Hey, this is my workbook. For the whole of 2014 I was on something of an extended hiatus and, in lieu of a 2015 "resolucid" thread, this workbook will serve to track my progress towards attaining regular lucidity.
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Hey, this is my workbook. For the whole of 2014 I was on something of an extended hiatus and, in lieu of a 2015 "resolucid" thread, this workbook will serve to track my progress towards attaining regular lucidity.
Welcome, Ctharlhie! Using a workbook is a great way to remain true to your goals. If you have any questions for us, let us know!
Just a quick couple of queries: how's your dream recall these days? What does a typical day and night look like in your practice?
The more detail you give the more opportunities for fine tuning we may be able to suggest.
Looking forward to following your progress!
Hey Ctharlhie! I feel like we can learn at least as much from you as well. Sometimes while discussing strategies and viewpoints we can all come to some kind of breakthrough so I would encourage plenty of open discussion while also logging your progress.
It's varying, since I got back to practising at the beginning of the month it's varied from no recall at all to a solid dream a night and up to 8 fragments. This week I started recognising my natural awakenings, though, which I'm pretty excited about.Quote:
Originally Posted by FryingMan
Here's my current plan/dream journal format:
Spoiler for Plan/DJ Format:
I hope so! Ideally this workbook will serve as a kind of roadmap for the future, should I ever find myself on another extended break, I should be able to pick straight up from where I left off (I made the mistake of not recording anything in my early days, so I had no idea what worked when I hit a dry spell) as well as generating some interesting discussion in its own right :)Quote:
Hey Ctharlhie! I feel like we can learn at least as much from you as well. Sometimes while discussing strategies and viewpoints we can all come to some kind of breakthrough so I would encourage plenty of open discussion while also logging your progress.
Wow. I love the detail of your plan/DJ format! You are so much better organized than I am. There were a number of things in there that piqued my interest and they all sound like very good practices. Everyone is different of course, but personally I wouldn't be able to sustain doing all of that daily but I would probably end up picking a few core daily practices and do the others on some kind of schedule less often than daily. That may be how you intended to do it as well...I just wanted to caution not wearing yourself out since I feel that sustained practices are better than stopping practices for long periods. I overdid it during the last competition.
Thanks, the credit goes to Sensei, really - it's just a variation of his "how to DJ" tute that I've tailored to what I want to record.
It's not actually much daily practice, really. The meditation is as much for my wellbeing as for LDing and has been integrated into my daily life for pretty much a year anyway. As for the SAT, it probably takes 10-20 minutes out of my day (I had a VERY interesting/vivid dream related to this last night that I'm going to share here soon) I've started experimenting with a vibrating alarm at irregular intervals that is working very well. The 'Day-SSILD' is basically a variation of ADA wherein you cycle through objects of awareness much in the way you do in SSILD, and I do this in a relaxed manner as much as I can remember to in between the SAT sessions. In fact, mindfulness seems to help in not thinking about LD all day and burning out.
Completely agree that sustained practices trump short term intense activity. I may scale back based on my experience in the rest of the month.
Thanks. :) I like what you have done with it, very specific to you, which is what everything needs to be. You need to take all things in LDing and morph it to yourself.
These are the dream logs for January so far. These are not the full journal entries, the aim here is to basically show the results of varying daytime and nighttime practices. I will only share eventful nights and dream content will only be included if it is of particular interest -
Spoiler for 04/01/15 - 2015 LD #1 (217) - Superman Flying Over Town + 4 frags, 1 Natural Awakening:
Spoiler for 07/01/15 - 1 Semi-lucid + 1 Fragment, 1 Natural Awakening:
Spoiler for 08/01/15 - 1 Epic resulting in lucidity + 1 dream and 3 fragments, 1 natural/micro awakening (MA):
