Well I just woke from a short but sweet LD, breaking my almost-month-long dry spell, and went to bed thinking along the lines of Ctharlie's recent Intention post, and reading his links to posts about "abandon technique, know you can do it, be confident, relax, don't stress, meditate, etc.", so I think I will continue firmly along this path to see where it leads. It seems very promising (I'll still keep my vigilance and RRC, etc.).

When I did these dream walks, I usually added in a sense of "here *I* am in this dream." "Here I am, on a dream street, with dream cars and dream people, look there's a dream cloud in the dream sky, it's all a dream, I'm dreaming..." and so on. I never felt a sense of losing a grip on "reality" (for what is reality?).

And isn't it anathema to dream state recognition to have a mindset that *knows* you're not dreaming? I do not want that thought anywhere near my dreams: in my dreams I want to *know that I'm dreaming*. Maybe self-awareness is supposed to take care of that all by itself, but I'm not seeing that fruit yet, it seems a ways off.

When I'm dreaming non-lucidly, I don't feel like I'm dreaming. This leads me to the conclusion that at any time, I could actually be dreaming, and I want to be continuously vigilant of this possibility, so that I catch the dreaming moments. "Knowing" that I'm awake seems also completely counter to this, and to the mindset the dream yogis are talking about.

I've avoided the dream yogi book up to know, reading that it's really confusing, but I think that's a mistake, I'm going to get it pronto.

And also I can't believe I missed that part from LaBerge, time to re-read ETWOLD to see what else I notice now, 10 months after my first read of it.