Memory: the Forgotten Fundamental

haha, so much for memory, maybe it should have been a trigger to reality check?

Speaking of which, just today I spontaneously stumbled upon a method for reality checking based on the principles discussed in this thread, namely, trace your memory back to the last time you were alseep.

Example: I'm in my college room, I notice that I have lapsed from mindfulness to a state of mindlessness. I think back to the last place I was, the dorm bathroom, and the place before that, upper campus, and before that, my room again, and before that... I was taking a nap! What if I am asleep right now? I become as aware as possible using mindfulness techniques, observing the immediate scene and myself, and then state test.

I think the power of this is that it goes two ways: either you're dreaming and you lack episodic memory, result, lucidity, or you somehow falsify some memories, but the logical end is still the last time you were sleeping, at which point you reality check anyway; or you are awake but and are training your self-awareness and access to memory simultaneously.

Thoughts?

^^ Though that exercise seems an excellent method for reestablishing your presence in the moment, and in your local waking-life reality, I must continue to say that using episodic memory is not the best tool for reconnecting with memory in a dream; I simply have too much faith in the dreaming mind to produce as many fictitious "memories" as you require, just as it would if you were not lucid. And yes, you would follow back along a path of recent events, perhaps even to the point where you remember that you took a nap, and every memory you "recall" is an unconscious fabrication... and I would not be surprised if you never came across a nap as you surveyed those memories.

For example: You are dreaming that you are in your college room, and have come to assume that you are lucid*. So you start remembering: you remember the last place you were, high above the dorm roof in a hot air balloon whose basket is filled with water, then you go back further to the time you spent at the campus beach, watching whales, then further back to your grandmother's kitchen with a bunch of your college friends, drinking her whiskey, and then...well, you get the point. Suffice it to say that your dreaming mind will furnish all the memories you need, and you will be fine with all of them -- even if lucid, because you have no conscious connection with your memory, and this no benchmark from which to compare and say, "Hey, this is all wrong."

However, on the off-chance that your dreaming mind does let you walk back through created memories to one that includes a nap, I suppose there is a chance that you might indeed wonder if you are napping still, and do a RC... of course, all that RC will do is confirm that you are lucid, which is a thing you already knew; you would still not be connected to your memory.

And however again (I just thought of this), there is also a chance that, as you are perusing all those false memories that seem just fine, lucid "you" might notice the oddness of those memories, which is a step in the right direction -- though you would still need to reconnect with your memory to confirm that oddity; perhaps by, say, remembering your sleeping body.

So, though this seems an excellent daytime exercise, and maybe a good exercise to do after you've reconnected to memory, it seems a very roundabout way to make the connection, when all you had to do in the first place was remember your sleeping body.

As I said before, I don't think that using specific memories to regain access to memory is the best way to go, especially when there is such a simple way of doing it without the mental gymnastics of sifting through specific memories that may or may not be false.

* Keep in mind also that accessing memory is something you do after you are lucid, in order to amplify your lucidity to a complete waking-life level, so things like RC's would likely already have been done.

After several LDs of not fully remembering my personal self-awareness/memory-establishment strategy, I got frustrated and invented a mnemonic: STOP. It's a bit contrived, but “stop” was too good a word to pass up. ;) The idea:

1. Stop everything I'm doing while performing the next steps. No multitasking allowed. (I have a bad habit of doing that to “save time”, and all I end up doing is getting distracted with the next task and never actually get around to the memory stuff.)
2. Remember that I'm sleeping and need to regain access to memory.
3. Think back and recall what has happened in the dream up to this point (which might help with recall of the pre-lucid portion, which I often find difficult).
4. Observe my surroundings, recognize that this is a dream and what my nature of interaction is, etc.
5. Plan for a moment what I want to do in this dream—remember my goals, but also watch out for any unique opportunities the current dream setting might be offering that I could otherwise miss out on.

A couple of LDs later I remembered it. I had a FA from a NLD, and I was looking at notes from the dream I had just woken from (which were somehow already written), but the notes also described dreams that happened “after” the dream I just had. This confused me and prompted a RC, which made me realize I was actually still asleep. I remembered “STOP” and ran through the letters:

1. I did initially stand still while doing this, but eventually began wandering the house again without realizing it.
2. I attempted to remember what time it was IWL. I don't remember what time exactly I thought it was, but I correctly remembered that it was dark. I think I also remembered generally what had been going on in my WL the last several hours.
3. I could remember everything since the FA, but not the NLD I knew I had before (fortunately, I did recall the NLD once I wake up for real).
4. I remembered that this was a dream and that everything I saw around me was just from me and not actual, physical objects.
5. I decided to look at stuff on my PC. By this time, I had gone downstairs (our house doesn't actually have stairs) into the living room, so I went back up to my room, which was now lighted and looked a bit like an office.

