Thread: Awareness Awareness

Originally Posted by Arutad

Yes, what did you want to say about it?

I was curious how you felt about epoche's.

Personally, I mostly agree with what you are saying but I think (I am not certain) that you may be missing a critical point in these methods.

Firstly, I must assert that it is my opinion that lucid dreams are facades and do not really exist. Instead, it is the unconscious dancing with the idea of being able to control its dreams (dreaming of lucid dreams).

Considering that, I still think interpreting dreams and examining them tells you a lot about yourself. By trying to lucid dream, you inadvertently bring a lot of attention to your self.

When using these lucid methods, it is really a matter of bringing awareness to your self. While they may be placebo's and really just a ruse at first, they are necessities to help bring self-awareness (which I think is what you are speaking of).

So, I do not disagree with you.. but I am curious if you find this coincides with what you are saying. Epoche's being a fundamental part of learning about yourself.

What do you think...?

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Originally Posted by O'nus

Firstly, I must assert that it is my opinion that lucid dreams are facades and do not really exist. Instead, it is the unconscious dancing with the idea of being able to control its dreams (dreaming of lucid dreams).

I see what you mean, but I don't know whether I agree with you. It's difficult to decide. In past I figured out that all methods are a ruse, so I used only direct desire-induction and of course had a chance to gain suspicion about how all that is being done in LDs is not real but programmed beforehand during the day. I also have theories on failures that can explain nicely why seemingly programmed actions didn't happen, and it all ties in quite nicely, but there's no real method of "checking" it.

In the same desire-induced way I learnt to execute particular actions that I wanted quite fine, without being lucid, I think it's what is clasically called dream-programming. The preciseness of executed actions is overwhelming, it's not something that happens "kind of that way", but precisely what you wanted, only without the memory of why you're doing it. That makes taking decisions during lucidity a dubious thing.

Considering that, I still think interpreting dreams and examining them tells you a lot about yourself. By trying to lucid dream, you inadvertently bring a lot of attention to your self.

May I ask what's your motivation for LDing, is it really a desire to learn about yourself through them? I think that if I believed completely that LDing is fake, I'd have dropped it. I'm curious what keeps you going.

When using these lucid methods, it is really a matter of bringing awareness to your self. While they may be placebo's and really just a ruse at first, they are necessities to help bring self-awareness (which I think is what you are speaking of).

Well as I said, I use desire-induced methods, so I can't see how epoche would tie in there. Or what it has in common with self-awareness. All I know is that when you're asleep you keep "remembering" things, thoughts, and desires from the day properly enough, and your desires about LDing have great chances of being remembered and played out. If you want to be aware that you're asleep, you'll remember it and become aware. If you want to do something, you'll remember it and do it. Etc. It can happen not once, but many times per night, mostly dependant on strength of your desire and on contradicting forces.

It would help if you spoke more clearly about your own methods. Are they alike in any way?

So, I do not disagree with you.. but I am curious if you find this coincides with what you are saying. Epoche's being a fundamental part of learning about yourself.

For me epoche is a concept that doesn't coincide with living. If you've reduced your notions to the pure state a la Planotic ideas, then I can't see how you'd function. Would only emotional stuff be gone, wouldn't something else be gone with it? So it might be good in meditation, for a short period of time, but certainly not as a way to live. However there are people who interprete epoche in a totally different way, as a method to purify notions that wouldn't interfere with life but would change the very nature of your mind, bringing it back to its "natural" state. Are you one of them?

Originally Posted by Arutad

May I ask what's your motivation for LDing, is it really a desire to learn about yourself through them? I think that if I believed completely that LDing is fake, I'd have dropped it. I'm curious what keeps you going.

No, you missed it - learning to LD is a facade. I once truly believed in it.. but during that process I learned more about myself and then came to the conclusion that it was fake.. it is all about self-revelation. The deep motivation to LD is really a sense of control in life - think if you really had that feeling in your conscious life all the time.

Well as I said, I use desire-induced methods, so I can't see how epoche would tie in there. Or what it has in common with self-awareness.

You don't know what epoche's have in common with self-awareness..? I don't know how you can say that - they are almost synonymous if not a function of each other.

How do you discern between the two..?

It would help if you spoke more clearly about your own methods. Are they alike in any way?

I don't have any methods anymore. I just dream and infrequently have "lucid dreams".

Once I came to my previous revelations - I did not need to strive for anything anymore.

For me epoche is a concept that doesn't coincide with living. If you've reduced your notions to the pure state a la Planotic ideas, then I can't see how you'd function. Would only emotional stuff be gone, wouldn't something else be gone with it? So it might be good in meditation, for a short period of time, but certainly not as a way to live. However there are people who interprete epoche in a totally different way, as a method to purify notions that wouldn't interfere with life but would change the very nature of your mind, bringing it back to its "natural" state. Are you one of them?

