Thread: What is "Self-Awareness"?

Originally Posted by deliiffa

Now I know what it means to be aware of myself. What I want to know is what does the method of lucid living referred to as "Self-Awareness" involve, what am I supposed to do exactly to practice "Self-Awareness", and how is it different from ADA? And if I were to reach the maximum level of awareness possible by Self-Awareness, what would happen?

Self-awareness is simply being aware of one's thoughts, perceptions, and actions. ADA seems to be focused more on one's sensory experience, ie being aware of sights, sounds, tactile sensations, etc. I don't think a distinction should be made between these two "methods," however. There are usually multiple sources of sensory and mental input at any give time, and so you will likely have to choose what to focus on, although it is possible to have a broad focus and be aware of multiple things at once. This will depend on what you are doing at any given moment. If you are working on homework or contemplating a problem in your life, you will likely want to focus on your thoughts to the exclusion of other sensory input. However, if you are simply walking or doing something that doesn't require thought, you will probably focus on the sensations of your feet touching the ground, the wind against your skin, the sounds of the birds chirping, the nature of your visual perceptions, etc. I believe that what is most important is to be aware of your intentions before and during one's actions. This will lead to the deepest levels of self-awareness. Sure, you can be aware of the sensual perceptions as you do something, but unless you are actually aware of the reasons why you act in the ways that you do, you do not have true self-awareness, you only have a superficial awareness.

What will happen if you reach the maximum level of self-awareness? Maybe your head will explode.

ADA is just a tutorial a member King Yosi made. The term has caught on. Certainly it is an exercise in self-awareness. Vincefield's answer is pretty clear, so I have little to add as to what it is or how to do it.

What will happen? Or more clearly, why is it related to lucid dreaming?

The entire act of getting lucid implies somehow you can become aware in a setting when most people can not. How can you work towards that end? Practice high levels of awareness while awake. Train your very being to always be "on." Spacing off or drifting through a day is the equivalent of not being lucid in waking life. High levels of awareness can be trained so that your brain is much more adept at being aware. It is the basis for becoming aware in sleep, when most people can not.

Originally Posted by VinceField

Sure, you can be aware of the sensual perceptions as you do something, but unless you are actually aware of the reasons why you act in the ways that you do, you do not have true self-awareness, you only have a superficial awareness.

Yes the underlying reason is important. In our (at least my) case, the underlying goal is "I seek to recognize the dream state" and to "live fully in the now."

It's great goal to be self-aware all day. As others have noted, though, "ADA" is a term coined that refers to hyper awareness of one's surroundings via the senses. A number of LDers believe that ADA as described by KingYoshi is not an optimal focus -- it is the awareness of a mouse, not a person. It emphasizes your environment rather than your self.

^^ That's a good point. A long time ago I did a thread about this, called ADA: Right or Wrong for Lucidity? that you might want to check out (just try to ignore the sophomoric battle that ensued because I dared question the practice!).

As long as I'm here, I'm short for time right now, but here is my short summary of self-awareness, stolen from my Lucid Dreaming Fundamentals thread:

Self-awareness is nothing more -- or less -- than being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you. This sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s a lot harder to master than it sounds. Most people are content to live their entire lives without a moment of self-awareness, content to let the events of their world wash over them and to remain unaware of how the things they do and say touch those events…sort of living life like it’s a dream, I suppose. Perfecting self-awareness is simple: pay attention! Unfortunately, humans are naturally wired to not pay this sort of attention, so it takes a lot of work to stay focused and not lapse back into the easy strides taken by those who travel life without ever once checking the path.

The only thing -- okay, the most important of the many things -- I seem to have left out of that description is that self-awareness is literally lucidity, so it is a very good thing to practice, in waking-life and dreams.

