 Originally Posted by Simpleton
I appreciate your reply and all of your suggestions! I will probably update once a day for the first week and then give a weekly update for a while after that, possibly doing monthly updates after that so as to not spam the forum.
You're welcome, and thank you for your thoughts in return!
I have also read both EtWoLD and TYoDaS, have them both on my kindle. I have probably read through the four foundational practices a dozen or so times by now. Maybe even though I have MUCH less experience in lucid dreaming, I could help give a different perspective on meditation in TMI in the context of Dream Yoga that might prove useful.
Yes the four foundational practices chapter got very dog-eared . I kept re-reading it until basically I had every single mini-practice suggestion he mentions totally memorized.
Even though lucid dreaming is not mentioned in TMI itself, the changes that occur throughout the stages lead, in theory, progressively into the kind of mind that naturally dreams with lucid awareness. In fact, people have reported that they automatically have started lucid dreaming around Stage 8. You might wonder why I don't do the TYoDaS foundational practices. Reason is that at my current stage of meditation in TMI(4 and 5), I understand enough about how the mind works to know that it wouldn't bring good results. The kind of Gross Distraction that you are dealing with in Stage 4 is the kind that will make doing the foundational practices throughout the day an uphill battle, and even when you get into Stage 5 ON the cushion, you will probably be dealing with a lot of Gross Distraction OFF the cushion. I plan on starting TYoDaS foundational practices when I have developed the habits(closer to Stage 7 of TMI) that make them almost effortless to perform.
I don't remember the TMI stages very well. I basically never get gross distraction any more. I'm able to remain in lucid presence more or less continuously throughout the entire day. However, I do live a relatively calm life in the country most of the time. (Conversations with people are when I still blank out and come back to myself afterwards, realizing I've been non-lucid for the entire conversation!).
Though I can't speak from experience regarding this, I doubt that constantly perceiving the 'mind-generated-ness' of reality is the best habit for encouraging lucid dreams. It makes more sense to encourage a habit more along the lines of 'constantly paying attention to surroundings in the context of the awareness that you could indeed be asleep.' Reason for this is that while I know that reality is of the same substance as dreams, I'm not trying to tell if my reality is a dream in that sense in order to achieve lucidity, but to tell if my reality is a dream in the sense of being a reflection of my subconscious projections rather than of external reality. Perceiving the dreamlike nature of waking life by itself doesn't seem to help in discovering that I am, in fact, not awake.
I've been around the LD rodeo long enough to know that one can theorize on what does and what does not promote lucidity more or less efficiently until the cows come home, and it's more or less not fruitful: each person needs to find what works for them, and stick to that. Everyone's psychology, brain, behavior, sleep, and dreaming are different and unique. TWR's framing in TYoDaS deeply resonates with me -- it just hasn't produced the results I'd hoped for. In the first edition of the book, he writes, (in the 4fp chapter), "Using these practices makes everything that happens a cause for the return to presence...." and that seems perfect! I had achieved this or close to in in waking, it was just taking its sweet time manifesting in dreams...
He also writes, "There is no stronger method of bringing consistent lucidity to dream than by abiding continuously in lucid presence during the day." I agree with this. It may be strong, but it's definitely not the fastest...
The cognitive approaches have many benefits: you're training your mind to recognize dreams, what dreams are like, and to prompt a prodding from your subconscious when you're dreaming that "hey, you asked me to tell you that you're dreaming, well, here you are in a dream!"
But I will agree with you that TWR does not go into detail about HOW this practice produces lucidity. I think he expects the practitioner to trust that it will, and to do it and get experience with it and to reflect on the experiences.
As you get closer to Stage 6 practice you can try to keep attention fixed in the present moment throughout the day without a break, I did this before for days at a time before a serious unusual life event took away all of my routines. This is the point I think where TYoDaS foundational practices become useful for me, and I think its why he talks about Zhine(might've gotten that wrong, working from memory) first, but I don't think that he covers concentration sufficiently. In Stage 6 you develop Exclusive Attention, and in Stage 7 you develop Effortless Attention, and both of these make Dream Yoga practices, once again in theory, exponentially easier. This is why people in Stage 8 report effortless lucid dreaming even without practicing Dream Yoga.
As for insomnia as you progress, its something I experienced the last time I worked through the stages of TMI and now I understand how to prevent it. It comes from not compartmentalizing or contextualizing your practice to certain situations, and knowing where to place your attention. Sadly this wasn't covered in TMI but in Q&As that he did later on. People in Stages 5 work so hard to overcome even Subtle Dullness that they forget they need to encourage dullness at other times, and a lot of people are left with a high amount of focus and introspective awareness that they can't turn off(which is fine) and not knowing where to place that focus when its time to sleep. Also, I have heard from others that this issue naturally resolves itself as you get past Stage 6 and the habits of the mind 'rebalance' themselves once Subtle Distractions are dealt with. Most of my insomnia from this kind of practice anyways would always come from doing a WBTB and not being able to sleep again, once going days in a row(working full time) with only around 4 hours of sleep each night...
Interesting, I'd like to know more about this. I found that even initial bedtime for me was affected, and normally I'm out like a light in just a few minutes at initial beditme.
Regarding dream recall, I did notice a sharp increase in what I remembered last night with my current practice. Hopefully it continues to increase, in the meantime I'll be debating over how to want to record my dreams...or if I want to record them at all(I got a thing for privacy lol). I'll post a simplified update in a separate reply.
Recall reacts pretty quickly if you maintain strong intent to notice wakings and recall dreams. The more you reach for dream memories, consistently, the more your mind makes those neural pathways more efficient, to the point where it delivers long streams of detailed experiencial memories any time you beckon for them -- it's really amazine. It just takes consistency over time, and really enjoying the process.
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