Well yes and no. If you want to truth, it is the idea that lead me to eventually worship the idea of death.

I have a great respect for death and it was not revealed to myself till I started treasuring epoche's and phenomenology. Death is the greatest revelation and only in the moment, in an epoche, can you really appreciate the fragility of each moment and the inconsequence of your consciousness. Simultaneously, you revere the miraculousness of having a consciousness.

What do you think..? Does this make sense to you?

~

Originally Posted by O'nus

No, you missed it - learning to LD is a facade. I once truly believed in it.. but during that process I learned more about myself and then came to the conclusion that it was fake.. it is all about self-revelation. The deep motivation to LD is really a sense of control in life - think if you really had that feeling in your conscious life all the time.

What are you talking about?

You don't know what epoche's have in common with self-awareness..? I don't know how you can say that - they are almost synonymous if not a function of each other.

Babbling nonsense on purpose is so unnice! But I like it . It's such a pleasure when other talkers aren't deadly serious.

I don't have any methods anymore. I just dream and infrequently have "lucid dreams".

Once I came to my previous revelations - I did not need to strive for anything anymore.

You're a sad sad man!

I have a great respect for death and it was not revealed to myself till I started treasuring epoche's and phenomenology. Death is the greatest revelation and only in the moment, in an epoche, can you really appreciate the fragility of each moment and the inconsequence of your consciousness. Simultaneously, you revere the miraculousness of having a consciousness.

Did you try visiting a psychologist? You might have had a big trauma in past, that would explain your obsession with death. Really, thinking of death is hard stuff...

Originally Posted by 44CalibreSunlight

Anyway I don't know what to tell you. I feel what I know is awareness whether I can adequately explain it or not.

it's easy to make foolishness of an idea such as this in the first place, because it's such a phenomenon of the mind, but it appears to be working, as my dream recall has been improving a lot lately. As in the last few days, and I feel as if I'm giving second thoughts to occurrences in my dreams a lot more now.

Well yeah I surely agree that it works to an extent, never said it didn't. Do something frequently enough during the day, and you will do it during sleep, too!

OK, give me another chance to illustrate my thought. In past I used the popular method of hand-looking to become lucid, and you know what? It only made me lucid while I associated lucidity with it. I stopped associating the two, it stopped making me lucid: now I can study my hand in normal dreams without having a single suspicion about being asleep. That's what I mean about all the tricks, they make you remember things that are associated with them... useful things like lucidity. You plan to drag something into sleep during the day and do it (say, you suddenly become "self-focused" for a single moment in your sleep), and then you suddenly "remember" about lucidity, because the two ideas were tied as one in your mind.

It's like something very circular, a trick of memory. If "hands = lucidity", they will make you lucid. "Self-focus = lucidity" makes you lucid. It's "anything = lucidity"! But it can work without anything, in a pure way, too, "lucidity = lucidity". All the same. All are phantom tricks, but the purest version seems to be the "dumb desire" for lucidity.

Did I make myself understood this time?

Okay, I just read this, I understand exactly where you are coming from now.
Your method off desire -induced techniques basically supports a range of methods one of which being the concept of being aware or wanting to be aware in real life and in dreams, so it really just stretches the awareness idea back into a broader spectrum and different theories on why this particular method may work .

That's my understanding of it now, anything I got wrong?

"My" method supports absolutely all methods in the world! But it isn't mine, that's what everybody does, thinking that they're doing something else instead.

The promised post to O'nus:

Originally Posted by O'nus

No, you missed it - learning to LD is a facade. I once truly believed in it.. but during that process I learned more about myself and then came to the conclusion that it was fake.. it is all about self-revelation. The deep motivation to LD is really a sense of control in life - think if you really had that feeling in your conscious life all the time.

So how did you realize from the sense of control that dreams were fake? I cannot see how the two are connected.

You don't know what epoche's have in common with self-awareness..? I don't know how you can say that - they are almost synonymous if not a function of each other.

How do you discern between the two..?

Epoche is a phenomenological method, it's not self-awareness and not "present moment" as you claimed below. It's a method, not anything else, and a bad one at that, nobody really knows how to "do epoche". Besides, I have no idea how you came to call it self-awareness, phenomenology is more like my own line of thought, claiming that awareness is not self-reflective or disappearing, which is why I like it

Well yes and no. If you want to truth, it is the idea that lead me to eventually worship the idea of death.

I have a great respect for death and it was not revealed to myself till I started treasuring epoche's and phenomenology. Death is the greatest revelation and only in the moment, in an epoche, can you really appreciate the fragility of each moment and the inconsequence of your consciousness. Simultaneously, you revere the miraculousness of having a consciousness.

