Thanks for the welcome!
I haven't read that yet (I've made a note to self!) but I do understand there's a long history of lucid dreaming associated with contemplative practices.
My practice is mindfulness and mostly of breath but at times I shift to a more expansive mindfulness of awareness. It's kind of dynamic and depends on how I feel during a given moment of a sitting. I also compliment formal practice during the day whenever it occurs to me with mindfulness of daily doings. Walking, driving, cooking, eating, shopping, house chores, shower, shave, conversing, listening, whatever...
As far as what it's been like for me? In essence an easier relationship with experience. Much less stress, worry and negativity. I don't take things personally. More presence in the now. I can hold many more perspectives on a given event, so I have a choice when assigning affective value and meaning. The mind is much less apt to get lost on a runaway thought-train, so the space between stimulus and response has much more clarity. It's almost like how the mind is when, say, you get into a car accident where things seem to move in slow motion. I have more clarity of thought and perception and more time to consider before reacting. And that space is mostly free of the clutter the mind tends to conjure, so the more pertinent and objective aspects tend to jump to the foreground.
I've heard it put this way: The mind is like a pond. Toss a pebble in a turbulent pond and the ripples are hard, if not impossible to perceive. Toss a pebble into a calm pond and the ripples can be observed radiating across the entire surface. Signal to noise ratio. It's not boosting the strength of the signal but reducing the noise.
I don't do anything fancy or fantastical either. I don't have a teacher or guru. I don't do retreats. I simply sit for 30 minutes every night between dinner and bedtime.
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