I feel like I gained partial memory access: I don't think I recognized the staircase being odd or my room being different, but I noticed on the way up that there was a room (which was somehow halfway up the stairs) whose light was on, when I did not see this on the way down; and I saw that my computer had a single very small “Packard Bell” CRT monitor attached to it instead of my two larger LCDs.

^^ This seems like a good plan, Travis, though I 'm not sure I would build such complexity into it, as complexity is an invitation to your unconscious to fill in any blanks you may have left by missing or forgetting specific steps. Humbly, I think you would have done just as well with a RRC for most of this...and, of course, simply remembering your sleeping body or the correct time/date (and refusing to accept a close-enough answer like "it was dark" as a correct response) is generally enough of a step for accessing memory. The rest are fine things to do on their own, and that "STOP" acronym makes for a handy reminder of what you are supposed to do, but be careful of clouding your mind by giving it too much to do.

That said, I want to install another quick note about my intentions for this thread: It was meant to be about memory, and its importance to LD'ing and self-awareness/identity in general. Though these techniques you guys are presenting are interesting, and certainly useful in their own right, techniques truly do run secondary to understanding the importance of memory in general, and the necessity of its access for advanced LD'ing. I really do believe that simply remembering your sleeping body, the date/time, or any other "Here & Now" thought that connects you with your waking-life reality, is all the technique you will need to access memory.

I find it amazing how memory can be skewed. Lucidity runs parallel to memory. In a dream only 10 minutes after falling asleep. Entire memory bank is wiped clean of ever having fallen asleep in the first place. It may not always be so but it can happen. And then it is completely believable that there are a ton of people in ur appartment heck maybe even an elf. although that will give some alarms when lucidity already hit you.. but what I was saying I had this dream where I was lucid but no connection to memory. IT's been 10 minutes.. How can this be so severe. In normal day-activities the connection to memory is never lost in 10 minutes.

^^ In normal waking-life activities the connection to memory is never lost at all.

That our consciousness does almost completely without memory during dreams is the major difference between waking-life and dreams, I think. This difference even eclipses the lapse in self-awareness during dreams, given that it is possible (and common) to navigate waking-life with no self-awareness at all; just like a dream.

Thank you for making this thread. :D

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Originally Posted by Sageous

^^ This seems like a good plan, Travis, though I 'm not sure I would build such complexity into it, as complexity is an invitation to your unconscious to fill in any blanks you may have left by missing or forgetting specific steps. Humbly, I think you would have done just as well with a RRC for most of this...and, of course, simply remembering your sleeping body or the correct time/date (and refusing to accept a close-enough answer like "it was dark" as a correct response) is generally enough of a step for accessing memory. The rest are fine things to do on their own, and that "STOP" acronym makes for a handy reminder of what you are supposed to do, but be careful of clouding your mind by giving it too much to do.

That said, I want to install another quick note about my intentions for this thread: It was meant to be about memory, and its importance to LD'ing and self-awareness/identity in general. Though these techniques you guys are presenting are interesting, and certainly useful in their own right, techniques truly do run secondary to understanding the importance of memory in general, and the necessity of its access for advanced LD'ing. I really do believe that simply remembering your sleeping body, the date/time, or any other "Here & Now" thought that connects you with your waking-life reality, is all the technique you will need to access memory.

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Good points. Actually, much of this isn't a lot more than sleeping body/date/time + an RRC when I think about it. There were just some specific things I wanted to try that I wasn't remembering to do as thoughtfully as I would like, and I thought of this as being an aid until I got more used to it.

I didn't even realize I was creating another technique and forgot that the scope of what I posted was a bit too broad for this thread. Sorry about that!

(A quick clarification since I worded it really poorly: during that dream I did remember a specific time that I thought it was, I just couldn't remember precisely what my guess was upon waking, only a ballpark range. Vague answers sound like a good thing to watch out for, though.)

Sageous - I have been thinking about the forgotten fundamental - Memory - and it has led me to think a little deeply about what memory actually is ...If we wish to remember who we are in our dreams what we feel we are in our WL will influence that memory a lot ...which leads me to ponder what it is that actually makes up our memories - our memories thus going towards making up who we actually think we are!
For example how we choose to think when we encounter people,activities and all sorts of things in our daily life all help in forming each and every memory of who and what we are, and not to mention all the other aspects of the whole situation that will help in the creating of a memory in a given moment...Can we be really present in the forming of our memories if we are Clear or Self Aware enough of our wishes and Intentions in any moment and is it possibly its these memories that we would be most likely to draw on as examples in a LD as - My memories?

