Don't you hate it when you plan to do an RC next time you see a dream sign, then you wake up from a nice dream and remember so many dream signs but none of them triggered you to do an RC?

Or in waking life: you're having breakfast, the milk is empty and you think 'next time I'm in the store, I need to buy milk. Later that day, you've been to the store, you come home and discover you forgot to bring the milk? Or you're going to see a friend and just at the moment you see him, you remember you should have brought the book you borrowed...

These problems occur when your prospective memory is not working adequately. (In this topic there is written more on prospective memory.)

This part of MY brain is quite under developed (yesterday I left the water pump running at the horses place when I left, while I was sooo intended to shut it down before leaving. In 2 hours the paddock was flooded :O (ah, now I see where my flooding dream came from )

Last week I started reading LaBerge's book (EWLD) and it describes an exercise that is very helpful both attaining lucidity and training to forget less in waking life. I thought it might be interesting and fun to post the explanation and the tasks for today here, for the people who don't have the book, or for those (including me) who feel more motivated if there is some place to report to when you are 'done'.

The exercise:
Each day there is a list of 4 targets. You read them and memorise them and the next time you notice a target during the day, you perform an RC.

You don't need to do an RC every time you notice the target, but ONLY the FIRST time you notice it. The GOAL is to train your memory on recognising future tasks, not to do an RC as often as possible.
It helps if you memorise yourself performing an RC while seeing or doing the target.

Keep track of the targets you hit during the day and report back at the end, or report earlier when you've hit them all.
If you realise during the day that you have missed your first chance to notice one of the targets, you failed to recognise it. It's really important that you train your brain to notice the target the first time it occurs. Sometimes a target doesn't occur at all during one day, then you can write that down too.

So, here is the target list for today (tuesday)

I will perform an RC...
  • next time I see a traffic light
  • next time I hear music
  • next time I throw something in the garbage
  • next time I hear laughter


Who's going to join?

Please ask for more info if I was too short on explaining the task (I assume most of you have the book from LaBerge, if not: it's really good and not expensive (only $7.50) so buy it! )

If people are interested, I can include some extra information by Stephanie Burns on how to help your brain on prospective memory tasks.