Mindfulness - An Alternative Approach to ADA

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Originally Posted by yaya

JustASimpleGuy, how many weeks or month you are doing that method and how many LD do you get by that? thanks!

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I've been doing daily mindfulness in very, very small doses for 6 or 7 months, but as a compliment to my daily meditation practice. I've always meant to be more diligent about it, but I just never was. About 4 or 5 weeks ago I became interested in lucid dreaming. No LDs yet but I've really been working dream recall and doing some RC work. I was vacillating back and forth between which daily awareness work felt right for me. SAT, ADA, Dream Yoga, etc... So about a week ago I decided to try this approach to ADA. As I said in my above post, it's really what I was intending to do, more or less, in conjunction with my formal meditation practice. Lucid dreaming gave me the incentive to take it to the next level. :-)

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Originally Posted by yaya

so i think Ctharlhie ADA is better for newbies like me as it has the element of constant RC in every moment of the practice and even paying attention to one stimuli would work well as it worked for hakuf (i hope i spell his name right. LOL).

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My thought on this is along the same lines, and I'm thinking putting particular focus on the interoceptive aspect is particularly helpful as that is the common denominator to how we relate to all experience, both external and internal. The act of gathering information through the senses builds up a database of experience that shapes our expectations, but the more personal and intense aspect is how we react emotionally, especially if something is outside of the ordinary realm of experience and expectation.

EDIT: One other thought...

Choosing one particular thing to be aware of throughout the day can act as an anchor for awareness. I know how difficult it is to practice being mindful of the routine things we do throughout the day. Eating, dressing, brushing teeth, etc... They are all discreet events that are done and over in relatively quick order, and for myself I often find so is mindfulness.

However having one thing like gravity or breath or something else that is ever-present can keep us more mindful of being mindful for much longer periods of time. I also find when I am being mindful of one thing, I can be mindful of anything else that requires my attention. I think the trick is to pick something that an individual normally has a strong sense of awareness for. For instance you mentioned the sensation of your clothes is more present in your Now than gravity.

Ok, sorry for the lateness of my response. Hopefully these comments will still be relevant!

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Originally Posted by yaya

WOW! it is the best ADA tutorial i have even seen since i was a human!

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Thank you, that is very high praise :)

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1- is it enough to only pay attention to sense of presence of clothes? because for example, other things like gravity is not very distinguishable for me . but sense of presence of clothes is more tangible and it continuously exist despite of other stimuli like sound or breathing which are not linearly present (also noticing breathing is hard for me because when i notice it, even in meditation, i change the rhythm of my breath and that's annoying).

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If breath is hard for you (me too!) the one you should always be mindful of is your body. As often as you can "dip into" your awareness of other phenomena. Don't force it.

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2- how many minutes per hour i should pay attention to the presence of clothing? (is 30 minutes per hour enough? of course these 30 minutes are not continuously and i will do it when i remember).

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Yep do it as often as you can, that's all you can do. What's needed is less than you think. For instance, Puffin's DILD guide claims to take only 10 minutes out of your day! For me this seems about right. Not to say that you shouldn't do more awareness work than that, but also don't obsess, stress will kill your LDs surer than anything. So just root yourself in your body whenever you remember and expand your awareness to other phenomena a few times a day combined with RCs maybe (see Puffin's guide)

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3- i know it takes many month to be able to have LD in this manner (which worth trying because once you master it, you can have LD on a regular basis) but how many month it took you to have LD on a regular basis according to your ADA method and how many LD do you have in a week by this approach? and how many minutes per hour you can notice your target? and what is your target of attention?

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When I first started ADA I started having LDs straight away, and in the first few months I got 8-15 LDs a month... and then real life happened. So, no I haven't mastered ADA or LDing. What I am doing at the moment is finding a way to make my LD practice a sustainable lifestyle. The good news is that (thanks to ADA and all the talk of fundamentals) the amount of self-awareness needed has been somewhat over-stated, you really don't need to do that much work (10 minutes meditation daily, 5-10 SAT 'moments' daily). The bad news is that dream recall and general dream awareness has been understated, and that's the part that I'm working on integrating into an erratic student lifestyle at the moment.

My main advice, please don't go crazy with all these techniques: remember your dreams, meditate, nighttime awakenings, SSILD or other technique. That's all you need to yield regular dreaming (which I define as going lucid more nights of the week than not).

As an addendum to that post aimed at everyone: The surest way to get better at mindfulness is to establish a daily meditation (see the alohadharma link in the OP) practice and allow mindfulness in its everydayness to arise spontaneously. If you meditate regularly you cannot fail to become more mindful, and then you will be achieving lucid living, and benefiting your waking as well as dreaming life. Relax, let it be. Your lucids aren't going anywhere, really. The best thing is to look back at your last lucid and see how much awareness work you put into that lucid, and then, do that, and keep doing that every day, and go to sleep without expectations, knowing you have done enough. This is why SSILD is effective. You are raising your awareness whilst simultaneously putting the thought of LDing out of you mind.