Reading this next quote of you speaking in this thread helped me to bring it back into perspective ;

"Not so much hard facts and context, Steph, as remembering the simple fact of your current waking-life condition (being asleep in bed), with that action of remembering being far more important than the thing you are remembering. The important part about remembering your sleeping body is that you are not retrieving a specific memory (we really don't store a memory of being asleep in bed), but nudging your memory with a reminder of waking-life reality. This reality will both help pull your memory into your dreaming self and act as a reminder that the body you are currently occupying is not real."

So ...quickly bringing together Memory, Self awareness and Intention - linking these 3 together feels very profound as if they could in fact be one big thing we just don't know the name of ... So " don't intellectualise " the idea of Memory i saw you said in the thread to someone Sageous - which I can see is what my pondering is leading me see. How can I think about it then - I ask my self . This leads me back to the RRC you bring to the Wild Tutorial - its a Present Moment thing that creates the power behind the Memory, Self Awareness and Intention that you are pointing to ...maybe thats what makes up the Non Dual way you have described your experience of the RRC - Maybe?

As you say dreaming is a " Here and Now" event and its possibly precisely this that Memory serves to remind us?
:alien:

^^ Thank you for these interesting thoughts, Patience: everything you said shows you clearly understand what I was saying (which for me is a bit of a victory ;)).

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Originally Posted by Patience108

...This leads me back to the RRC you bring to the Wild Tutorial - its a Present Moment thing that creates the power behind the Memory, Self Awareness and Intention that you are pointing to ...maybe thats what makes up the Non Dual way you have described your experience of the RRC - Maybe?

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Not maybe, but definitely.

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As you say dreaming is a " Here and Now" event and its possibly precisely this that Memory serves to remind us?

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Yup.

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Originally Posted by Patience108

So ...quickly bringing together Memory, Self awareness and Intention - linking these 3 together feels very profound as if they could in fact be one big thing we just don't know the name of ...

:alien:

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That's something that has always bothered me about how we usually think of "memory". Our still simplistic view of the brain tries to make comparisons with computers, where specific hardware is assigned as memory, and different hardware is assigned to program and CPU. In the brain the massive-parallel computing system seems to mingle the "hardware" (it's all just similar neurons).
In localising memories as just the "facts", we belittle what they are, which is usually a massive linked list if you will of all the sensory information associated as well.
At one end of the scale memories are as simple facts, but at the more complex end they merge and become our consciousness and feeling of self.
Apologies if this doesn't contribute much to the thread, but I do like to try and visualise concepts, and the fact that memory goes way beyond just recalling facts makes it difficult to visualise.

One other point, in most of the 50-odd LDs I have had, I have always just felt like my waking self. I have always *seemed* to have perfect recall of waking life while in the LD, but perhaps this was just an illusion?
In general my LDs have all been quite short, so perhaps I was closer to RL which is why I felt that way?

Thanks Sageous - Funny coz I have read loads of stuff about Mindfullness and awareness etc but I came to the conclusion some time ago that ones 'intention ' must be wrapped up in it and that one couldnt really separate' intention ' from the main point of Mindfulness...
Awareness I realised is paramount - I have pondered it and reading your tutorial etc u explain more about what self - awareness is and how it separates us from other beings that we live with on this planet in that we are ' being able to be aware of our selves 'I am seeing more and more now how important it is to ' remember' - I am ; here an now ' Not simply ponder a vague state called awareness!
Yes we are all impermanent like rainbows and dewdrops etc but with self - awareness I have the capacity to know that dreamlike connection that threads its way threw us all and feel it...If I remember to ;)
It's the way you have brought the factor of memory in that has given me a glimps at something I like to explore... Hard to explain but putting it that way of ' remembering 'helps me to make it ordinary enough to get it and feel something real ...The fact that I only have to 'remember 'and in a flash the connection between me and my environment with intention of exploring it can be strongly present - here and now - is something I want to experience more in WL and in my many LD's to come - thanks for your encouragement :) and please let me know if something I say seems off :alien:

Goldenspark:

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Originally Posted by Goldenspark

One other point, in most of the 50-odd LDs I have had, I have always just felt like my waking self. I have always *seemed* to have perfect recall of waking life while in the LD, but perhaps this was just an illusion?

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Not so much illusion, I think, as merely a sign that you have accessed your memory, whether you knew it or not. This, of course, is a good thing.

