# Lucid Dreaming > General Lucid Discussion >  >  Mindfulness - An Alternative Approach to ADA

## Ctharlhie

Ah, ADA. The technique we all love to hate and hate to love. From pretty much the second it was posted to the forum it was astonishingly popular, and has been touted as the Ultimate technique for pretty much these last three years. I got my own first lucid dreams with the technique and had joined the forum shortly before KingYoshi had posted it. However, pretty much everybody apart from its creator has been overwhelmed to at least some degree. There’s a good reason for this: ADA is overwhelming. In fact, the way it’s layed out in Yoshi’s tutorial is fairly unrealistic, and I doubt even he maintains it to that extent 24/7. Despite the huge rewards offered by the technique I, and many others gave up with it.
If maintaining complete sensory immersion all through the day is impractical, particularly for LD beginners, where does that leave us? ADA shares a lineage with another lucid dreaming practice, dream yoga. My dual explorations of meditation for the purposes of coping with anxiety and dream yoga for LD induction led me to realise the similarity between ADA and Buddhist mindfulness. ADA has already been practiced for thousands of years from Hinduism through to Buddhism, in which it is simply seen as an extension of the awareness achieved in seated meditation. In fact, the practice done on the cushion is seen as practice for the real work of mindfulness in everyday life.

*Meditation as ADA preparation*

To get yourself started read this meditation guide: How to Meditate | Aloha Dharma
Remember that there is no way to “fail” at meditation. The point is not to “empty your mind”, the very point is to _be distracted_ and then return to the object of mindfulness. The repeated work of being distracted and returning to the object is mindfulness itself. If you could sit with a completely still mind you wouldn’t need meditation or ADA at all because you’d be a mindfulness master who could lucid dream every night!
Even if your actual meditation feels turbulent and with poor concentration, when you stop and go back to your daily life experience seems somehow more vivid. This is the use of meditation.
Long term meditators have been found to undergo physical changes in the brain in the amygdala, the part of the brain associated with fear, anger and anxiety through the process called neuroplasticity. In this way mindfulness makes physical changes in the brain to be more aware.  Really all techniques do this, but indirectly, through repetition. Meditation allows you to see the process in action and program lucidity directly.

*Object-oriented ADA*

Mindfulness of sensory experience all day is quite a feat even with the help of meditation. Hukif was perhaps the first LDer on the forum to make mindfulness of what is absent from dreams a constant RC, concentrating on the feeling of gravity on his body IRL to make his body and the whole day into one big RC, and lucid dreaming daily as a result.
Here is a list of phenomena I have found lacking dreams, it is by no means complete:
1.	Gravity
2.	The feeling of clothing
3.	Temperature
4.	Feet on the floor
5.	Ambient noise
6.	Light sources
7.	Visual snow/floaters
8.	Tinnitus
9. Air Pressure (wind, breezes, draughts)
10. A sense of the breath

Further Reading:
http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...rspective.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/beyond-dre...ight-yoga.html
http://www.dreamviews.com/wild/12557...mentals-q.html
Puffin's DILD Guide - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views
http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...d-secrets.html
Advanced lucid dreaming: part 7 - YouTube

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## diesel35

Thank you very very much all of the thing I need to ADA is here  ::D:

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## FryingMan

Good stuff.   I've started describing what I do as , "continuous vigilance", which pretty much means mindfulness I believe.   Some of the main things I'm mindful of are:

+ location (my dreams are almost always in imaginary/non-waking places)
+ strange/bizarre/shocking/surprising/new things
+ interaction with people (because my vigilance usually wavers while interacting with people, and I mostly interact with people in dreams), this one's hard to keep
+ thinking about dreaming: because after all, the only time I'm not thinking about dreaming is when....I"m non-lucidly dreaming!
+ the dream feeling itself
+ gravity

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## Memm

It's actually something that's mentioned for mindfulness meditation that after you get up from the seated practice you build mindfulness into the rest of your day _slowly_, like you just be mindful of your posture (notice, not fix) or the way you walk or when a certain feeling comes up. Not everything at once, so it makes sense that you just pick a couple of things that you know don't generally happen in dreams and work on staying mindful of those.

Here are some additions to your list:

Electrical switches, they rarely work in dreamsText, it usually changes in dreamsShadows, they aren't always correct in dreamsTransitions, where were you before you appeared here?

I bet this list sounds familiar.  ::chuckle::   ::-P:   :;-):

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## Ctharlhie

I can't believe I left out transitions! And, of course, shadows. That's a big one, and people hardly consider them (it slipped my mind lol).

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## Memm

I think it's really important to remember, and I forget this very often as well, that awareness by itself won't make you lucid.

If you look at the alternative translations to mindfulness

Mindfulness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You'll see:

Mindful attentionReflective awarenessRecollecting mindfulnessInspection

For LDing what you want is a state of *critical awareness*.

Often when we are faced with some sort of problem, we get too caught up in the problem to take a step back and ask "is this actually how it's supposed to be?", it's not just dreams that this happens in.

In real life you turn on the light in your room and you can be fully aware of this, in the dream you turn on a light and you can be fully aware of it. In both reality and in the dream you are aware and you remember turning on the light later in the day and you remember that you turned on a light when you wake up after the dream.

Pure awareness will give you great dream recollection, but not lucidity!

What you want is to note *whether the light turned on the way it usually does*, this means it's a two stage process.

You notice the feeling of turning the light on, the change from dark to light (awareness)You then *use your memory* and decide if the light did what you expected it to do, did it turn on like it does all the other times you've done it? (reflection)

Only doing step one will only give you good dream recall, not lucidity.


Here's an example from an actual dream:

Last night I was dreaming that I was fixing a weirdly complicated mechanism, I was really busy trying to fix it and was wondering why I couldn't seem to get it right. Instead of wondering if it was actually a real object I was fixing, I was fully aware of what I was doing but only in order to help me work out the problem.

We actually do this in reality all the time, when something doesn't seem to go our way we butt heads with the problem, using all our wits to try and solve it, we don't generally step back and see if the problem is a real problem until much later.

So we need to not just be aware of something but also reflect on it.

By the way don't go into lengthy thoughts like "oh yeah this light switch totally seems to be working so I'm not dreaming let's try it again a few times just to make sure and then follow it up with holding my nose and trying to breath through it and let's see what else doesn't seem realistic" this will get tiresome really soon and there's no way you'll keep it up all day. Mindfulness _isn't thinking_ it's more of a gentle nod.

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## FryingMan

> For LDing what you want is a state of *critical awareness*.



This is why I like the term "vigilance" -- vigilance has the connotation of "looking for something" or "being aware with a purpose": you're on the lookout for the dream state.

Below is me just thinking aloud (not declaring any mindfulness target as "right" or "wrong"):

On the contents of the particular lists: 
I can safely say that not once have I ever noticed a shadow or wind or other small environmental factors in about a thousand recalled dreams/scenes this last year.Lighting I'm usually at least peripherally aware of in the background, fairly frequently (producing the sense of nighttime/daytime/dusk/levels of darkness).Gravity I've noticed, but less than a handful of times.Text I've noticed perhaps a dozen times (and  a few times very closely considering it) but not once getting lucid from checking it.I've never once touched an electrical switch.I've seen myself in mirrors about 3-4 times (but never getting lucid despite sometimes strong confusion from what I see).Locations of course are *always* there, awareness of location and really thinking about it probably a dozen times.   My dream locations are either one place (my childhood home) or non-waking-world locations.  Location frequently has played a factor in becoming lucid for me.Location transitions are always there, but I've actively noticed them only once or twice.emotional response: fear, joy, anger, frustration: very commonpeople: always present, interacting with them.  Sometimes they are distorted.  Cause of lucidity: fairly frequent.the "dream feeling" -- harder to asses, but I think this is also a fairly frequent, if not the majority, of the triggers of lucidity for me.  I suppose this is at its root "self-awareness + memory" combining.thoughts -- in dreams I will frequently ponder ideas or visualize games or think about objects and how they work, sometimes with a very close-up visual of the object.bizarre/strange/shocking/impossible-in-waking people or objects or events: medium frequency, in fact over time my dreams seem to becoming more and more "life-like" focusing on interacting with people in locations, but occasionally a really strange object or person will pop up.

So for me, people, interacting with people, and the location+transitions are the really big ticket items, plus just general self-awareness ("dream feeling").

In waking life, my mindfulness is at its lowest while interacting with people (or concentrating on mental activities like working).   Work I've always recognized as a low mindfulness time, but low mindfulness while interacting with people I have recently realized this and am now working diligently on rectifying it, I think it will result in a big boost to lucidity, that's my hope at least!