Thank you very much Ctharlhie for your clear answers!

shame on me that i saw it late. the speed of posting on this active forum is so fast that if i don't check it one day, some posts would go under the other new threads (i always check the last above threads LOL...).

thanks to this guide i have started to do meditation recently, thanks for sharing!

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Originally Posted by Ctharlhie

As an addendum to that post aimed at everyone: The surest way to get better at mindfulness is to establish a daily meditation (see the alohadharma link in the OP) practice and allow mindfulness in its everydayness to arise spontaneously. If you meditate regularly you cannot fail to become more mindful, and then you will be achieving lucid living, and benefiting your waking as well as dreaming life. Relax, let it be. Your lucids aren't going anywhere, really. The best thing is to look back at your last lucid and see how much awareness work you put into that lucid, and then, do that, and keep doing that every day, and go to sleep without expectations, knowing you have done enough. This is why SSILD is effective. You are raising your awareness whilst simultaneously putting the thought of LDing out of you mind.

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Really great summary, Ctharlhie!

I've had an epiphany of sorts over this year, re: mindfulness/self-awareness, how to practice it, and how to explain it. It is really simple!

Just: pay attention! That's all. Nothing more, nothing less.

It works its magic the more you do it. The more you do it, the more you want to do it. Don't over think it, don't ask "but what exactly should I pay attention to?" Instead, just learn what it feels like to be in a state of paying attention.

It is the opposite of not paying attention: remember what it feels like to be zoned out, and catching yourself there as you return to lucidity, realizing that you were just in an "autopilot" state just before. There. That moment, that's mindfulness. Also, on reddit a guy posts a sentence periodically "You are now aware that you are breathing." Your attention turning to your breath as soon as you read that sentence: that's attention/mindfulness/lucidity, that's the goal.

For lucid dreaming practice, I like to add the underlying purpose as a subtext to the attention: remaining aware of my state (dreaming/awake).

Mindfulness is basically being focused on whatever you are doing at the moment, whether it be driving a car, washing the dishes, talking with someone, etc. You want to focus on the action in the present moment and being aware of you doing it, as opposed to being lost in your thoughts. As you get better you actually start to see your thoughts and emotions arise in your mind and you aren't as captured by them as a result. Most people are consumed by their thoughts and emotions, mindfulness helps you be aware of them. It promotes overall awareness as well.

Definitely need to combine it with mindfulness meditation practice, though, for best results. I practiced meditation for awhile, then fell out of practice, but now am back at it as part of my LD training.

Hi,
i´ve read here a bit some time ago and for some times now i thought about the object oriented RC/Awarness:

Now my questions for objects:

-do you think to know what you wear that day and keep track about it the whole day would be sufficient? so not like in the OP the feeling itself but the exact cloth you wear and check this like you check a digital clock. or do you think it might be a problem to know (expect) to wear this or that and to look down and to see exactly that? or might it work because even if you expect something to wear it might look different in a dream? or do you think you just have not enough awareness in dreams so that this is to complicated?

-i wear glasses. when i look over them i see blurry. can one use this as a check? like keep track of wearing my glasses and to look if i see without them?

do you know if someone had success with this kind of RC/Awarness? couldnt find anything about it in the forum.

I think the issue with specific memory "anchors" like this that change every day is that dream memory is pretty tricky already. My *guess* is that constant anchors (feeling of breath, gravity, "dreamy feeling", etc.) may be more effective. Blurry vision check may be more effective, if you see clearly in dreams.

The most important thing though is that you're aware of your awareness and remember why you're checking in the first place (to recognize the dream state) and hold this though all through the day along with the specific checks you do. Otherwise you may find yourself checking your clothing a lot in a dream and rationalizing "Oh I guess I wore the green shirt today" and going on with your dream non-lucidly.

I'm coming to the conclusion that specific targets are less useful. Maybe that's just me. I aim for general mindfulness, being aware of my awareness, and striving to reflect upon whatever my current experience is, and evaluate whether or not it's dream-like. And to maintain that "I'm on the lookout for the dream state in order to get lucid in dreams" all through the day. It may be that such an approach has a longer curve towards hitting lucidity compared to targeted approach, but I'm hoping that it will lead to much more lucidity in the long run.

Just for reference : Jon Kabat-Zinn - Wherever You Go, There You Are. Excelent introduction for mindfulness meditation.

Fantastic stuff! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading the whole thread.

Right in time for the new year, i found this. Going to meditate daily this year!