Dreamlog

Adding this to my DJ as a reference. Found it in a 2016 post in the attaining lucidity section. Below is from FryingMan. Thanks for putting this info out there FryingMan! I've been trying to connect meditation to my lucid dreaming practice and this helped me understand a bit more:

I think the best meditation for lucid dreaming is maintaining mindfulness during everyday, complex waking life experiences. In dreams, we do not sit or lie quietly in a room with only our thoughts for company. We are usually active in the dream world, interacting with objects and beings, noticing things moving into and out of our visual field, feeling emotions and reacting to our experiences. We are "living" just like (or similar to) we do in the waking state. In "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep," Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche writes:

"This is the sequence: awareness in the first moment of experience, in response, in dream, ..."
In other words, in order to get lucid in dreams (regularly), we must first master awareness in the first moment of experience and response to experience! We must practice this while awake.

Rinpoche continues:

"One cannot just start at the end. You can determine for yourself how mature your practice is: as you encounter the phenomena of experience, examine your feelings and your reactions to the feelings. Are you controlled by your interactions with the objects of experience or do you control your reaction to them? ... can you remain in steady presence in diverse situations?"

I believe this, right here, is the crux of lucid dreaming practice.

Sitting mindfulness meditation (I prefer open eyed, with visual input, not sitting stock still or focusing only on a single object, but looking around experiencing my environment) can be helpful to get started. Start in a quiet location, like on a bench in park (there's still usually plenty of activity if you open yourself to experiencing it!) Then gradually move up to more and more complex, hustling & bustling environments as you master remaining mindful in relatively quiet situations.

I'm at a house reminiscent of my girlfriend S' parents' house and my friend V's house. I'm hanging out with my friend J. There is a surprise visit from my friend D and my brother. A They are out on the patio. D is wearing a disguise, but I recognize him easily. It wasn't a particularly good disguise and it wasn't intended to be. More like a joke. D has a Galaxy Fold and is showing it off. He has a thin black cloth case on it. He has some gacha-games on it.

I'm driving and something like a check-engine light came on. Genuinely unclear on whether this was reality or not because this type of thing happens all the time. My car was fine this morning so I think this was a dream...