Which I agree have a presence in every day living. But it is not (to my mind) expectation. That's just the wrong word imo

But yes, taking time out of tasks we humans do and actually taking the time to smell scents unseen. Becoming aware of things we as a whole commonly don't pay much attention to. And what I mean is actually intergrating the information and doing something with it. As a natural cause of intergrating information. For example; A homeless man on the streets, do we see him? What emotions, fears, thoughts run through his head. When you become aware of that. Will we ignore the homeless man then. Just as an example. Internal psychic worlds are massive unseen landscapes for me. Especially with Autism more and more people have trouble being present to other people's psychic landscapes. Maybe I am ranting a little but..

Also singletasking is not something I brought up here but is something I pay much attention to lately. I find it very pleasant as a meditative and practical practice. My question to you is, what do you single-task on. How do you personally intergrate this into a practice?

Aight looking forward to ur reply

Hi again !

First bold sentence: yes, one thing is expectations in the sense of " i hope this travel will be amazing, the food will be good" and so on. So, it is a kind of hope. And it also plays a role in lucid mindset. But i was referring to expectations in the sense of projecting our beliefs and assumptions onto reality and then seeing them reflected backwards at us. For instance, when we are happy, people seem less threathning, but when our mood is down we pay more attention to cues of danger and threat, and they seem more judgemental, right ? So, our concerns, or hopes, our thoughts they bias the perception to some extent and so they influence our reality. The most simple example is our thoughts. If i think this person is nice, then it is nice. If i think it is not so nice, then it is not. We think the person is nice from their own side, but it is our thoughts that make it so.Do you agree ? For instance, the placebo (and its opposite nocebo effect) is also a good example of how expectations work in reality. This discussion about expectations can be carried into very deep waters, involving the assumptions we have about the nature of reality itself too, and that is a feature of so called daytime dream yoga practices (many resources on the web) and most spiritual traditions

The second bold sentence:how do i singletasking ? it usually goes something like this: i try not to overstimulate myself with too much sensorial or intelectual input at the same time. For instance, if i am eating i interact with my food and try not be listening to a podcast at the same time, or loosing myself in rumination. That creates a stressful state of fragmentation and mind switching which, yes, is uncomfortable. I try to do things with 100% bandwidth. But is difficult for me.
Do you have the experience of having your body doing one thing, and the mind doing something different ? It's the most basic form of multitasking and the one i try to transform. As you said, it is very pleasant to be doing one thing at a time. We can enter a flow state while doing anything with undivided attention. And when it happens, this pleasure becomes an intrinsic reward besides the goal of the activity

For instance, when we are happy, people seem less threathning, but when our mood is down we pay more attention to cues of danger and threat, and they seem more judgemental, right ? Yes.. But it's really not expectation in this case I think, it's what you pay more attention to at this point. We think the person is nice from their own side, but it is our thoughts that make it so.Do you agree ? In what color we view a person is related to thought. But I argue the person is and does what it does. Despite what our thoughts make of it, unless we put our thoughts into effect/action. But really the thoughts only serve as opinions.

Discrepantly I feel hope really is related to the expectation and fairly it will postively affect an outcome because we calculated in thought what is about to incur. And thus the other emotions have their reality in relationship to preceeding expectations and calculations rendering eventually as a gut-feeling likewise we have gut-feeling about certain persons too.

thanks for ur reply

I wonder if you guys might be drifting into the weeds on this subject. All hope* and expectation aside, I think that the English phrase you are looking for, Threeofeight, is lucid mindset, and that would indeed be a very good thing to have during waking-life.

Vagaltone already touched on this, but having a good grasp on your self-awareness during the day should help you with lucidity at night. This is because lucidity is pretty much the presence of self-awareness in a dream, so if self-awareness is a foundation of your waking-life, then lucidity could become foundational to your dreaming life (or at least more easily obtained).

A daytime lucid mindset must include a good sense of your presence in the moment coupled with an ability to consistently remember who you are and where you are. This mindset, I believe, would be the most powerful tool in your lucid mindset toolbox. Though expectation and attention are important, just expecting or practicing simple awareness (aka, noticing all the details around you, as in ADA) would not be enough to develop a lucid mindset, because they will not help you to know, without thinking about it, that you are lucid... that knowing comes solely from your self-awareness, your knowing both who you are and that you are present in the moment, interacting with reality.

I know I left a lot of necessary stuff in this post, out I'm out of time; I guess I really just wanted to insert this bit into your excellent conversation so that it won't be left behind.



* I've always seen hope as a negative thing, oddly, because it generally is felt when you already know that something you want or need is not coming your way, and decide to cling to a wish or belief that maybe it will come anyway -- not the best mindset for successful LD'ing, I think!.