Spoiler for 19/01/15 - 3 Natural Awakenings, 7 fragments:
Spoiler for 20/01/15 - 2 Natural Awakenings, 9 fragments:
Spoiler for 21/01/15 - 1 Semi-lucid, 1 NLD:
Spoiler for 22-23/01/15 - most vivid prelucid ever, 6 dreams:
Spoiler for 23-24/01/15 - (Epic) Deja vu in a dream:
26-27/01/15
Bedtime: 11
Rise time: 8
Sleep quality: 62%
Supplements: multivit, peppermint tea
WBTB: 3:15-4
Natural Awakenings: 2, 3:15 and unrecorded
Nap: 9:30-11:30
Daytime practice:
- Mindfulness meditation (5mins) [x]
- 5+ RDAT []
Nighttime practice:
- Mahamudra metta meditation 10mins [x]
- Waking life recall [x]
- Read DJ, relive old dreams [x]
- MILD goal incubation "I want to remember I am dreaming, look at my hands and carry out my task of..." [x]
- "I wake after every dream and remember the dream", "wake up, remember" natural awakening priming [x]
- Yoga Nidra [x]
- Middle of the night meditation (5 mins, 8:30) [x]
- MILD "The next scene is a dream", "Here and now, dream, hands"[x]
- WILD attempt []
- SSILD [x]
Recall:
LDs: 0
NLDs: 3, 1 full dream, 2 fragments
Goals:
- Catch 2 natural awakenings nightly [x]
- Recall at least 1 epic nightly []
- Become aware of waking from a dream []
- Induce an LD []
Task:
- control the view of the dream
- basic and advanced TotM
- Sensei's competition
-- Go to the RR Cafe from Twin Peaks
So I think you were right, Fogelbise, and I'm doing *too much*, considering I've had many successful nights with this as my practice:
Bedtime: 2:45am-3:00am
Risetime: 12pm
WBTB: Awakenings from alarm at 8 and 10
Daytime technique: 10 mins Shamatha/Shikantaza meditation (not really sure what it is I do now), 2 RCs (laziness)
Supplements: None
Recall:
LDs: 2
09/06/13
Bedtime: 02:45
Risetime: 13:00
WBTB: 6am
Daytime technique: 10mins meditation, 5 RCs/SAT
Nighttime tech: WBTB, SSILD
Supplements: none
Recall
LDs: 2
Task(s): 2 LDs go to work naked, talk nonsense to a DC
Having said that. Really gone all out today. Vibrate alarm every 90 minutes for SAT, ADA, multiple seated mediation sessions. Gonna rack up some points in Sensei's competition tonight methinks.
I'm gonna start trying for WILDs on nights when I don't have work in the morning. Even though this is a DILD class (Sageous' class isn't based on workbooks), here's my tentative self-made technique:
WIP WILD Tech - Seeing through closed eyelids
Set up natural awakenings
3 Dream Seed Recall
Piss if needed
MILD
Natural awakening priming again
Lie down on back and do flex-freeze relaxation
Then focus on the feeling of sinking into mattress
Judge it by ear when to start mantra
"Wake up, Remember" (for further natural awakenings) "Here and now, dream, hands" (for possible MILD if WILD fails) "Emptiness" (for maximum zen)
When the first sleep wave comes roll onto side
Start mantra now if not already
Start seed visualising bedroom
Maintain until transition
I've always had seeing through my closed lids HH, and even transitioned from it on one ocassion, and I feel like this approach is best suited to me based on my experience from previous attempts.
Bedtime: 11:30
Rise time: 9:30
Sleep quality: 76%
Attachment 8137
Supplements: camomile tea, multivit
WBTB: 5:30-6
Natural Awakenings: 3:15, 5:30, 8:00
Recall -
- LDs: 1
- NLDs: 3
Tasks: Look at my hands, practice self awareness, teleport to RR Diner, eat a slice of cherry pie, talk to Dale Cooper
Daytime practice:
- Mindfulness meditation (10 mins) [x]
- 5+ SAT/RDAT [x]
Nighttime practice:
- Read dream journal/waking life recall [x]
- MicroWBTB priming, 500-1000ml of water + "I wake up after every dream and remember my dreams - wake up remember" mantras [x]
LD Entry: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ctha...tempt-1-63892/
Having read this great post by Memm: http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ml#post2145285 I decided to reduce my practice to the core fundamentals: meditation, SAT, microWBTB and recall: with the attitude that I wouldn't even think about trying to induce lucidity I had my 2 micros and dream recall work for the night done; and that I had already done everything I could to make myself lucid, now all I had to do was sleep. I was rewarded with breaking my dry spell and the highest level lucid of the year so far, fully remembering my goals.
I have also realised that my waking life recall practice before bedtime is getting so vivid and detailed that I'll need to start writing stuff down. My dream recall and day memory is starting to get crazy good, and all of a sudden I'm vividly recalling life events from years ago while I'm meditating.