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In general my LDs have all been quite short, so perhaps I was closer to RL which is why I felt that way?

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Possibly; LD's have an occasionally annoying tendency to occur in the moments just before waking, when your physical self is straddling the fence between wake and sleep... in other words, your being nearly awake is giving you a slight conscious boost toward appreciating your dream, but it is happening at the cost of being fully awake in a few minutes. This state might sound like a bit of an obstacle, but it is actually an invitation to DEILD, if you think about it.

Also:

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Apologies if this doesn't contribute much to the thread, but I do like to try and visualise concepts, and the fact that memory goes way beyond just recalling facts makes it difficult to visualise.

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On the contrary, your post goes right to the point of what I am trying to say about memory here, so your thoughts are most welcome!


Patience:

I'm not pointing out that you were off by any measure, because you weren't, but here are a couple of thoughts anyway:

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Originally Posted by Patience108

Thanks Sageous - Funny coz I have read loads of stuff about Mindfullness and awareness etc but I came to the conclusion some time ago that ones 'intention ' must be wrapped up in it and that one couldnt really separate' intention ' from the main point of Mindfulness...

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Intention in LD'ing is of course important, but I've never really associated it with memory (or mindfulness). I think that including intention in your moments of mindfulness -- moments of recognizing your "here & now" presence and existence -- only tends to muddle the moment, perhaps complicating it to the point where both mindfulness and intention are diminished to uselessness. I would suggest that you save you intention-setting for other moments of your LD'ing practice, but I think you've already figured that out! ;)

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Yes we are all impermanent like rainbows and dewdrops etc but with self - awareness I have the capacity to know that dreamlike connection that threads its way threw us all and feel it...If I remember to ;)

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I know this is not what you meant, but keep in mind that spotting and appreciating those rainbows and dewdrops, and lending through your presence a real eternity to their ephemeral state, is a great way to establish you Self in the moment, and to prepare yourself to appreciate the moment that is your dream.

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... Hard to explain but putting it that way of ' remembering 'helps me to make it ordinary enough to get it and feel something real ...The fact that I only have to 'remember 'and in a flash the connection between me and my environment with intention of exploring it can be strongly present - here and now - is something I want to experience more in WL and in my many LD's to come - and please let me know if something I say seems off...

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Nothing off at all; I could not have said it better myself!

:sageous:

Thanks for the pointers - yes I am getting clearer about the sequence of things I think i.e - bringing-ones self into the here and now with ones memory - extending that for as many moments as one might have - to connect and breath along with life around and within ones more immediate environment maybe spending a concentrated ponder + on larger world without letting the feeling get all vague ( All this is possibly what many people call Mindfulness ) ... Then one brings the fullness of that to doing a quick RC and somewhere close by to that setting an Intention that connects to LDing - Hopefully then going on in ones life with more here and now coverage ;) as well as a layering of expectation for LD tonight - right?

Now for the dream - Yes its coming :) Coz all this effort in the day work will be with me in the actual dream dive - he he

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Possibly; LD's have an occasionally annoying tendency to occur in the moments just before waking, when your physical self is straddling the fence between wake and sleep... in other words, your being nearly awake is giving you a slight conscious boost toward appreciating your dream, but it is happening at the cost of being fully awake in a few minutes. This state might sound like a bit of an obstacle, but it is actually an invitation to DEILD, if you think about it.

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I wish that were true about the opportunity to DEILD, but I seem to have a very digital response to LDs, at least at the moment. Once I come out, I seem to be too awake to get back in.

It may just be because I come out of the LD at the end of the current REM phase, as the brain chemistry changes, so getting back in is virtually impossible.

I do seem to have very precise 90 minute sleep cycles, with REM at the end then a waking period. It may be that the 90 minutes is because I willed it to be so, or maybe because we have a chiming clock that I have aligned to (it chimes on the hour and once at the half hour).

Goldenspark I find my cycles get shorter as sleeping becomes napping can be like 40 min sleep total with 30 min REM or so it seems
definitely I wake up within an hour remembering a long dream.

I'm starting to notice that when in very light sleep (mainly toward the tail end of a sleep period) the door to my memory is often left cracked open when the dream starts, and it's becoming clear to me how this makes it very easy to become lucid. Often I'll only need a small, subtle cue that I may be dreaming and that's it. Sometimes I don't even need that: I already remember that just a moment ago I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep with the intention of having a DILD, and it will be obvious that I'm now dreaming without needing to notice a dream sign or do a RC first.

