We seem to have drifted off topic again, as this is not a dream control thread. Here are a few thoughts that might get the discussion back to memory:
Remembering past dreams is still remembering, I believe... and this also implies that your connection to memory was already pretty solid.
You should not be trying to remember or think about waking life at all. Yes, thinking about waking life will probably end lucidity and even wake you up, because it might act as an instruction to your unconscious and body that you do not want to be sleeping anymore. It also takes your mind off the dream, and minimizes your participation in it in a subtle sort of way, so FA's seem likely too.
Remembering that you have a waking body sleeping peacefully in your bed (or remembering the date/time, etc.) should be as far as the thought should go... you don't need to consider the significance of that, and certainly don't need to include its general context in the thought (don't intellectualize about waking life). All you need to do is give your mind something "real" to briefly latch upon, to crack open the door to your memory.
In other words you were probably doing enough already in knowing who you were, because such knowledge demands some confirmation from memory to be correct. I could imagine that doing more might lead you away from lucidity... lucidity that for you already included a reconnection with memory.
And, finally, keep in mind that all this is not about recalling specific episodic memories. It is about regaining a connection with your overall global memory, the part of your mind that completes the definition of "You." Recalling specific memories can be a fun (or very frustrating, if you have no access to memory) exercise, but it really won't do much good with reconnecting you to your memory. Of course, I'm not sure you can accurately recall specific memories when lucid without access to memory, so as an exercise for gaining access to memory this seems a bit redundant.
[P.S. As usual, TheUncanny paired all this down to one clear sentence already, when he told you, "Instead of increasing your lucidity in the dream, I wonder if this exercise is creating a sense of detachment from the dream. I could see something like that resulting in false awakenings, or even real ones." Sure wish I could do that!]
If you can't shake off your "'real laws of physics mentality," you probably were not in a high-level lucid... sorry if that sounds harsh; I say it respectfully.
It may have felt like one, but if you had strong self-awareness and memory on hand (my opinion of high lucidity), you would not have given a thought to laws of physics, much less still retained a (non-lucid) mentality that they still existed in your dream.
The real irony here is that if your access to memory was at a waking-life self-awareness level, the "physical" constraints you feel, and perhaps that conditioning to expect short LDs's (though that could have been something else altogether, which 3Cat already addressed), would probably become irrelevant, because you will simply "know" that stuff is irrelevant. The presence of memory in your dream dramatically confirms the non-reality of your dream, and the fact that all this stuff is inside your head. Physical laws become meaningless when you can know, without having to think about it, that they simply do not need to be present in a world comprise of noting but your imagination.
I think I already said this to Travis, but those preconceptions would do just the opposite, were waking-life self-awareness and memory fully on hand. Your preconceptions will amplify the non-reality of the dream, and not diminish it. If they're creeping in in a manner that impairs your control, you might actually be experiencing your self-awareness and memory levels creeping out a bit. I'm sorry, again, if this sounds harsh or condescending (it was not meant to be!) but I think it needed mentioning: because memory has been so forgotten in the lexicon of the LD'ing community, I can see how you can assume you are very lucid even though memory is not accessed.
I think I would go with the "partial" waking awareness conclusion. Take the next step up -- regain access to memory -- and that impairment will most certainly be cured.Quote:
After all, some of my most controllable LDs have been ones where I've had little-to-no waking awareness...like there were no waking presumptions to counteract my will. Or maybe this inhibition of dream control only occurs when you have partial waking awareness? I need to experiment more with this memory thing to find out if my dream control increases, decreases, or stays the same.