Bedtime: 11:40
Rise time: 8:27
Sleep quality: 80%
Supplements: half a 330ml beer, peppermint tea, liquorice allsorts, multivit
WBTB: no
Natural Awakenings: 0:38, ~1:50, ~4:40, ~6:30
Recall -
- LDs: 1
- NLDs: 1
Daytime practice:
- Mindfulness meditation (15mins) [x]
- 5+ SAT/RDAT []
Nighttime practice:
- Read dream journal/waking life recall []
- MicroWBTB priming, 500-1000ml of water + "I wake up *throughout the night* and remember my dreams - wake up remember" mantras [x]
*****
I tried out a mantra for microWBTB priming that I remembered was effective a while back and it triggered hella natural awakenings! I drank nearly a pint of water before sleep and then woke an hour later to piss it away! Unfortunately a mixture of exhaustion from work and weird dietry choices seemed to prevent me from capitalising on the awakenings for recall.
http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ctha...-mirror-64033/
Bedtime: 00:23
Rise time: 6:30
Nap: 7:30- 9:30
Sleep quality: 68%
Supplements: multivit
WBTB: 6:30-7:30
Natural Awakenings: 0
Recall -
- LDs: 1
- NLDs: 0
Daytime practice:
- Mindfulness meditation (stage 1 samadhi, 10mins) [x]
- 5+ SAT/RDAT [x]
Nighttime practice:
- Mahamudra metta meditation [x]
- Read dream journal/waking life recall [x]
- MicroWBTB priming, 500-1000ml of water + "I wake up throughout the night and remember my dreams - wake up remember" mantras [x]
Commentary: After a string of stressful days at work my recall has hit rock bottom again and is pretty much as it was at the beginning of the month. What's worse, my efforts at inducing microWBTB seem to be failing, I'll sleep through whatever urination urge, no matter how much water I drink. On the plus side, the LDs are coming easily now. This one resulted like most of the others so far this year, returning to bed after walking the dog early in the morning :)
I attempted WILD but ended up getting tired of not falling asleep on my back. I rolled over and fell asleep fairly quickly. I think I need a stronger anchor that requires less effort (if that makes sense). Simply imagining my mantra being spoken to me kept me too awake for too long, and was difficult to maintain when I was starting to properly fall asleep.
I find that both noticing middle of the night wakings and high levels of recall depend on being well-rested, stress-free, and free of any important early morning appointments. Otherwise the mind is just pulled away immediately to waking life troubles/to-do lists.
Recall can come back, suddenly. I had a few low recall nights, followed this morning by a late morning back to sleep after a broken WBTB culminating in a lot of non-lucid dream scenes a quick LD at the end. Just keep trying for recall and don't stress if it doesn't come. When you have the opportunity, spend more time on recall. When you can't, just record what you have and start getting excited about the upcoming night.
03/04/2015 - no recall, WILD attempt
Bedtime: 00:24
Rise time: 06:58
Sleep quality: 73%
Supplements: 3 espressos during the day
WBTB: 7-8:30
Natural Awakenings: 6:00
WILD attempt: yes
Recall -
- LDs: 0
- NLDs: 0
Tasks: connect with waking memory
Daytime practice:
- Zhine meditation (10 minutes sustained attention of the present moment) [x]
- 5+ SAT/RDAT ("catch the dream"/changing the karmic traces practice) [x]
- Lucid living
Nighttime practice:
- Mahamudra metta meditation [x]
- Strengthening intention [x]
- MicroWBTB priming, 500-1000ml of water + "I wake up throughout the night and remember my dreams - wake up remember" mantras []
- Dream yoga []
- Cultivating memory []
Waking Recall:
-Listening to Sauna with Jack
-The superb bagel lunch I ate
-Teaching Jack the method of loci
-The transcendental dog walk listening to Sauna and looking at the full moon
-Listening to Sauna with Dad
WILD Attempt: 8:30
-I lie down and flex freeze, try a few reverse blinks but stop pretty quickly due to lack of effectiveness.
-I started carrying out a simplified version of the yoga nidra exercise on youtube. This swiftly led to lots of sleep waves
-timing my mantra or counting with the breath, or focusing on breath seemed to prevent falling asleep
-paying passive attention with a free floating state of mind to my body or looking towards my brow seemed to strike the right balance with falling asleep - visualising the moon at my brow
-once or twice actually saw the moon - HH
-or through my closed lids
-couldn't strike the right balance between mantra and observing breath, not controlling it
-emptiness mantra doesn't seem to be working
-a lot of tossing and turning, couldn't fall asleep on back?
-staying awake too long?
-roll onto side after first sleep wave and start chakra visualisation, then stay like that?
@FryingMan: I burnt out and I'll try not to force it from now on. I was reading the Tibetan Yogas just now and it was saying in one bit that if you fall asleep with your presence and intent on a red Ah syllable and lotus or dot at your throat you will be present when waking from dreams.
But here's my log for today!