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## Memm

Being mindful of when I'm talking to somebody is something I started working on recently as well, it just happens so often in dreams and I always find myself zoning out during conversations.

So +1 to that idea!

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## Ctharlhie

> This is why I like the term "vigilance" -- vigilance has the connotation of "looking for something" or "being aware with a purpose": you're on the lookout for the dream state.



Vigilance is something that is definitely stressed in the Zen tradition (in which there has always been more of a martial flavour to buddhism), I've read a Zen metaphor of zazen meditation as being like sitting in a jungle clearing while knowing that a tiger is nearby! 

Terms like vigilance and particularly "critical faculty" that Memm adressed were also central to the original source of reality checking, the "critical state test" in Laberge's ETWOLD.

I can't link to it due to forum rules, but on LD4All there is a an article by Robert Wagonner in which he discusses interviewing naturals and their constant state of critical skepticism towards their current state of awareness. There you have it, perhaps your very state of awareness is an object in itself of which to be critical. 







> [*]I can safely say that not once have I ever noticed a shadow or wind or other small environmental factors in about a thousand recalled dreams/scenes this last year.



Agreed.  




> [*]Lighting I'm usually at least peripherally aware of in the background, fairly frequently (producing the sense of nighttime/daytime/dusk/levels of darkness).



I wouldn't claim that dreams lack lighting, obviously they do, but that the _lightsource_ is often unverifiable - unlike IWL in which you can always locate the lightsource of whatever location you find yourself in, be it the sun or a flourescent lamp




> [*]Gravity I've noticed, but less than a handful of times.



Usually only noticeable when it is distorted ala Hukif.




> [*]Text I've noticed perhaps a dozen times (and  a few times very closely considering it) but not once getting lucid from checking it. [*]I've never once touched an electrical switch.



Classic RCs both.




> [*]I've seen myself in mirrors about 3-4 times (but never getting lucid despite sometimes strong confusion from what I see).



For me mirrors rarely present dynamic reflections (ie. changing as I move my position), instead reflecting a static image like in a poor video game, as if simply to designate them as a mirror at all.
Also, look out for other reflective surfaces like bodies of water, windows, cars, anything metallic. Like Lacan said, 'many things in this world behave like mirrors'  :tongue2: 




> [*]Locations of course are *always* there, awareness of location and really thinking about it probably a dozen times.   My dream locations are either one place (my childhood home) or non-waking-world locations.  Location frequently has played a factor in becoming lucid for me.[*]Location transitions are always there, but I've actively noticed them only once or twice.



Some dreamers report 'jump cuts' as indicative of dreaming.




> [*]emotional response: fear, joy, anger, frustration: very common



Often inappropriate responses for the situation




> [*]people: always present, interacting with them.  Sometimes they are distorted.  Cause of lucidity: fairly frequent.



I find faces to often to be blurry unless the DC is someone I know well. 




> *[*]the "dream feeling" -- harder to asses, but I think this is also a fairly frequent, if not the majority, of the triggers of lucidity for me.  I suppose this is at its root "self-awareness + memory" combining.*



This is central to Yoshi's, and Naiya's, original idea of ADA - that dreams simply 'feel' different - and why the critical faculty is perhaps not as crucial with ADA as with other techs (such as RC) because through ADA you are making yourself intimately mindful of both dream and waking, and how they differ.




> [*]thoughts -- in dreams I will frequently ponder ideas or visualize games or think about objects and how they work, sometimes with a very close-up visual of the object.[*]bizarre/strange/shocking/impossible-in-waking people or objects or events: medium frequency, in fact over time my dreams seem to becoming more and more "life-like" focusing on interacting with people in locations, but occasionally a really strange object or person will pop up.[/list]



These things often get justified by the narrative, making it difficult to become lucid by the traditional means of logical questioning - hence where mindfulness enters.





> So for me, people, interacting with people, and the location+transitions are the really big ticket items, plus just general self-awareness ("dream feeling").
> 
> In waking life, my mindfulness is at its lowest while interacting with people (or concentrating on mental activities like working).   Work I've always recognized as a low mindfulness time, but low mindfulness while interacting with people I have recently realized this and am now working diligently on rectifying it, I think it will result in a big boost to lucidity, that's my hope at least!



Doing a menial activity such as a 9-5 job is actually one of the best opportunities to practice mindfulness  :smiley:

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## Ctharlhie

> Being mindful of when I'm talking to somebody is something I started working on recently as well, it just happens so often in dreams and I always find myself zoning out during conversations.
> 
> So +1 to that idea!



Same here. People say I'm a good listener, haha!

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## Memm

I found that article you were talking about, it's really interesting and raises a very good point. Back when I had much more frequent DILDs I would say I was a lot more worried about my environment throughout the day, _looking out_ for people and things I wanted to avoid. This wasn't the only difference though, so I can't say how much weight I would place on it.

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## FryingMan

> I can't link to it due to forum rules, but on LD4All there is a an article by Robert Wagonner in which he discusses interviewing naturals and their constant state of critical skepticism towards their current state of awareness. There you have it, perhaps your very state of awareness is an object in itself of which to be critical.



Yes I've read that and it was probably the major impetus for me moving from a LaBerge ETWOLD style (discreet short moments of reflection/intention, and RCs [these fairly frequent]) day practice to a "continuous vigilance" style.    That plus trying Hukif-style ADA-RC (location) (which while I didn't get Hukif-style lucid frequency [a point that I think even Hukif forgets to mention is that it didn't take him 3 months for ADA/RC-gravity to start working for him, it took *8 years and 3 months* of his LD efforts, so he had a massive build up of awareness and dream sensitivity and recall over that time, just waiting to be tapped by his gravity RC], did definitely result in some location-based lucids) really gave me a taste for the continuous vigilance approach, so that's what I stick with today, plus doing nose-pinch and hand check RC fairly frequently at discreet "interesting" moments.   Plus Sageous-RRC.






> I wouldn't claim that dreams lack lighting, obviously they do, but that the _lightsource_ is often unverifiable - unlike IWL in which you can always locate the lightsource of whatever location you find yourself in, be it the sun or a flourescent lamp



Yes, good point.  When presented with "outside archetype" + "bright light" the assumption is "it's daytime and the sun is the light source" but I never think about that in the dream.





> [emotion]Often inappropriate responses for the situation



Or strong (almost overwhelming), which for me usually is associated with sadness [deceased pets [this is one of the strongest, *knowing* in the back of your mind while interacting that he's really gone], missing the children's young-n-cute stage].
Also for me is confusion/frustration: I can't pick up the cards (got lucid from this, LD #2), can't count the billiard balls (I guess "inappropriate" sort of applies here).





> I find faces to often to be blurry unless the DC is someone I know well.



Interestingly in the past about 5-6 months, I've gone from never noticing (or remembering at least) faces much (except in a few lucids where they were lifelike) to really seeing them on occasion in non-lucids.   Painfully beautiful shining dream girls, and just regular folks.   Usually with distinctive features (the elfish-featured tall near-albino from 2 nights ago).   Come to think of it I've seen the distinctive/sharp-featured platinum-haired "elf" before, a month or two ago (possibly as a woman).    Faces have been becoming more a part of recall gradually.   

Just saw a quote recently on FB, "Some quit due to slow progress. Never grasping the fact that slow progress... is progress"
which is really appropriate in LD practice where sometimes results seem to take forever.   And those tantalizing tastes of lucidity that you want back immediately but remain weeks (or months) away at times.   Sigh.   Well, as I said, dreaming (even non-lucid) is awesome!

Oh, I forgot: hiding: I'm reasonably frequently trying to avoid being discovered.

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## FryingMan

Haha -- the mind is a wonderful thing.   Incubation at its finest:

Last night I experienced for the first recalled time: temperature, the feel of moving air, and (at a later waking) looked up into the blue sky with faint cirrus clouds.

contrails3.jpg

Now all I need are some light switches and shadows  :smiley: .

I also had an unusually large amount of recall quite early: woke at about 2-2.5 hrs (quite rare for me), woken from music being played outside that made it through my earplugs.   The recall was notable since it was coherent and lifelike, usually dreams that early are very abstract and bizarre.  And actually seemed like a fairly long dreaming session, 5-10 minutes perhaps.

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## Ctharlhie

^ Haha, brilliant! The other night I found myself really scrutinising things and trying to practice ADA within the dream, without becoming lucid - which was a sign that I was on the verge of becoming lucid from it when I last tried ADA.

