Mango's Workbook

I've just found out what mindful meditation is yesterday. Sounds a lot better than the meditation I tried before, to be honest (which was trying to clear my mind). This one is sort of like an easy variation of ADA. So I'm trying it out. I noticed a lot more details and all that because my thoughts weren't in the way.

So I'm ditching the meditation I was doing before and going for this one. With the other one I was doing, I had to sit down or stay still but I absolutely hated that. I like to keep moving and see new things. :) I've also been forgetting about SSILD. Welp.

My dream recall has been crap for about 5 days because of the migraines and shitty mood, but hopefully it will come right and get better. (I've also been forgoing writing in my DJ at all - even to write 'no dreams' - so yeah, I must get back into the habit.)

My dream recall is terrible at the moment so I'll say my mantra, "I remember my dreams," as I'm going to sleep and during the day. No bright lights before bed (gonna be hard as I'm addicted to going on my iPod very late at night in bed). Thinking about dreams. Dream journalling. All that jazz. I've done mindful meditation for two days so far and it's pretty hard. I've never realised how much I'm thinking during the day. Like, my mind never gets some peace and quiet! Hell, we really are prisoners of our minds, aren't we?

I'll be doing the meditation for a long time and will record my progress, seeing if its made any difference to my waking and dream life. So each post will have a week's worth of meditation practises, not including the last two days, and I'll edit my post at the end of each day to type in the progress.

10/12/14: Gosh, it was weird to catch what my brain was thinking. It seemed to catch on to random bits of music I listened to during the day and played over and over like a broken record. Most of it was annoying as they were pop songs I despise.

I'm noticing a lot more details with this exercise though. And I remembered three dreams. Took a while to remember, but much better than nothing! I also woke at 3am via alarm, but I forgot to actually get out of bed. Welp. Tomorrow then.

11/12/14: It was a bit harder to do yesterday. My recall is spiking a bit in quality and vividness, which is good. Both the dreams I remembered had something to do with astral projection or lucid dreaming. I even remembered a tiny detail, which was of me adjusting my diamond earring. It felt real-ish, but so far I'm not 'there' in dreams yet.

12/12/14: Didn't do much because a lot happened. I've noticed that I only do mindfulness when I'm calm or not doing much. That needs to change so that I'm doing mindfulness in other situations. Also, I recalled four fragments/short dreams last night.

13/12/14: Easy on that day. No dreams recalled.

14/12/14: Hard. No dreams recalled.

15/12/14: Didn't do it. I've been staying at home as my course finished. I need to actually be doing something to do mindfulness or else I'll forget. A few dreams were recalled last night but it took about 10 minutes to remember them. It's very hard for me to remember dreams and then everyone in my family remembers them vividly every night. Bloody fucking hell, what am I doing wrong? MILD doesn't seem to work for me either - I woke up in WBTB and remembered dreams, then I did MILD to remember dreams and I didn't remember any the next time I woke. Sigh.

16/12/14: Probably going to skip this day.

Your mindfulness exercise sounds awesome AstralMango. Indeed, there's so much going on in our heads. I also sometimes catch myself singing a seemingly random song and have even tried to trace where it came from. There is usually a word that triggers the song. Wait, what, a word trigger? Like for example, I would think 'this is sad' and then my mind will start playing a track "summertime sadness" and after a while I might become aware of the music and track back where it came from. It also happens if I read a certain word. Sometimes I get music from as far as my childhood! :boggle:

Hey what's up? You haven't posted anything, are you not having LDs anymore? Check out my workbook, I just made a new entry = D

This post is just to check in and write down what I've been doing so I can look back on this.

I have been doing mindfulness - staying in the present moment and reflecting on what I did during the day, reality checks, and DJing. I will also do MILD before I go to sleep every night with the mantra, "I will lucid dream tonight."

I'm trying to get into the habit of winding down before bed, which means no bright lights and stuff like that to ruin my recall or keep me awake. I'm keeping my bed time consistent, except I'll be staying up past midnight on New Years Eve cause, y'know, 2016 is coming! :movingmrgreen:

Along with what I'm doing in the post above, I'm going to go through all my past DJ entries and reflect upon them. I will think "If I saw so-and-so, then I must be dreaming" or "If this happens, then I will be aware" and stuff like that. I'll even imagine myself going lucid. Hope this helps with my subconscious and lucidity. I need some lucids for the competition.
Go Team Crackle, go. :gab:

After a conversation with ginsan in chat, I'm adding an RC to the ones I already do: Wish for something! It's like how Timmy Turner from the Fairly Odd Parents wishes for something and his fairies grant it. I will also expect the wish to be granted, so it's partly an expectation RC.

Ah, haven't posted here in a while. I've had a couple of LDs in the past week or so, one of them induced with MILD (been doing RCs and mindfulness beforehand). Been slacking off a bit today.

For MILD, I say either "this is a dream" or "I am dreaming" before going to sleep along with visualisation, and I use it in WBTB too. My prospective memory is decent, so I'll try to keep up with MILD for a couple of months and see if it makes any big differences to my dreaming life.

Sounds like this tech's pretty effective for you. Congrats on the lds!

Also, happy to see you! :)