04-05/01/15
Bedtime: 23:59
Rise time: 06:57
Sleep quality: 73%
Supplements: peppermint tea
WBTB: no
muWBTB: no
Natural Awakenings:
WILD Attempt: yes
Recall -
- LDs: 0
- NLDs: 0
Tasks: connect to waking life memory
Daytime practice:
- Mindfulness meditation (10mins sustained attention on the present moment) [x]
- 5+ SAT/RDAT (changing the karmic traces/removing grasping and aversion) [x]
Nighttime practice:
- Mahamudra metta meditation [x]
- Strengthening intention [x]
- MicroWBTB priming, 500-1000ml of water + "I wake up throughout the night and remember my dreams - wake up remember" mantras or auto-dismiss alarm [x]
- Hand flex muWBTB []
- Dream Yoga []
- Cultivating memory []
Waking Recall:
Listening to sauna on headphones
-Jack getting home from school, did well in his test
-receiving sauna lp in the post
-Listening to clear moon while dog walking
-Lentil soup for dinner
-Watching wolf hall on TV
WILD attempt:
- I feel very numb quite quickly from doing flex freeze
-however, the sleep waves do not start coming for a while
-when it does, the vibrations are weak
-I feel I have been on the yoga nidra stage for a long time and just decide to roll on to my side and start the WISP (Ryan Hurd technique, focus eyes on brow, listen for HI) stage
-But i feel like I am straining my eyes too much, this does not feel like an effective anchor and focussing on my eyes along with not wanting to let myself go because I don't trust the anchor keeps me awake
-I get uncomfortable and roll onto my back again
-but I realise i won't fall asleep this way and roll onto my side
-after a while i get uncomfortable again and draw my legs up to my body in foetal position, I now resolve to fall asleep no matter what
-and switch from WISP to third eye chakra meditation
-i'm drawn into sleep very quickly
-get HH of looking at a mirror image of myself (again, lol)
-and then HH of sliding/rotating around, incl. off my bed, around my room
-I'm excited and trying to regulate my breathing which is going faster, trying to control it makes it laboured and uncomfortable
-I also try thinking about my desired scene, (the ball in Lurhman's Romeo + Juliet for Sensei's competition) I feel like my mind might be responding, but nothing comes of it
-after the sliding sensations subside I RC but I am awake
Notes: do third eye meditation instead of WISP.
Stop rolling over,
once I'm done with relaxing my body, roll onto side and start third eye meditating and commit to it.
keep meditating throughout the HH, it is not SP and I still need to keep falling asleep for the dream to form
Commentary: I don't know what happened here; I seemed to do everything right, thought I'd transitioned, only to be left lying in bed, still awake!
I've tried that dream yoga visualization of the dot in the throat and I never was able to fall asleep doing that. I think for me it requires long (multi-hour) WBTB doing something quiet and boring after only 4-5 hours of sleep in order to get REALLY tired with very strong drowsiness, before something like that can work for me. Or I need to just get a whole lot better at relaxation and turning off (but only partially!) my mind.
I would have thought that with all your current breath work, the more meditative techs would be the ideal way into WILD for you. I think relaxing your body insufficiently might be the biggest impediment to WILD. I use this technique https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mkx88_3cD-s to relax my body until i feel like I'm on the brink of sleep, then I switch to my anchor
Thanks for the link, I'll check it out. 1.5 years into my LDing journey and I'm pretty sure I've never pulled off what I understand to be a "real" WILD, starting from full wakefulness eventually transititioning into a dream with no lapse of continuity/consciousness before the dream starts. The few times I've actually entered a dream, there's always been a discontinuity as far as I can tell.
11/02/15 - LD #226 WILD no. 4 (first intentional)
Bedtime: 01:28
Rise time: 06:57
Sleep quality: 65%
Supplements: none
WBTB: 7-9
Natural Awakenings: none
WILD Attempt: yes
Recall -
- LDs: 1
- NLDs: 0
Tasks: receive a valentine's note
Daytime practice:
- Mindfulness meditation []
- 5+ SAT/RDAT (changing the karmic traces/removing grasping and aversion) []
Nighttime practice:
- Mahamudra metta meditation []
- Strengthening intention []
- MicroWBTB priming, 500-1000ml of water + "I wake up throughout the night and remember my dreams - wake up remember" mantras []
-Auto dismiss alarm and fist flex muWBTB []
- Dream Yoga []
- Cultivating memory []
LD: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ctha...ntional-64223/
Congratulations Ctharlhie!! Awesome to have your first intentional one!! What do you think was the key here?