It sounds like ADA is already affecting your recall.

This morning I also had a very vivid LD in which I was in a chippy and the look of food deep frying was perfect, but I got none of the smell/heat/sound:


Also, another thing to add to the list of objects of attention: blinking! when have you ever blinked in a dream? or coughed or sneezed (useful for those like me with hayfever).

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## FryingMan

^^ That leads to an interesting point: what is most effective for mindfulness: positives (things you notice or are present in dreams) or negatives (things you don't experience in dreams)?   My impulse is to think that positives are more effective than negatives because they enter your attention from the dream....but I'm not sure.   An area for research....

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## Memm

> ^^ That leads to an interesting point: what is most effective for mindfulness: positives (things you notice or are present in dreams) or negatives (things you don't experience in dreams)?   My impulse is to think that positives are more effective than negatives because they enter your attention from the dream....but I'm not sure.   An area for research....



In my mnemonics thread I mentioned how the brain filters memories, I've read before in mnemotechnic discussions that scary / unpleasant mnemonics stick less than funny / sexy / weird etc.. ones. Personally I haven't tested it out enough to say I've noticed a difference but usually my visualisation are more weird than scary.

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## Kaiern9

The meditation article you linked was really good, thanks.

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## Ctharlhie

> The meditation article you linked was really good, thanks.



Probably the most no-nonsense guide on the internet.

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## Memm

> Probably the most no-nonsense guide on the internet.



That article seems oddly similar to this:

Mindfulness In Plain English

Perhaps inspired by?

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## sleepingSYNAPSE

I love the connections being made between meditation and lucid dreaming. For me it wasn't the concept of ADA that inspired lucid dreaming, but rather after a spontaneous lucid dream, I became constantly critical of my surroundings.  I couldn't agree more that this awareness and mindfulness (that are often hard to separate) are essential with regular lucid dreams, though I am not completely sold on which is causing which.  I could go either way!  And it is likely that they feed off each other in many successful cases.

It's very helpful to see the "object list."  A few stand out to me, such as the 'feeling of clothing.'  I agree that they are not present in dreams, but they are also not present in waking life.  Obviously (and fortunately) our body disregards the regular contact, so it plays no relevance in waking life or in dream life.  It seems to me that if I made myself more aware of the feeling and allowed myself to 'feel my clothing' through increased awareness awake, then my dreaming self might be one that feels clothing as well.  So rather than trigger a lucidity cue, I might just be a dreaming guy that feels his clothes...

What I'm getting at is, do you find your increased awareness leave itself at the dream gate?  Or does your dreaming self also become more mindful?

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## FryingMan

> What I'm getting at is, do you find your increased awareness leave itself at the dream gate?  Or does your dreaming self also become more mindful?



I sort of made this point earlier, but I think it bears repeating: my approach to mindfulness ("vigilance") is not purposeless, pure awareness: I'm *specifically on the lookout for the dream state*.    I think if you take that approach, color your awareness thoughts with *what you're looking for*, the awareness of your clothing will not simply slip by and miss the moment to recognize a dream.

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## sisyphus

I agree with most of the above. I just want to offer my input on translating Buddhist concepts and finding practical use out of them for lucid dreaming.

Mainly, I would be cautious when using translations of Buddhist concepts from Pali words or other Eastern languages because they can be misleading, especially when writers combine and expand on them, getting further and further from the original meaning. It's not that the translations are wrong, it's that they are usually defined and explained in a particular book where there is a lot of context and qualification. But then other writers extract just the single word translation and lose all the context. In particular, I find the Wikipedia article on mindfulness to be problematic. Or it accurately captures the fact that the word "mindfulness" has become an umbrella term for several different and sometimes conflicting Buddhist-y concepts. Either way, it's not super helpful for practical use. Usually, there's never a one-to-one translation of Pali words so the most useful translations are the longer descriptive ones.

The two relevant Pali words are Sati and Vipassana. Sati is mindfulness in the general sense. Vipassana is the meditation practice. For a moment, let's set aside the word "mindfulness" as too vague. Sati is very certainly not anything like "concentration," "reflection," or "recollection." Those are explicitly different concepts in Buddhism and the definitions and discussions that include those words must be out of context. "Presence" is closer. I think the best translation of Sati is "sustained openness of awareness." It is "sustained" in the sense that it avoids or easily returns from interruption or distraction for a period of time. And it is "open" in the sense that new objects easily enter and exit it from it, without attachment. On both points, it is "easy," not forced or constrained. I think the inferior translations of "retention" or "memory" are trying to allude the the "sustained" quality of Sati but they are more misleading than anything else.

Two interesting terms mentioned in this thread are "critical awareness" and "vigilance." I agree that these are useful and practical for lucid dreaming. But they are not mindfulness in the purest sense because they include some aspect of reflection. I agree with the point that awareness alone doesn't result in lucidity. It's the reflection that triggers lucidity, but awareness is how you get to the reflection. (I'll get back to that point in moment).

Vipassana, in the most formal usage, is a mediation practice that uses Sati to cultivate insight into the nature of impermanence, which is a whole other topic. More relevant here is that it has many positive side effects, including inducing a state of calm and developing the mental capacity for awareness over time. These side effects are the usual goals for less formal and Westernized practices.

Sorry if that was all a bit snobbish, let me get to the practical point. I interpret critical awareness/vigilance as frequent periods of awareness followed by reflection. That combination is the magic recipe for DILD lucidity. Without awareness, you never get to the reflection and it seems that what most people lack is awareness. If, hypothetically, you just increase awareness alone without reflection, you don't necessarily improve lucidity. However, it also seems that reflection naturally follows from heightened awareness, even without training. So any amount of awareness should naturally improve awareness+reflection. It's a double bonus if you train both. In Vipassana, you actively try to avoid the shift from awareness to reflection because you want to sustain awareness. But the side effect is still more awareness, which in non-meditation situations will naturally shift to reflection. Thus, Vipassana or similar meditation practices trains your awareness muscle, which is the more difficult of the awareness+reflection pair. Training the reflection muscle, I think, involves prospective memory. And that's where the object-oriented part comes in. You choose specific prospective memory reminders (gravity, light, etc) to trigger the transition from awareness to reflection, and ultimately lucidity.

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## Ctharlhie

I had researched the differences between the terms, but didn't include it in the OP because I felt it was beyond the scope. I hadn't realised the implications for lucidity the distinction between terms implies - thanks for the insight  :smiley:

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## sleepingSYNAPSE

> I sort of made this point earlier



That you did, and your post is helpful.  I didn't see it exactly in that light, but now that you mention it I do.  The mention of vigilance feels very relevant to me.

The goal of ADA is a challenging, yet fun endeavor; we are essentially aiming to naturally defy a large part of our "modern" definition of a dream (the lack of self-reflection).  Just like the new Voss study, we are trying to 'ramp up' our (frontal) brain activity, though through awareness rather than external stimulation.  Even though it can be frustrating, the fun part about lucidity for me is the success that comes from achieving it naturally...I like the idea of grabbing the reigns of my mind.  :smiley: 

Which has a stronger effect from ADA: are we increasing awareness just to look for cues, or rather are we increasing our level of waking consciousness to the point where we don't lose as much of it when we dream?  It seems to me the second, since no matter how much I can know that gravity only exists in a dream, a non-lucid dream constitutes a lack of self-reflection so I'll never notice.  Even if I was aware in the day, the typical 'loss of self-reflection' by decreased frontal cortex activity in dreaming would not allow me to take note.  I need that "frontal power" of my brain to self-reflect and make the observation, and as Ctharlhie has pointed out elsewhere, by using the above-mentioned practices we are making physical changes in our brain.  So I feel like it is those changes, that come with practice, that allow you to carry that awareness into your dream state.    And though it seems like it would take forever for those changes to occur, in my experience I was amazed at how quickly meditation seemed to take its effect on both my waking and dream life.

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## Memm

> Which has a stronger effect from ADA: are we increasing awareness just to look for cues, or rather are we increasing our level of waking consciousness to the point where we don't lose as much of it when we dream?  It seems to me the second, since no matter how much I can know that gravity only exists in a dream, a non-lucid dream constitutes a lack of self-reflection so I'll never notice.  Even if I was aware in the day, the typical 'loss of self-reflection' by decreased frontal cortex activity in dreaming would not allow me to take note.  I need that "frontal power" of my brain to self-reflect and make the observation, and as Ctharlhie has pointed out elsewhere, by using the above-mentioned practices we are making physical changes in our brain.  So I feel like it is those changes, that come with practice, that allow you to carry that awareness into your dream state.    And though it seems like it would take forever for those changes to occur, in my experience I was amazed at how quickly meditation seemed to take its effect on both my waking and dream life.