It's especially cool when you're able to recognize day residue right there during the dream itself: “Oh hey, there's that Mazda sign that was in the camcorder video I saw yesterday when I was awake.” ;)

The downside is that these are usually very short because I'm so close to waking back up anyway, but maybe with time and practice this effect will propagate toward my deeper, more stable REM periods.

^^ Yes, those late morning DEILD chains are great: "OK, here we are back again in the dream, let's continue"
Sometimes, when trying for a long time to WILD then just to fall asleep and DILD, at the start of a dream I'll think to myself, "yes, finally!" Or in a multiple LD night, "woohoo here's number 4!"

And yes recognizing day residue is fun. I once looked out at a night-time city in the distance, and some of the lights were "rendered" as a pattern I recognized from a game I had been playing :).

Something I've been trying out this week, since developing access to memory is so essential, and I don't do enough for it: creating "memory anchor moments" during the day where I resolve strongly to remember that moment at night-time before bed during a period of "day recall." Periodically during the day I also look back and recall my most recently established memory anchor.

I hope to establish going to bed as my last "memory anchor" that I look back to during the night to aid in getting lucid.

That seems a powerful thought yes - a way to connect moments one feels are important and give them more presence and importance :)

This week i kept becoming lucid but felt like the only thing i knew is that it was a dream, and nothing more.. I'll be trying to access full memory in my next LDs.

I mean isn't this the source of being fully lucid?
Knowing that it's a dream, then accessing full memory.. In my thoughts, those two things should form full awareness in dreams. I hope i'm right on this one.. I'll take the memory part and add it into my RC's as that sounds effective.

Helpful piece of information.

^^ You are correct, TDHXIII; self-awareness plus full access to memory does indeed equal being fully lucid.

Hi Sageous :) I have been meaning to ask you about what kind of meditation you practice. I think you have mentioned something somewhere about a teacher telling you what you do is Vipassana/lhaktong - if correct or not could you say what it is that you do. Because I am assuming what you do will be enhancing your self awareness and memory in some way other wise you probably wouldn't bother with it - could you share how it links together to be of meaning to your LDing? Thanks

Hi Patience. Are you sitting down?

To answer your question (one amazingly, that has never been asked of me before): I do not practice any form of meditation. Indeed, I don't even practice a non-form of meditation.

I have never been a fan of meditation for myself, mostly for personal reasons revolving around an inability to stay focused on anything for more than a few seconds (I likely would have been diagnosed with ADD, had they invented the disease when I was a kid). I have certainly tried many different forms of meditation over the years, but to date have not found one that works for me, or, rather, I haven't found one for which I am menatlly or physically equipped. Also, I have always felt (perhaps wrongly, of course!) that many meditational practices seek to put someone else's ideas into your head, when the whole point of understanding the state of mind for LD'ing is to shake off anyone else's ideas and understand that the entire world of your dreams is you, and nothing more -- or less.

I guess the closest I come to meditation is my RRC, from a discipline standpoint. I (and, I guess, others) do think the RRC is very similar to Vipassana yoga practices, if you really look at it, and I have recommended Vipassana to many people because it seems to be the practice that most closely touches the state of mind necessary for LD'ing... but I do not practice it myself. I do mind my breath and use a mantra when doing my WILD's, but I've never considered that meditation in and of itself.

I think I have spent my life developing a mindset for LD'ing, among other things, and that mindset might indeed represent the final product of a few meditation practices, but I really never got there through any specific meditational practice.

I hope this response doesn't disappoint you, or make you wonder if my words might have less value now. I'm pretty sure I've really never professed that I meditate, ever, and I have felt it acceptable to recommend Vipassana to those who might ask about meditation, because I am confident that it might help those who do and can meditate.

I guess the bottom line here, from a practical perspective, is that formal meditation practice is not necessary for succesful LD'ing -- though it can certainly help, if that is where you wish to go.


:sageous:

Interesting!

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that many meditational practices seek to put someone else's ideas into your head, when the whole point of understanding the state of mind for LD'ing is to shake off anyone else's ideas and understand that the entire world of your dreams is you, and nothing more -- or less.

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Sageous, I don't know if given what you've written above if you'd be interested in reading it, but in "Mindfulness In Plain English" the author emphasizes the point of vipassana meditation is nothing more or less than "discovering the truth" about experience, reality, etc. I find that highly compatible with discovering the truth about one's state at any particular moment, and not at all about putting someone else's ideas into your head. In fact, from the little I know about Buddhist practice, the emphasis always seems to be "don't take what we [the teachers] are saying at face value, test the teachings yourself and reach your own conclusions."