Day Dreams/Jump Cuts

Some months ago, I posted a comment regarding daydreaming, but the ideas associated weren't fully formed. This post is a view that I have come to after better consideration of the relationship between Daydreams and dreaming Jump Cuts, and thus how they can be useful for stimulating the dreaming mind.

Briefly stated, each time you catch yourself daydreaming, do a reality check. Your daydreams plus your normal 3D existence is equivalent to your dream life, except in dreams, each jump cut to a new scene is fully involving, and you don't jump back to a consistent reality frame after each jump cut.

So, treat your 3D life the way you want to treat your dreams. Each time you pop back from a daydream, RC. Reestablish your reality and question your state of awareness. "Am I dreaming?" Whether your answer is yes or no, you are choosing to be critical of your awareness.

*** Simplified Exp.: I catch myself daydreaming. I grab my nose and try to breath through it. "Yep, I'm dreaming. Clarity now. Awareness now." Take a moment to evaluate state. Continue with your day, whatever that means for you.

This is a very natural and easy reminder for do RC's and to be mindful simultaneously. You don't have to rely on timers or stop watches or alarms. Your daydreams are your timers. And daydreaming is something we all do throughout the day. I can't think of anything more convenient or easier than that. I'm just now starting to do this myself, so I have no practical experience to share, only my hypothesis.

Anyone already doing this?

A note on the above: the underlying idea behind following the method outlined is that I hope it will create a stimulus/response-type action from the dreaming mind, or perhaps simply a mimicking response by having a strong enough metaphoric relationship to an action taken during the day. By being mindful during the day, you should be more mindful during your dream state, or so the idea goes. I don't have a direct correlation between daydreams and jump cuts, but it is the closest thing I can come to at the moment. So, I am hoping that the dreaming mind will consider doing RCs, state checks, after each daydream as being a close enough correlative that said Pavlovian-like response will develop. I think an auto-responsive action is possibly more reliable than worrying about the dreaming mind coming up with a memory-based or evaluative response to become lucid.

Of course, the dreaming mind may totally ignore this. In that case, you still win by getting naturally-occurring, frequent RCs and mindfulness training.

It seems like a good idea. This is, in fact, something I've been trying to practice for a while. I'm very prone to daydreaming, and I've very good at “zoning out” (that is, losing lucidity) when doing so, because they tend to happen without my consciously realizing it. I have to be very watchful of myself to catch them as they start, and even then it can be difficult. However, over time, I believe I'm slowly getting better at catching myself in a daydream state sooner when it happens, and at that point, I can remember to come back to reality and consider what's going on and whether I'm dreaming.

I believe that in time, this exercise will help me to catch myself in the act of dreaming. There seem to be many things in common between daydreams and dreams. If I'm not self-aware and get too drawn in, I've found, it sort of feels that I even seem to treat the daydream as reality, practically forgetting that it's not real for a brief while, just as with normal dreams. In extreme cases, I'll suddenly realize what I'm doing, think “Whoa, what's going on!”, and experience a feeling quite similar to that of becoming lucid in a dream.

I agree. I get caught up in daydreaming too easily myself. You seem to get deeper into it, but that may help drawing a similarity. This new approach of RCing each time may be a greater help, make me more aware that I am drifting into them. Good luck with your go at it.