I'm not sure that "loss of self-reflection" is quite correct, at least in my dreams I have noticed that what I lose is mindfulness. Basically when you start talking to somebody and then 20 minutes later you "come back to your senses" and realise you've just zoned out for 20 minutes and lost track of what was going on in the outside and the inside world. Same with dreams, I have quite clear recall, often I even recall the very beginning of my dreams all the way to the end, when I wake up it's not that I've realised that "oh that was a dream" but more like "oh crap I got lost in a dream", it is *exactly the same feeling* as getting lost in thought, at least for me, but I doubt I'm any different from anybody else in that regard.

Next time you wake up from a dream, try to really get the _feeling_ of that dream, not what you did in the dream but what it felt like to be in a dream, the dream experience, I think you might find the same thing; it's a "I have just zoned out" effect, the same one you get while awake when you stop paying attention and just let your mind wander.

I believe dreams have more in common with the notion of daydreaming or being lost in thought than shutting down of brain parts during sleep, or at least they would be the same parts that are affected by not paying attention and wandering off into lala land while awake. So if you can learn to keep from losing yourself during mental wanderings then being lucid wouldn't be any different.

I'm currently working on a specific training methods to not stay mindful all day long per se but rather I have this notion that what is important is to *notice when you have lost awareness* while it is actually happening, since afterwards it's too late, you've already woken up (in wakefulness or in sleep), I think concentrating on just this would be enough (and it seems to correlate with some high-frequency lucid dreamer's habits of, for example, asking "what was I just doing", which I'm theorising has more to do with them trying not to doze off during the day than anything else, same with those that become natural LDers because of nightmares, they don't want to lose awareness because they're afraid, so they become good at catching themselves in the act of losing themselves), anyway this is a quick theory of mine at the moment, will post more thorough info after I attain results, but if anybody wants more info you can PM me and I'll explain my training routine if you want to try it with me. =]

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## sleepingSYNAPSE

> it's a "I have just zoned out" effect



Wow, never really thought of it that way.  That sounds very cool, very interesting, and very possible.  It also helps in viewing the sleep/wake cycle on a thinner continuum, which of course we as lucid dreamers are all about!

Thanks for the insight and that thought will stay with me.

(BTW I love the analogy)

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## Ctharlhie

@Memm; I think it's for the reasons you just listed that Puffin's technique may be more effective than Yoshi's - Short intensive episodes of awareness.

I think at least one definition of mindfulness is the recognition that the mind has wandered, rather the act of continuous awareness - but I'll defer to Sisyphus on that one.

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## sisyphus

Mindfulness usually has a object, which will be different depending on the context. In Vipassana meditation, the object of mindfulness is the mind itself. You could say that Vipassana is "to observe the activity of the mind." In that case, it's natural that the mind will wander and your task is to merely observe that activity. In doing so, the mind might return from distraction, but there should not be a forced effort to keep the mind focused. But mindfulness can have different object outside of meditation (mindful eating, mindful listening, etc).

I think there's a few interesting and different ideas coming together here:

1) Training a skill or several skills to increase opportunities for lucidity (awareness is surely one, may be others)
2) Training whichever skill it is that triggers the moment of transition to lucidity (maybe critical reflection, maybe something else)
3) Training whichever skill it is that maintains lucidity and avoids "zoning out" (I'd call this _attention_, but maybe described differently)

There is some overlap among those, but we don't to muddle them all together. I think Vipassana can improve all of those indirectly. There might be other practices that more narrowly and directly train each one separately.

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## sleepingSYNAPSE

> I think there's a few interesting and different ideas coming together here:
> 
> 1) Training a skill or several skills to increase opportunities for lucidity (awareness is surely one, may be others)
> 2) Training whichever skill it is that triggers the moment of transition to lucidity (maybe critical reflection, maybe something else)
> 3) Training whichever skill it is that maintains lucidity and avoids "zoning out" (I'd call this _attention_, but maybe described differently)
> 
> There is some overlap among those, but we don't to muddle them all together.



Great distinctions! I couldn't agree more, and they definitely help me in understanding the overall of this thread.

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## FryingMan

> I'm not sure that "loss of self-reflection" is quite correct, at least in my dreams I have noticed that what I lose is mindfulness. Basically when you start talking to somebody and then 20 minutes later you "come back to your senses" and realise you've just zoned out for 20 minutes and lost track of what was going on in the outside and the inside world. Same with dreams, I have quite clear recall, often I even recall the very beginning of my dreams all the way to the end, when I wake up it's not that I've realised that "oh that was a dream" but more like "oh crap I got lost in a dream", it is *exactly the same feeling* as getting lost in thought, at least for me, but I doubt I'm any different from anybody else in that regard.
> 
> Next time you wake up from a dream, try to really get the _feeling_ of that dream, not what you did in the dream but what it felt like to be in a dream, the dream experience, I think you might find the same thing; it's a "I have just zoned out" effect, the same one you get while awake when you stop paying attention and just let your mind wander.



Yes, this.   When I experience a dream with vivid awareness, where I really feel like I was there, I will often wake confused, thinking, "wait, _that_ was a dream!?".   It is like coming back from a zoned-out moment, as you said.





> I believe dreams have more in common with the notion of daydreaming or being lost in thought than shutting down of brain parts during sleep, or at least they would be the same parts that are affected by not paying attention and wandering off into lala land while awake. So if you can learn to keep from losing yourself during mental wanderings then being lucid wouldn't be any different.
> 
> I'm currently working on a specific training methods to not stay mindful all day long per se but rather I have this notion that what is important is to *notice when you have lost awareness* while it is actually happening, since afterwards it's too late, you've already woken up (in wakefulness or in sleep), I think concentrating on just this would be enough (and it seems to correlate with some high-frequency lucid dreamer's habits of, for example, asking "what was I just doing", which I'm theorising has more to do with them trying not to doze off during the day than anything else, same with those that become natural LDers because of nightmares, they don't want to lose awareness because they're afraid, so they become good at catching themselves in the act of losing themselves), anyway this is a quick theory of mine at the moment, will post more thorough info after I attain results, but if anybody wants more info you can PM me and I'll explain my training routine if you want to try it with me. =]



Very well put.   I had the idea recently that I need to be aware of my awareness  :smiley: .   Since I think of dreaming much of the day, and almost never while dreaming, I just need to realize when I've stopped thinking about dreaming, and that means I'm probably dreaming!    Generalizing that,  being aware that I'm aware (or, as you say, being aware that I've lost awareness).

Another way of thinking about this is do practice "slowing down."   Take a moment, and just stop what you're doing, and just reflect for a moment about what you're doing, what you're thinking.   Just a short pause.    Doing this frequently enough I think would have a great impact on lucidity.

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## MrPriority

Wow this thread comes pretty close to what I am trying out right now. Here is a part of my workbook: 

_I decided I want to try being aware of my breathing at all times. That way I have an easy task, that I know I can accomplish. I have been trying this out a bit and I have noticed this also interrupts my dozing of. Every time I start mindlessly doing stuff I realize I am not aware of my breathing. And therefor stop dozing off. So it helps to keep me aware.
This also gave me a good idea. Since I now have multiple times a day, where I realize I am not paying enough attention. They are the perfect time to do a RC._

Indeed, the way you feel after snapping out of a state of non-awareness, feels a lot like waking up from a dream. So by training on catching yourself in the act, you might just do that in your dreams as well. 

But, even if it does not help. You still are making yourself more aware by stopping your dozing off. So it makes your day a more aware one in general. Plus, since it feels like you have just awoken from a dream, it is very easy to question reality. Making your RC's a lot more valuable. And lastly when you have a FA, the first thing you will do is RC since you again feel like you dozed off for a bit. So it will help you in all your FA's as well. 

In the end. If it doesn't help directly, it still helps indirectly. The side-affects are good enough for me, to practice this. 

I have only started this training in the last 5 days. So I guess I do need more time before I can confirm all this.