Finally, here is a small exercise that might help you with self-awareness practice as related to LD'ing, now known as a RRC, or reverse reality check (shamelessly stolen this time from the first session of my DVA WILD class):

How do you develop self-awareness? There are many ways, and we’ll likely talk about others during upcoming conversations, but the exercise I’ll offer today is simple introduction to the practice, sort of a Reality Check in reverse:

Here’s what to do: At random intervals during the day – at least once an hour but no more than three times in that hour – stop what you’re doing and wonder. Just hold still for a second and remember where you were five minutes ago, imagine where you’ll be in five minutes, and know that everything you’re doing right now has an effect on everything and everyone around you, and everything and everyone around you has an effect on you – even if you don’t realize it.

The important part here is to think deeply about your place in all the stuff that’s whirling around you at any given time, and to really think about what all that whirling is doing to you, and what you might be doing to the whirling. During waking life, you might find yourself very often assuming that there’s not much whirling about at all or that there’s not much of an exchange of effect going on. There always is, whether you can feel it or not. Think about the fact that there is an exchange of atoms between your feet and the floor you’re treading: in a sense you’re changing reality itself, if ever so slightly, just by standing there! It is therefore extremely important to take a moment and remember that you exist, and your existence matters – even if you don’t think it does. [Edit: Your focus during this questioning period should be on your interaction with your local reality -- things/people your presence has influenced, are influencing, and will influence, or things/people that have/will do the same to you. You should avoid getting too metaphysical or galactic, as that atoms example above might imply. For example, perhaps you were just sitting on the couch in your living room 5 minutes ago, doing nothing... sounds like nothing to wonder about, unless you think about the dent you left in the couch, how it will still be warm for the next person in the room, how your comfortable situation on the couch caused you to ignore an important phone call from your boyfriend; the list can go on and on, if you look).]

You don’t have to recite all those questions every time; that would be annoying, and the process of reciting all that might diminish the effect. Basically you should put it all into a single quick thought that means something to you, and allows wonder to linger after you’ve resumed moving through your waking day. It will be difficult at first, but with practice you won’t be using words at all when you pause, as the questions will have become second nature. Be very careful that the questions never lose their wonder, though. If they become rote -- just a bunch of words you say whenever your iPhone app goes off -- then you will have lost the point of doing the exercise because you will not be acknowledging your self.

There are plenty of other methods to develop self-awareness as related to lucidity I'm sure. You might look into mindfulness practice, sleep yoga, or perhaps Vipassana meditation to get started.

Just remember though, that lucidity is the condition of being self-aware in a dream, so if you are having LD's, then you are already practicing self-awareness to some degree!

Originally Posted by Sageous

Self-awareness is nothing more -- or less -- than being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you.

I feel like this is more like an awareness of concepts than it is awareness of self. The "self" that we experience is simply a combination of different aggregates, sense perceptions, and mental phenomena. Not that what you have described is a "wrong" type of awareness, but I believe it is more of a pondering of ideas than it is awareness of the experience of self.

So, self-awareness does not include the presence of "You" in the equation? Seems odd to me... if there is no overall, upper-case "You" comprising an identity that is greater than the sum of all those parts (sense perceptions, mental phenomena, etc), then where is the self of which to be aware? Also, doesn't pondering ideas or other external abstracts without considering your own interaction with those things run a bit counter to self-awareness?

I think this kind of intellectual awareness is just fine, and ought to be practiced for its own value, but I don't believe it ties in much with self-awareness, and probably is not helpful to LD'ing, because awareness of concepts in a dream tends to drive the unconscious to generate lots of concepts (and senses, and mental phenomena) that will fulfill your desire to observe outside experience from an intellectual arms-length, but will not help you be aware that you are dreaming.

What am I missing here?

I think it's perhaps semantics? There's awareness and then there's all these aspects of reality (experience) to be aware of, both external and internal. Some of the internals are different labels of 'self'. Some of the internal labels are in direct conflict with one and other. Some of the external experiences also identify with aspects of a 'self'.

So from my perspective the important thing is to simply be aware of these different aspects of experience. I'm not sure it's important wether we label them as 'self' or 'no-self'. I guess that's why I stick to calling it awareness or mindfulness and not self-awareness.