Thanks Sageous for joining in and enriching the discussion.
Yes, hope can be a sign of "despair" and that's not the best mindset

I have a question for you Sageous. Do you think it is possible to apply " simple awareness" without having a strong sense of self awareness at the same time ?
You know when one is attentive and present, there's also a metacognitive "spy" to prevent against distraction and zoning out. And so i think one is better able to retain a sense of purpose, self-awareness and present memory.

Also, i see thinking as just another sense (although one that can be very tricky haha), and mindfulness should bring a more dettached and realistic awareness of thinking, as it is not intended nor able to supress thinking (although pointless thoughts tend to subside as practice deepens)

ADA as it was originally described is ridiculous, it seems like a dumb hypervigilant scanning of the senses, but real life mindfulness is inseparable from a degree of metacognition and critical self-awareness, i feel.

As to accessing past memory it's probably not included in the mindful state, but present memory and prospective memory are definitely enhanced in my view.

All Day Awareness sucks! Mental practices and jedi mind tricks rock but the form of ADA that involves becoming aware of everything around you is not only impossible. It actually freezes your brain because it is impossible to actually focus on everything at once. What you want to do is to point to a single object of interest, lock in and let yourself flow into it. And then just as eloquently pull yourself out and back to a center. A starting place where everything is vacant but anything can move in. Sort of like Tao. The trick is that anything that comes in is equally interesting. And you have to absorb yourself in it completely to enjoy it fully. You have to let yourself go for a minute. And then recatch yourself I think.

It's actually not a mental practice to do this. It is natural curiosity which drives one's self to inspect things. But we're so caught up in neurotic drives that we don't acces this part of the mind's habit. What I want is to get into the habit of inspecting consciousness behind people. Their drives, hopes, fears and stuff. And more importantly. How I can interact with them. How can I help? Likewise I want others to take into consideration my fears, hopes and perhaps they can serve to help fullfill my wishes. And alleviate my fears. It is interesting how each of holds a node of emotions that desperately wants itself to be recognized and quite possibly to be taken seriously. Although there is such a thing I think that is negative emotion. That is false. But even negative emotion can be taken seriously at some point given that there is enough mental foundation for it to last.

Maybe dreams are an ultimate example of how emotion has a real foundation in reality. I've read on DV about people's dreams where Dream Characters tend to Frown upon the dreamer's actions. And quite clearly they scuff at certain behaviors that to the reader is obvious. Like being exceptionally rude to one's father in a dream results in this scoffing in someone's dream. While the dreamer is obvlious to his own behavior. Clearly, the dream itself is not. Why? I think because the dream is conscious and has an emotional foundation. As do we. Amazingly enough we ourselvs are emotional dream characters in another one's dream. I think part of it all is figuring out what to do with ourselves. And what to actrually do with the dream.

Since we want to have a positive relationship with ourselves in dreams, likewise we want a positive relationship with our peers in waking life. I'm really going off on a tagent but since we are on the topic I noticed in my last 4 dreams. All of them involve another person's dream and my place in his/her thoughts. And I'm just dragged into the person's dream like an on-going thought. Even though I'm conscious I am only reacting to the person's wishes in these non-lucid dreams. But the possibility is there for real interaction. And I think our place on earth serves as training ground. To actually learn to get along and figure out what we want to do together. Until we can togetherly inhabit the same dream space. Wow.

As you see self-awareness and awareness for another, presence, comes kind of naturally when you see it like this. I haven't really gotten to the point where I have incorporated self-awareness and my place in interacting with the dream just yet. As this is an essential part of the dream. So thank you for bringing this up.

And Vagaltone it's getting kind of late and still haven't gotten something good on paper so have to try again tomorrow! See if I can get my mind straight enough to do linguistical magic

Originally Posted by VagalTone

I have a question for you Sageous. Do you think it is possible to apply " simple awareness" without having a strong sense of self awareness at the same time ?

Yes, of course it is.

In fact, simple awareness has a tendency to override self-awareness, which is why I don't think ADA is the best thing for LD'ing. I get more into it here, if you're curious.

That thread was amazing and you pointed very well your opinion.
I think it is fair to emphasize that ADA is not mindfulness, and the latter includes elements of self reflection and metacognition, which i think is the same comcept of self awareness you describe as essential for lucidity.

Yes, that self awareness which comes from seeing oneself as a volitive purposeful entity ( as much as its opposite is still paradoxical true, for the mystics ) reflecting what one is doing, what one's purpose is at the moment, how we are interacting with our environment, the effect we have on people around us, our self identity, our ability to choose our actions, evaluating what is being done according to our intentions, etc. Yes, that self awareness is critical. And for that, attentiveness or mindfulness is needed, not just ADA.

^^ Agreed; and well said!