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## Memm

> Wow this thread comes pretty close to what I am trying out right now. Here is a part of my workbook: 
> 
> _I decided I want to try being aware of my breathing at all times. That way I have an easy task, that I know I can accomplish. I have been trying this out a bit and I have noticed this also interrupts my dozing of. Every time I start mindlessly doing stuff I realize I am not aware of my breathing. And therefor stop dozing off. So it helps to keep me aware.
> This also gave me a good idea. Since I now have multiple times a day, where I realize I am not paying enough attention. They are the perfect time to do a RC._
> 
> Indeed, the way you feel after snapping out of a state of non-awareness, feels a lot like waking up from a dream. So by training on catching yourself in the act, you might just do that in your dreams as well. 
> 
> But, even if it does not help. You still are making yourself more aware by stopping your dozing off. So it makes your day a more aware one in general. Plus, since it feels like you have just awoken from a dream, it is very easy to question reality. Making your RC's a lot more valuable. And lastly when you have a FA, the first thing you will do is RC since you again feel like you dozed off for a bit. So it will help you in all your FA's as well. 
> 
> ...



Any mindfulness improves mindfulness, I think we can get faster results if we concentrate out efforts though; since several of us here seem to have the same notion that dreaming is just another state of mind (remembering, daydreaming, planning, spacing out, happy, sad, angry, sleepy, tired etc..), if we think of it as a state of mind then perhaps concentrating on mindfulness of our state of mind (more narrowly state of awareness) is worth paying the most attention to.

Also I feel that there is a danger that if we get too used to "snapping back" to reality once we find ourselves zoned-out, we might do the same in a dream, effectively waking us up. We're only aiming to be mindful that we are zoned out _in the present moment,_ that way we can then decide what we want to do now that we know where we are.

So personally at the moment rather than mindfulness of breathing (which I do during meditation sessions) I'm doing all-day mindfulness of awareness (aiming to notice when I'm zoning out or am zoned out, since I reckon this is the same state of mind as dreaming).

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## ThreeCat

> Mindfulness usually has a object, which will be different depending on the context. In Vipassana meditation, the object of mindfulness is the mind itself. You could say that Vipassana is "to observe the activity of the mind." In that case, it's natural that the mind will wander and your task is to merely observe that activity. In doing so, the mind might return from distraction, but there should not be a forced effort to keep the mind focused. But mindfulness can have different object outside of meditation (mindful eating, mindful listening, etc).
> 
> I think there's a few interesting and different ideas coming together here:
> 
> 1) Training a skill or several skills to increase opportunities for lucidity (awareness is surely one, may be others)
> 2) Training whichever skill it is that triggers the moment of transition to lucidity (maybe critical reflection, maybe something else)
> 3) Training whichever skill it is that maintains lucidity and avoids "zoning out" (I'd call this _attention_, but maybe described differently)
> 
> There is some overlap among those, but we don't to muddle them all together. I think Vipassana can improve all of those indirectly. There might be other practices that more narrowly and directly train each one separately.




I am by no means an expert, but it is my understanding that to effectively practice vipassana, one must also have developed a fair amount of stability through shamatha (unless you are practicing through one of the modern Burmese schools that practices awareness first, in the belief that stability will naturally follow).  What are your (all) opinions on this?  I am currently involved in a practice of building stability (observing the breath), and then turning my attention from the breath to open presence.  Or is it, as was said above, simply mindful activity in and of itself, that is ultimately helpful?

Also, question: do any of you regularly meditate within the dream space?  If so, what are your experiences?

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## Memm

I'm no expert but from my breathing meditation experience, it develops calmness because that is needed to really be mindful, but observing the breath is also being mindful which develops mindfulness since any mindfulness develops mindfulness. It's not really this or that first, you'll be developing mindfulness no matter what you're doing. It's just that focusing that mindfulness on certain things (since, after practice, you know what it is) is useful.

Like if you're angry, without mindfulness you'll continue to be angry, if you are mindful you realise that you are in a state of anger and by watching it mindfully it'll actually dissipate, since instead of being the angry one, you're simply observing the phenomenon. From what I've read mindfulness is the basis for enlightenment because you can't understand or change something until you actually know it's happening, which makes sense really; can't lucid dream if you don't know you're dreaming. ;]

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## MrPriority

I have found that "snapping back" only really means: Becoming aware of your dozing off. It's not like you have a physical shock or something like that. I usually just have a thought that says: Hhmm I just dozed off again. I can't really imagine it waking me up. It's the shock when you realize you are in fact Lucid and the excitement about that, that you should be afraid of. 

Second I will agree that the goal here is to be aware of your state of awareness. But how does one do that? The problem is that when you doze off, you are no longer aware. How can you become aware of something you are not aware of? Now, you could just realize that after you became aware again. Or you could use a clever tool. Just like the RC is a tool, the breathing is my tool. Since you can very easily start being aware of your breathing right now. It is something that is very easy to start doing. And once you get used to it, you will start to notice really fast and easily when you doze off. You just notice something is not right, because you have been aware of breathing this entire time. It doesn't need to be breathing per se ofc.  I just picked that, because it is easy to become aware of. 

It takes quite a bit for you to realize you are not aware of something. For me this is like, having a little light going off every time I doze off, since it changes how I breathe. It's enough for me to become aware again. 

That is my experience so far

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## Memm

I suppose the idea is that mindfulness can be mindful of itself, or so the concept goes.

So when you are in a state of mind where you are concentrating intently or deep in thought (breaking down "zoning out" into separate concepts) you can be mindful of those states and eventually you notice as they begin to happen and feel what it's like to be in them and finally just have a state of uninterrupted awareness during those states of mind essentially eradicating unawareness during the times when you would normally zone out.

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## Ctharlhie

Lucid dream last night. In that dream, and the dreams running up to it, I've noticed really examining objects in detail. 

In my LD there was no real trigger, no eureka moment - I didn't even think 'I'm dreaming!' It was more like I really knew all along, and I _remembered_ that I want to recognise this state.

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## Memm

Congrats on the LD!

I had a completely opposite experience, before bed I had a very intense meditation session in which I got very deep into the mindfulness state and it persisted very well after I got up, for a while I had great concentration and everything was vivid and easy to notice, my mind was also completely clear.

As I fell asleep though it seems I got the "sinking mind" phenomenon in which you just sink into that thoughtless state, as a result I woke up in the morning and... nothing. No dreams, not even a notion of dreams, just a completely unmindful, maybe even dreamless, sleep.

Felt very good to be in that thoughtless sleep, I woke up extremely refreshed, but not what I wanted.

So there's a danger of "tipping over" into a very deep, unmindful sleep if you "bliss out" from your meditation session.

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## Ctharlhie

just posting this interesting thread on ADA: http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...-lucidity.html

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## Memm

If being mindful improves mindfulness, like pumping a muscle; I would say ADA, which tries to be aware of as many senses as possible, of as many things as possible, all at once would be akin to pumping really, really quickly.

It also means you get tired really quickly and then burn out for the rest of the day.

So I suppose jog for 20 km or run like mad for 5 km.

Normally slow and steady is better for your health in the long run, I wonder if ADA might have side effects.

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## FryingMan

Let me just say I think this is one of the most important and exciting threads I've seen in a while!   At least, it resonates with me and where I am in my practice.    

(Just as a comment, I don't think I would have been ready for this thread when I started LD practice 10 months ago.    I think one must experience at least a few hundred well-recalled dreams where you didn't get lucid to really understand the need for mindfulness/vigilance/critical reflection while waking -- the need to constantly catch that "zoned out" state and to tune back in.)

I'm noticing some small improvements in my efforts to stay mindful during interpersonal interactions.   Sometimes of course I do still zone out, but now I typically realize almost immediately afterwards that I had in fact zoned out.   And I'm getting more RCs in during conversations, etc.

Next step, work/deep concentration.

I'm also starting to consider myself from other's perspective during RRCs, so  :sageous:  Sageous should be happy about that  :smiley:

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## sleepingSYNAPSE

I agree, awesome thread!
Really interesting to hear the theme of 'conversing with others' continually come up in regards to 'zoning out.'  It seems like most of us relate on that one. I feel like that might say something about the personality types of frequent lucid dreamers.  Do we like our _subjective_ world so much that we get confused when it becomes increasingly _objective_?  Just a speculative thought, don't take that seriously... :smiley: 

And while I have the attention of some active ADA practicers, could I ask:
How much does memory tracing play a role during your daily awareness or reflection upon 'zoning back in'? (i.e., asking yourself "How did I get to my current location?", or "Where was I a few hours ago?")

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## Memm

I just found a really, really good description on the difference between simple awareness and _mindfulness_.

What is mindfulness? | Wildmind Buddhist Meditation

I think everybody should read this.


Also this is like a page out of a lucid dreaming guide.

http://www.wildmind.org/applied/dail...lness-triggers

The similarities are just too much.