~

Epoche is a contrived notion, after all, how can you "observe" a pure basic idea of something? Nobody knows, although some book-writers think they do. And I see that you put your own meaning into it, connected it to death, and expect me to "know" what you mean... I'm not a telepath!

Originally Posted by Arutad

So how did you realize from the sense of control that dreams were fake? I cannot see how the two are connected.

That is not really the point. The point is you were speaking of self transcendence and I am saying that lucid dreaming is a facade to self transcendence. Would not you agree?

Epoche is a phenomenological method, it's not self-awareness and not "present moment" as you claimed below. It's a method, not anything else, and a bad one at that, nobody really knows how to "do epoche". Besides, I have no idea how you came to call it self-awareness, phenomenology is more like my own line of thought, claiming that awareness is not self-reflective or disappearing, which is why I like it

You are saying epoche is not present moment..?

Obviously your definition of self is too far exclusive that you have lost the capability to be insightful to others opinions. Edmund Husserl would have a lot to argue with you on what you have said and I am curious if you can elaborate if not cite what you are saying.

Epoche is a contrived notion, after all, how can you "observe" a pure basic idea of something? Nobody knows, although some book-writers think they do. And I see that you put your own meaning into it, connected it to death, and expect me to "know" what you mean... I'm not a telepath!

I elaborated, obviously a bit too hastily while assuming you were being insightful, on my point of self-awareness and transcending your sense of self. Perhaps you understand now what I mean about self-transcendence as the subtle goal of lucid dreaming?

~

Originally Posted by O'nus

I am saying that lucid dreaming is a facade to self transcendence.

I definitely agree with that, but I don't want to go any further until I consciously make the decision...meaning when I want to. Losing the ego is so alien and at the same time scary to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Originally Posted by HaRd_WiReD

I definitely agree with that, but I don't want to go any further until I consciously make the decision...meaning when I want to. Losing the ego is so alien and at the same time scary to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Something tells me conscious self-direction is not the way to lose the ego.

Originally Posted by O'nus

That is not really the point. The point is you were speaking of self transcendence and I am saying that lucid dreaming is a facade to self transcendence. Would not you agree?

Yes no. No yes.
No point in saying anything without elucidating the meaning of the words used. So far you made your own conclusions about what I was speaking about, but I know hardly anything about your ideas and how they match to mine. "Self-transcendence" is a hackneyed word used to mean anything in the world. I can't see any way to reply your question without matching the meanings behind the words first.

But if that helps, I tossed a coin. It gave you a "yes"

You are saying epoche is not present moment..?

You don't really know what it is, do you?

Originally Posted by Arutad

Yes no. No yes.
No point in saying anything without elucidating the meaning of the words used. So far you made your own conclusions about what I was speaking about, but I know hardly anything about your ideas and how they match to mine. "Self-transcendence" is a hackneyed word used to mean anything in the world. I can't see any way to reply your question without matching the meanings behind the words first.

Maybe if you actually used your insight to read into what I was saying you would see that I am trying to understand and relate to your points. What you have said does not necessarily make complete sense as it seems your pretentiousness compounds your lacking perspicacity to iterate your ideas to others.

You don't really know what it is, do you?

It would seem quite the opposite and you are not even considering that I am trying to affirm your ideals; not mine own. It would seem you are too arrogant to consider that perspective.

If it helps you deter your pompousness;

Originally Posted by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Husserl developed the method of epoché or “bracketing” around 1906. It may be regarded as a radicalization of the methodological constraint, already to be found in Logical Investigations, that any phenomenological description proper is to be performed from a first person point of view, so as to ensure that the respective item is described exactly as is experienced, or intended, by the subject. Now from a first-person point of view, one cannot, of course, decide whether in a case of what one takes to be, say, an act of perception one is currently performing, there actually is an object that one is perceptually confronted with. For instance, it is well possible that one is hallucinating. From a first-person point of view, there is no difference to be made out between the veridical and the non-veridical case — for the simple reason that one cannot at the same time fall victim to and detect a perceptual error or misrepresentation. In the non-veridical case, too, a transcendent object appears to “constitute itself” in consciousness. It is for such reasons that Husserl demanded that in a phenomenological description proper the existence of the object(s) (if any) satisfying the content of the intentional act described must be “bracketed”. That is to say, the phenomenological description of a given act and, in particular, the phenomenological specification of its intentional content, must not rely upon the correctness of any existence assumption concerning the object(s) (if any) the respective act is about. Thus, the epoché has us focus on those aspects of our intentional acts and their contents that do not depend on the existence of a represented object out there in the extra-mental world.

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