May i ask a request from the LD gurus in this forum?

please....please make a practical Method for increasing self-awareness. we are tired of theoretical concepts behind self-awareness and it's definitions and it's blah...blah..blah...

i mean, make a thread and tell us what exactly we should do in a day to increase our self-awareness. the only exercise related to that is RRC which is hidden inside WILD classes. i don't think if any one newbie here who is looking for increasing self-awareness exercises would search it inside WILD section (because most people think WILD is just laying on the ground in the morning and waiting the dream to appear).

At least someone, copy and paste RRC thread as a sticky thread or make a new one so that every one can easily see it. beside, if there are more self-awareness methods, please include in that new thread too. sorry for asking too much.....

thanks

Self-awareness is nothing more -- or less -- than being aware that you are here, that you have an effect on everything around you, and everything around you has an effect on you.

If by "being aware that you are here," you mean being aware that you exist, then that is indeed a direct experience of self. If by "here" you mean in a particular location in space and time, then that is a conceptualization. It wasn't clear to me which one you meant. The second two are contemplations of the relationship between one's experience of self with the external world, so this can be seen as one step removed from a direct experience of self, dealing in concepts rather than direct experience. Of course, you can directly experience the causes and effects of this relationship, but you seem to advise contemplating the idea of this rather than directly experiencing it. A simply grammatical correction would change the meaning- to say "being aware of your effect on everything around you" rather than "being aware that you have an effect on everything around you" would take the statement out of the realm of concept and into the realm of experience. But again, I don't think you are necessarily wrong, for this type of contemplation is useful as well.

^^ So, semantics it was... good to know, and thanks for the clarification!

Originally Posted by yaya

May i ask a request from the LD gurus in this forum?

please....please make a practical Method for increasing self-awareness. we are tired of theoretical concepts behind self-awareness and it's definitions and it's blah...blah..blah...

i mean, make a thread and tell us what exactly we should do in a day to increase our self-awareness. the only exercise related to that is RRC which is hidden inside WILD classes. i don't think if any one newbie here who is looking for increasing self-awareness exercises would search it inside WILD section (because most people think WILD is just laying on the ground in the morning and waiting the dream to appear).

At least someone, copy and paste RRC thread as a sticky thread or make a new one so that every one can easily see it. beside, if there are more self-awareness methods, please include in that new thread too. sorry for asking too much.....

thanks

That is a very good idea!

I simply try to listen, what is going on in my head. The chattering will stop. I think because it is mostly just useless quantity for me. In the same time I can focus on what I am doing, and on my existence. For me the most important is that I am not daydreaming, there is silence inside and I am in the now. This silence and awareness is not stable. It is not a neutral boring grey. It has an evolution. After some minutes I feel some fine tension that is growing. In this period I have a gentle, but not really easy fight against the daydreams. I can loose my awareness in 20 seconds. If I don’t give up, than after some five minutes this growing tension somehow expands, and I am in an intense but light feeling. I can breath very deep. I am not fighting anymore. It is easy to hold the silence. Everything looks like it has some very subtle crystal-foggy aura that has a fine silky vibration. I feel happy, totally free. There is something very similar between lucid dreams and this heightened state. It has some psychedelic touch, with the feeling of oneness. Sometimes I must laugh from some light ecstasy rushes. I always make the mistake that I begin to analyze my situation logical…and then I am out.
When I first discovered the power of silence and now, I was trying to do it several times, every day. I had some LD-s from it. I know it is very effective. I just hope that I am old enough to stop the jump in – jump out.

I also wouldn't over-complicate the whole awareness thing. It's better experienced than explained, and in my experience it has to start small and expand. Coming into something like ADA cold is a bit overwhelming, and in the beginning it's probably better to pick one object and make that your focal point of awareness for the day. After some time awareness can be expanded to encompass more and more of daily experience.

Single-point concentration meditation is very good for giving one the 'feel' of direct and focused perception, and that can then be leveraged into practicing awareness throughout the day.

One way I like to practice awareness is by pretending that waking life is already a lucid dream, and then imagining what that would feel like if that were true.
I find this very entertaining and exciting, it makes me feel naturally lucid and gives waking life a wonderful dreamlike quality to it as well.