Also I love where it says "purposeful awareness", I used critical awareness before but purposeful might be an even better term. In a dream you can be aware of the dream and remember it when you wake up but when we become lucid we start making decisions rather than just going with the flow of the dream, we basically attain a purpose of being in a dream instead of mindless wandering through whatever comes up.

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## FryingMan

I do memory tracing sporadically.   Usually my memory checks are closer in time, 5-15 minutes rather than hours (when doing the Sageous RRC).   Sometimes I will do a full-day replay, but it takes usually 15-20 minutes so I don't do that very much.   Usually my zone out periods are fairly short.     My primary "ADA" focus for months was location, so I'm generally always aware of where I am and where I've been without having to think about it too hard.

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## FryingMan

> I just found a really, really good description on the difference between simple awareness and _mindfulness_.
> 
> What is mindfulness? | Wildmind Buddhist Meditation
> 
> I think everybody should read this.
> 
> 
> Also this is like a page out of a lucid dreaming guide.
> 
> ...



Nice links, thanks, this thread is going on my browser's bookmark bar, there's so much good stuff here!

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## ThreeCat

> Lucid dream last night. In that dream, and the dreams running up to it, I've noticed really examining objects in detail. 
> 
> In my LD there was no real trigger, no eureka moment - I didn't even think 'I'm dreaming!' It was more like I really knew all along, and I _remembered_ that I want to recognise this state.



That's interesting.  This sounds more akin to semi-lucid experiences I've had, as opposed to LDs attained with clarity.  In your estimation, how lucid were you?  Just curious  :smiley: 






> I do memory tracing sporadically.   Usually my memory checks are closer in time, 5-15 minutes rather than hours (when doing the Sageous RRC).   Sometimes I will do a full-day replay, but it takes usually 15-20 minutes so I don't do that very much.   Usually my zone out periods are fairly short.     My primary "ADA" focus for months was location, so I'm generally always aware of where I am and where I've been without having to think about it too hard.



Sounds like you are doing a lot of good work.  That's awesome!  I try to do a "full day replay" at night, though I often allow the most pressing images to surface as they come.  I then try to recognize that even these moments, in memory, are very dreamlike.  I picked it up from Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep.  I do tend to dream about things that pop up during these moments.  It's also a very nice way to relax before falling asleep.   :smiley:

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## Ctharlhie

I burnt out today, couldn't even bring myself to do my seated meditation (which has been a daily thing for me for like a month).

@Threecat; Lucid enough to remember and attempt the advanced TotM

@Memm; Great link, I'll be much more discerning in my usage of the terms awareness and mindfulness in the future, as I have a tendency to use the interchangeably.

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## FryingMan

Well I don't know if it was from my re-tuned vigilance or my "LD practice reboot" (relax, don't stress, build confidence, know I'm an awesome dreamer, be mindful, appreciate the detail of the waking world, realize that all experience comes from the brain, be it from sensory or memory input, etc.) or what but I just woke from a fabulous DILD, definitely in my all-time top 3.   My last couple of LDs have been far superior to almost all the ones that came before: unbelievably vivid.    Not the level of self-awareness or memory, but the experience of being there was totally convincing.   An ultra-vivid dream, where I knew I was dreaming.




> In this one, I began by looking at a stable scene (I've found this is how many/most of my dreams begin: I find myself "standing still" observing a scene, and I start thinking about it, and then enter it) and my SC invented a funny backstory: that I was looking at the only photograph I had of my former home: it was of a lightbulb sitting on top of a long pole set in the ground, set against the backdrop of a pure blue sky, across the street from my former home (which was 'behind me').  So, I 'turned around', and found I had 'entered' into the scene of my photograph, and saw my former home there across the street.    I started walking towards it and realized I *must* be dreaming.  No nose pinch, I just *knew* it was a dream, while realizing I had no idea how I got here.    And proceeded to just walk around (and picked up a cute DC along the way) and looked at the sights.   It was mind-blowing.  It included some before-my-eyes transformations: like a wipe-transition in Star Wars, the houses I was looking at suddenly had way more details and decorations.  I could see on the left half the old version and on the right the decorated version (lots and lots of fancy lights and doo-dads hung all around the facade of the house) while the transformation took place.   Wow.

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## Memm

Today I caught myself in a problem that might occur while trying to be "mindful" of the present moment; you can get too caught up in the concentration side, basically if you constantly feel "gotta be mindful, gotta be mindful, gotta be mindful" (not thinking that precisely, just really concerned / concentrating on it) you are in fact not being mindful, as I have observed.

Getting so caught up in what you are doing currently means you are not using the most important part of mindfulness and that is *memory*.

2009 – XVIII





> sustained voluntary attention (samadhi) is *closely related to memory*, because in order to deliberately sustain one’s attention upon a chosen object, one must continue to remember to do so from moment to moment, faithfully returning back to refocus on that object whenever the mind wanders away from it. Likewise, in Buddhism, the faculty of “mindfulness” (smrti) refers not only to moment-to-moment awareness of present events. Instead, the *primary connotation of this Sanskrit term (and its corresponding Pali term sati) is recollection*. This includes long-term, short-term, and working memory, non-forgetful, present-centered awareness, and *also prospective memory*, i.e., remembering to be aware of something or to do something at a designated time in the future.



So basically, if you concentrate too hard on mindfulness you're not leaving any room for actual mindfulness.

This may be one of the reasons you sometimes see the suggestion to forget about lucid dreaming for a while, take a break, actually helping to achieve lucidity.

So while doing your daily ADA / mindfulness / prospective-memory etc... try and strike a balance between being mindful and concentration, if one is too extreme the other suffers.


Take a step back, take some deep breaths, loosen up.

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## FryingMan

That's great, so when we're doing it right, we're getting a workout in both self-awareness and memory, the LD foundations!

The "relax" is really important.   Stop and smell the flowers (and be mindful while you're doing it!).   Before transitioning from one activity to another one,  take 3 deep breaths and center yourself and (re)activate that mindfulness if it's slipped.  I did this today just now after getting off the bus and before starting the walk to my destination.

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## Ctharlhie

Congrats, FryingMan, so great to see you getting all this success recently  ::D: 

This thread is throwing up so many insights, it's definitely changed the way I see awareness and mindfulness. Keep those links coming, Memm!

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## Memm

It might also help to think "am I forgetting anything?" while you're smelling the flowers; that could perhaps be the one and only "critical test" question that we actually need.

By the way what I mean when I said strike a balance between concentration and mindfulness is that, in the seated meditation for example you can focus really well on the breath and your mind becomes clear and doesn't wander at all, you can sit for hours like that just single-mindedly focused on the breath.

That's great for concentration, but you're not actually using mindfulness.

In fact for today's meditation session I've decided I will actually work on letting my mind wander, I feel my concentration abilities have grown to somewhat extreme levels.

Some things I have noted over the last few days of my meditation:

- focusing on tasks is easier
- switching tasks is easier
- self-awareness and awareness of environment has improved, dream recall greatly improved (well my recall has always been fairly good, but now I'm noticing more details like conversations, possibly because I have been working on being more aware while talking to people)
- prospective memory has actually suffered, it was better before my current all-day-awareness (not ADA, my own version, just not sure what else to call it) practice began this week and I'm almost certain it's because my ability to focus is outpacing my ability to recall (I'm not sure how to describe it actually, it's a sort of, feeling that you are not just taking in awareness of yourself / senses but also the whole picture, not actually sure it's something that can be put into words)

On one hand the first three are great, I'm enjoying the flexibility, on the other the last one seems the most important for lucidity, so I'm dialling it back to work on mindfulness and try to balance this issue out.


--------------


Here are some excerpts from Mindfulness in Plain English regarding specifically this problem:





> These [mindfulness and concentration] must be cultivated together in a balanced manner. Just a bit more emphasis is given to mindfulness, because mindfulness is the center of meditation.







> a balance is essential. Too much awareness without calm to balance it will result in a wildly over-sensitized state similar to abusing LSD. Too much concentration without a balancing ratio of awareness will result in the “stone buddha” syndrome, where you get so tranquilized that you sit there like a rock. Both of these are to be avoided.







> Put most of your effort into one-pointedness at the beginning.



This one is about how most people have the "monkey-mind" problem, an overactive mind that wanders constantly, I don't think everyone has this problem though. Point is tune your meditation to what you think is you need to work on.





