I agree with both of you that self-awareness is a necessary ingredient to be mixed into anyone's arsenal who wishes to have the highest potential for/with LDs. That said, I have become lucid many times simply because I observed an oddity of environment that made me stop and question the condition. Did I have to be self-aware before I had the ability to question the oddity in the first place? To a point, certainly. But you can't have a dream of any kind without a degree of self-awareness already in place. The dream couldn't exist because there would be no dreamer.
Though I believe that self-awareness and mindfulness (I shouldn't speak directly to ADA as I did in my above post, though my understanding of it is reasonable, I think) should be co-developed, I won't jump on the bandwagon and say that mindfulness is not an ingredient that induces lucidity in and of itself. Whether others agree or not, my personal experience (in other words my opinion, after 45+ years of meditation. I'm on the down slope nearing 60.) says that self-awareness is a naturally developed condition for those who practice mindfulness. That doesn't mean, however, that it shouldn't be considered a differentiated goal, but I don't think it possible in the long run. I think it's a bad idea to say that this thing is the key, and imply a disregard for the usefulness of other ideas without this thing coming along as well.
We should be able to have a discussion about mindfulness and LDing without downgrading its importance by saying it's essentially nothing without a self-awareness practice tacked on. It makes self-awareness sound too much like a thing, like a technique or exercise rather than a condition of existence. If you do this, there's not a single topic that can be discussed regarding LDs, techniques included, that won't require a self-awareness caveat being tacked onto the beginning of the discussion. I applaud anyone who works with these concepts, together or separately. But I think you will find, in the end at least, that self-awareness self-develops through the practice of mindfulness or similar. Thanks all for your responses. I appreciate a good conversation.
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