It's true ADA is only a surface of the mindfulness field that deals with being present. To be honest I am really not familiair with any Buddhist Principles that deal with being present. But from a practical point of view; I want to add on what VagalTone and Sageous say about incorporating self-awareness into mindful consideration:

Originally Posted by VagalTone

the effect we have on people around us, our self identity, our ability to choose our actions

Surely it would become tiresome to always have to think about what kind of impact you are having around you. I think actually having an impact is not really that important to keep in mind. Ofcourse, you want to conceptualize your place in the world in the long run. What is important is remaining lucid about what you are doing in short-term every present moment. If you are thinking about something. Staring at something. Smelling roses. You know. Know that YOU are smelling the roses. And realize why you are doing this. What intent is beforehand. Just a tip for all the readers.

Why do you do the things that you do. Just another tip , maybe Vagaltone you can use this. I wanted to tell this to you in the 1st place. A practice where you reside to minimal activity. Can be very helpful for maintaining the mindfulness. It's a good place to start from. Ofcourse, this may be Oold news for you. You seem very adept. But from personal experience i've been in jail . lol. This helped me to unwind all my mind's intentions and habitual patterns. And start anew. If you have trouble with unwinding your mind's intentions. Try total reclusion for short periods of time. You don't want to stay in this path (like some 'adept meditators') try to maintain. It's boring as heck!

I just gave some examples of what self awareness is !
You have many options and styles of practice, you should never follow a script
The important thing is that you practice self awareness by being attentive and reflective

But let me argue that knowing the impact you are having in your environment (good, bad, neutral, so so ) and vice-versa is definitely a sign and competency of self-awareness, as many other aspects.

Originally Posted by VagalTone

I just gave some examples of what self awareness is !
You have many options and styles of practice, you should never follow a script
The important thing is that you practice self awareness by being attentive and reflective

But let me argue that knowing the impact you are having in your environment (good, bad, neutral, so so ) and vice-versa is definitely a sign and competency of self-awareness, as many other aspects.

As a natural consequence of this thread i've been paying atention to my presence and impact and indeed calmly and reflectively thinking in real-time about your presence is very rewarding and rich in terms of possible ways in which you can twist yourself and be creative. Being creative is something i've been wanting desperately to be so. That comes as a bonus. The real hazard is like you said Stress and anxiety about my own presence. Like, Am I doing the right thing. This worry distracts from actually doing the right thing. You know.

To reintergrate my original topic and come back to it, here's what i've been thinking of: Take a rap song as a good example. A rap song usually holds a lot of different intents and puts it into rhyme. Most rap songs have 5-6 general points to make and fluently go from one to the other. For the single-tasking mind this is harder to intergrate. But that's what makes a rap song special. You keep coming back to tune into new intents put into one song. Some rap songs talk for 5 minutes about 1 single point. But they generally loose their appeal. Here's my point. Every word put on paper is filled with intent. And being mindful is being aware of the source of every piece of information that enters your brain.

As long as you do that you are lucid about everything that goes on around you. And it's easier to do this when you are unloaded of information and simply start intergrating small bits and pieces of information into consciousness. When you wake up for example is a good start. Some generally digital devices are severely detrimental to the cause. Why, because they purposefully carry a lot of intents. Take commercials. Every 5 seconds you are loaded with an intent. Bombarded in a sense. Notice how your brain zombifies after flipping through 5 minutes of commercial.

I think being able to catch up on intents in the illusory state of the world. Is one side of the practice. That notably splits itself from the practice being able to catch your own intents and being self-aware. One of these being harder than the other depending on where your natural abilities reside. I think and hope that you understand what I mean? I'm shy

Maybe musical compositions are another example where you can practice lucidity. Since musical tones themselves are put into a composition with a specific intent. Good songs imo hold dear to this concept of intent. What is brought over is a tone and a feeling that accompanies it. Likely the artist had a feeling with a specific tone. And likewise we feel this same feeling when we hear this tone. I think. The intent sort of travels through space.

Originally Posted by myself

What is important is remaining lucid about what you are doing in short-term every present moment. If you are thinking about something. Staring at something. Smelling roses. You know. Know that YOU are smelling the roses. And realize why you are doing this. What intent is beforehand. Just a tip for all the readers.

I think I made a mistake/error in thought..
While I still think much of this is true it still cringes me that realizing why you are doing something is an act of itself. And not really important when doing the task. The sensatioms of a task are enjoyed. Like enjoying a shower as an example. I know it's kind of weak but still, it's not important to know why you are doing a task it's important that you know you are doing something and enjoying it to the fullest by knowing that you are doing something and then i guess you kind of put your whole body like a meat puppet into the sensations of a warm hoth shower. You're mind is somewhere enjoying the experience.

Sorry for the many posts but finally I feel complete

you just kind of zoom out for a while and the sensations may intensify