> Mindfulness still is the more important of the two components. It should be built as soon as you comfortably can do so. Mindfulness provides the needed foundation for the subsequent development of deeper concentration. Most blunders in this area of balance will correct themselves in time. Right concentration develops naturally in the wake of strong mindfulness. The more you develop the noticing factor, the quicker you will notice the distraction, and the quicker you will pull out of it and return to the formal object of attention. The natural result is increased concentration. And as concentration develops, it assists the development of mindfulness. The more concentration power you have, the less chance there is of launching off on a long chain of analysis about the distraction. You simply note the distraction and return your attention to where it is supposed to be.







> After that [monkey mind has decreased], emphasize mindfulness. If you find yourself getting frantic, emphasize  concentration. If you find yourself going into a stupor, emphasize mindfulness. Overall, mindfulness is the one to emphasize.

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## Ctharlhie

Mindfulness in Plain English is a really excellent text  :smiley:  Mindfulness is definitely the one to focus on, that's why Ron Crouch (on the alohadharma site) says to go to vippasana as soon as you can count to ten without distraction, and I certainly find vipasanna the more enjoyable practice. Of course, all Buddhist schools will differ in their approach, for instance, in Zen there is not really the divide between shamatha and vippasana, you simply progress from zazen with an object to zazen without an object - there is a similar progression in Tibetan Zhine.

I'll take this opportunity to recount my experiences in the last few days. Namely, exhaustion. I find this every time I take up ADA: a short term spike in recall and lucidity, followed by a crash. I've been too tired to practice ADA, and my recall has even suffered from the mental strain. I've even let my meditation slip up. I just don't think ADA is sustainable. I think Puffin's DILD Guide - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views is a far more stable approach. We definitely need a more healthy, more _mindful approach._ Have either of you come across lucid living on the LD4all forums?

On the meditation side, it's starting to have some real waking benefits for me, too! I had initially run into serious problems with it. My anxiety was preventing me from practising it with any effectiveness, even though that was my very reason for meditating in the first place! I've been at it for more than a month, and while I did notice differences in terms of feeling calmer, and an overall greater feeling of wellbeing, when I was actually sat down doing it it was hell. I was so tense that it was leading me controlling my breath and assuming a forced posture in a completely unnatural way, making deep, diaphragmatic breathing impossible. But I knew that this tension was just the physical symptom of the psychological tensions I was trying to undo in the first place, so I stuck with it. Yesterday I finally managed to sit and breathe naturally and the mixture of stillness and awareness was just incredible. 

Now that I've overcome this difficulty I think meditation will begin to have even more of an effect on my dreams.  :smiley: 

When I practiced meditation briefly last year it only took 10 minutes of meditation, 5 SAT episodes and WBTB combined with SSILD to have lucids - I even had my first WILD: http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/ctha...d-chain-43960/

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## Memm

I actually haven't read about SSILD before, it sounds very interesting, I think I'll try it tonight.

Also it's very good to know how much of a positive effect meditation has had on you. =]

And I agree that ADA is too exhausting, I feel that if a technique causes you to burn out and give up then that in itself is a problem, perhaps more advanced lucid dreamers that have plenty of time on their hands can do it but especially for newbies it might just turn them away from LDs when they feel it takes too much effort.

On top of that the effect on our minds and general well being shouldn't be underestimated, LDs themselves are harmless but if we take our practice in trying to achieve them too far we may actually hurt ourselves.

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## Ctharlhie

SSILD can be thought of as intensive meditation to quickly increase your awareness directly before entering a dream.

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## Memm

> SSILD can be thought of as intensive meditation to quickly increase your awareness directly before entering a dream.



I was just about to post that SSILD sounds a lot like a form of meditation, a bit like "breath, sound, body" meditation.

We just can't seem to get away from the topic of meditations can we. =P

Maybe one of these days we'll just be able to condense this to just "want to LD? Here is your day time meditation, here is your night time meditation, do this for a while and you'll get LDs".  ::chuckle::

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## Ctharlhie

Well if it's good enough for the dream yogis...

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## Memm

> Well if it's good enough for the dream yogis...



True, we sometimes think that LDing is some new trend when really we seem to just be re-discovering things that have already been known for thousands of years and all the techniques we have written up are just pieces of meditations and philosophies that have already been around forever.

How far do these things stretch back I wonder, did the first cavemen lucid dream?  ::yddd:: 

What if it was easy and natural and everybody did it to improve their hunting strategies / skills. Better to dream about hunting that tiger before you actually do it, you only get one shot in real life....

I've been reading lots of things tonight about SSILD, it sounds very much like meditation and the creator himself even says it's "mental conditioning" which sounds on par with the basic goal of meditation which is to simply change the brain for the better through a specific practice.

With all the success stories I'm quite excited to try this and it follows almost exactly all the things we've been talking about in this thread.

Changing your mental state to one which lucid dreams seems to be the key strategy in the more successful techniques, rather than learning new habits.

----------


## FryingMan

Yes, ADA is exhausting, so don't do it!   I just notice the world around, more than I used to, it's not tiring.   Instead of walking with your  eyes on the pavement, look around.   Don't try to notice the shadows produced by the hairs on the legs of flies, etc., just notice....more.    The clouds, that guy in the park fixing his bike's flat tire, the funny tall weeds growing.  And be mindful of what you're doing in this looking around  :smiley: .

Small victory today, I had an actual tuned-in moment in my (otherwise completely zoned out) weekly meeting at work!





> I've been reading lots of things tonight about SSILD, it sounds very much like meditation and the creator himself even says it's "mental conditioning" which sounds on par with the basic goal of meditation which is to simply change the brain for the better through a specific practice.
> 
> With all the success stories I'm quite excited to try this and it follows almost exactly all the things we've been talking about in this thread.
> 
> Changing your mental state to one which lucid dreams seems to be the key strategy in the more successful techniques, rather than learning new habits.



Meh, I'm not a huge fan on SSILD, there's a big thread on it here on DV, I'd suggest taking further SSILD talk there.    I do it from time to time to help focus when falling asleep, sometimes, when my normal "sleep relaxation kung fu" is not proving effective.     Frankly I haven't been having trouble sleeping recently, for which I'm very grateful!

----------


## sleepingSYNAPSE

> How far do these things stretch back I wonder, did the first cavemen lucid dream?



I often wonder this myself; either the anthropological discussion on dreams is scarce, or I haven't found the lot of it yet.  I would imagine the mind's eye of the caveman is something not easily accessed... But it speaks to the question: is dream recall completely unnecessary, or have we just lot our ability to recall over time due to a social neglect?

The _Mindfulness in Plain English_ excerpts are yet another great distinction I have gotten from this thread!  I have slacked for the last few months on my meditation practice and it has had a drastic effect on my dream recall.  Whenever I am stuck in a rut it usually takes roughly just a week of daily meditations to notice at least a slight increase in recall, and then I think it's back, slack on the meditation, and the recall fades.  You'd think I would catch on...
This thread's info (and enthusiasm) is a big motivator. Thanks!

----------


## FryingMan

So many great resources listed here!   Let's get them organized into a reference bibliography so that nothing is lost:

 Mindfulness in Plain English | Bhante Gunaratana How to Meditate | Aloha Dharma TIBETAN YOGAS OF DREAM AND SLEEP | Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche

Mindfulness in Plain English is going right to the top of my reading list.

----------


## Nfri

You've listed few good examples of difference between WL and dreaming also know as dream sings. These are almost all external things in dreams. I cover it up by not observing the external dream factors, but only focusing on my feeling being *SURPRISED* (having the feeling that you get when something unexpected happens).

----------


## Memm

Mindfulness of Breathing | Wildmind Buddhist Meditation

I would actually recommend the above followed by _Mindfulness in Plain Englis_h, the reason is that I feel _Mindfulness in Plain English_ is actually poorly structured as a book, it just feels all over the place sometimes, it has *a lot* of great insights and it is definitely a *must-read, you will be referring to it a lot* but it can also be confusing and in my opinion can come off as somewhat cynical (I don't think that's the intention and once you start meditating you realise what it's talking about, but at first it might seem very critical of human nature and quite spiritual).

I read MiPE first and found it a lot easier to get my head around certain aspects of it after going through Wildmind and http://viewonbuddhism.org/

The rest is practice, practice, practice! Some things can't be put into words, once you meditate for a decent amount of time often a lot of questions you might have get answered through experience.

Either that or find a meditation teacher. (Disclaimer: I experimented until I felt I figured it out, but that is probably not for everyone)

In the end the only person that knows you best is you, so follow the path you feel is the right one. =]



*PS:* by "figured it out" I don't want to come off as someone that understands it thoroughly, I am *definitely NOT* a meditation expert or even qualified to teach, I'm still constantly learning things myself. I'm also not a Buddhist, although I agree with a lot of it as a human being. I'm just a guy that has "been there done that" for a bit of it and done a decent amount of research into the subject. So please take everything I say with a grain of salt, Buddha said to test things and work them out for yourself, he was right. I'm just recommending certain things I feel would make the journey a little easier and wish I knew back when I started.

----------


## FryingMan

I'm also interested in developing brain health and function, as I think these are critical to lucid dreaming as well.   I don't do logic puzzles frequently but with the new practice of mindfulness, I've found that concentrating on solving logic puzzles while staying mindful is a real workout!    This will help I think my major zone-out time, which is when concentrating on work.   The "Flow Colors" game (google it) is not very hard to do (if you're decent at visualisation and simple logic like the process of elimination), I try to solve the entire puzzle in my head before making any moves, and the added dimension of remaining mindful while doing makes it all the more interesting!

Any other favorite puzzles or logic/memory/visualization games that people find good for a brain workout?  I don't play shooting or fantasy games or anything like that as I consider them a waste of life and time.   Come to think of it they're pretty contradictory to the goal of being present in the here and now as well.

----------


## Memm

> Any other favorite puzzles or logic/memory/visualization games that people find good for a brain workout?  I don't play shooting or fantasy games or anything like that as I consider them a waste of life and time.   Come to think of it they're pretty contradictory to the goal of being present in the here and now as well.



Hehe, I actually do play video games. I find that after a meditation session, once you have reached a very mindful state that reaction times, decisions, clarity etc... are all at amazingly high levels. You also don't feel "attachment" to the game or to what is happening within the game, you actually have a much more enjoyable experience playing, it's somewhat difficult to describe. I suppose in the Buddhist sense they are a waste of time, on the other hand if you play a fast paced shoot'em'up after a meditation session you can 1) experience a very clear and very "practical" showcasing of just how important and even powerful the mindful state can be and 2) the game does try to really draw you in which is why it's a great workout for resisting that temptation and staying mindful.

There's plenty of warning not to get caught up in how "useful" mindfulness can be, since that can degrade your mindfulness; I feel that has more to do with not getting attached to the feeling, like you would be to being "high", regardless I don't think there is a problem with appreciating how amazing it is and seeing its usefulness for life and skill development.

You might like the Myst series, very good for problem solving abilities and imagination in general.

----------


## Ctharlhie

Interesting article on Buddhist '4 power bases' applied to lucidity. The Four Bases Of Power And Using Vipassana Meditation To Become Aware 24/7

----------


## Hukif

Hmm I don't quite get how it is proposed to play this mindfulness? Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

----------


## sleepingSYNAPSE

> Any other favorite puzzles or logic/memory/visualization games that people find good for a brain workout?



I tried one of those popular "brain training" applications, call Lumosity, for only one a few days.  I am sure that I was supposed to use it more than that, but they are expensive to use regularly!  Anyways, I was doing the memory games to increase my dream recall, and I did have a lucid dream after a few days of playing it.
Of course the possibility of placebo effect is there, but it seemed to help.  I would like to try using it regularly, but I am just not a fan of staring at a game on my phone...though maybe I should start.

----------


## FryingMan

> Hmm I don't quite get how it is proposed to play this mindfulness? Could you elaborate a bit more on that?



Do you mean how to play the game with mindfulness?

Well for me, it means not zoning out into total concentration on the game to the expense of mindfulness.   Trying to avoid that feeling that you've zoned out and haven't been aware of what's going on around you, generally not losing that "mindful" feeling that you're aware of yourself and your surroundings.   Instead of finishing the game and realizing, "oh wow, I was totally zoned out on that game while playing it, but now I'm back," try to stay "tuned in" while playing it so that mindfulness is continuous: it's there before you play, while you play, and after you play.

It seems a good exercise in simultaneous focus.   sivason says that dream stability is all about simultaneous focus: on your dream body, on the dream scene, and your dream goals/actions.   This rings true with me because my dreams almost always end ONLY when I withdraw focus from dream body and/or dream scene into an experience I'm having (usually with a DC female  :wink2: ), or into reviewing goals or performing dream control that takes some concentration, like summoning.

Being mindful feels very much like a simultaneous focus dream yoga exercise.

----------


## Memm

To me it's difficult to put into words, I feel it's one of those things that needs to be experienced, mindfulness goes beyond simple "multitasking" or paying attention to multiple things at the same time. I feel it's a state of mind, much like lucidity in a dream.

It's almost like being focused single mindedly and at the time unfocused and relaxed. It's something of a delicate balance and so far I've only been able to achieve to for short periods of time through meditation, or at least such a high level of it (who really knows how high it goes?).

If you imagine you have peripheral vision of the mind, this basically removes it and turns into clarity all around.

Seriously though I can't put it into words, you'll know it when you feel it.

----------


## MisakaMikoto

> -post-



After reading some stuff i've tried to make my personal way to do ADA
My first technique induced lucid dream was DILD caused by:
- Lots of times at day looking around and analysing nearest objects, then asking myself if everything looks like it should
- Doing Reality Check after or before analysing objects

And then upon a dream i was walking in corridor of my house
Suddenly i've looked on the plug which was placed on wall and noticed that it was flying a few centimeters away from wall
I didn't say words or anything in my head, i just had intention of checking if it looks like it should
And then i've noticed it looks weird and that it's a dream  :Cheeky: 

I would probably have more lucid dreams if i would continue this practice instead of switching to WILD next day  ::shock:: 

*After reading couple of threads and reminding this past dream i've tried to construct my personal ADA a-like thingy:
- During whole day whenever i'd see some object, i would take a short time to look a it with intention of seeing if it's looks normal. If it would look suspicious or weird i would just then peform various reality checks and see if it's a dream.
- Keep myself Mindful during analysis, don't let it become mindless habit
- I wouldn't look everywhere around and try to check every single object 360 degrees around me. Just nearest stuff that's at my sight range and easy to check. Example: If i were to wash hands i would analyse faucet and hands

While constructing this i've tried to make it as little time consuming as possible yet effective enough to induce regular lucid dreams* 

What do you guys think. Would this kind of plan work?
Have i constructed my experimental ADA the right way?

- Thanks

----------


## Memm

No sure if it will work or not since it seems it's uncertain if habits actually make their way into dreams but I think remembering to check things out will certainly train mindfulness.

Actually back when I started LDing all I really did was keep a lookout for electronics; light switches, screens, TVs etc.... and kept noting if they worked because I was convinced "electricity" doesn't work in dreams (back then LD4ALL had this theory that the brain couldn't quite simulate electricity). I got quite a few DILDs just by noticing something electronic.

----------


## Hukif

Well fryingman/memm, thats what I mean. It seems like it hasn't been defined yet and can be loosely attached to awareness?

I think of it as something more related to "understanding" than "awareness" but not sure, so thats why I asked.

Example, gravity RC is based on a dual understanding of what "normal/abnormal" gravity is, and which reality it puts you into rather than just being aware of it or doing questions about the state, I mean... lazy and all so that was the simplest way I could think of at the time.

And on that note, instead of items lacking in dreams have you guys tried finding items that exist in reality and might persist in dreams? Gravity = weight check, so I will often feel extra heavy everything because my body is lying down in the real bed.
By the same token, temperature in the place you are sleeping at =/= dream temperature/feeling, same for stuff you are touching and maybe light-levels, so wonder if that could be used too.

----------


## Memm

I think the only thing persistent in my dreams is the way I make decisions, as in my "logic" is the same one I would use in real life if under the effects of the emotions in the dream. It's a bit warped since it's applied to situations that would never happen, but how I generally act in real life is how I act in my dreams, sometimes infuriatingly so.

This only goes for the way I make decisions though, I don't think any of my daily habits are in my dreams.

----------


## HeWhoShapes

Well, in my humble opinion, i think that ADA is a really good technique. Using it as an addition to MILD really did wonders for my recall, vividness and overall induction of LD's, so the mindfulness idea could work in streamlining the whole "constant awareness" thing.

To be honest, this is a very hard technique, but i still like to stick with it for the reasons mentioned above and i really have no idea why would anyone hate it! you get more LD's, so it's hard to complain. :Confused:   ::disconcerted::

----------


## ThreeCat

> Well, in my humble opinion, i think that ADA is a really good technique. Using it as an addition to MILD really did wonders for my recall, vividness and overall induction of LD's, so the mindfulness idea could work in streamlining the whole "constant awareness" thing.
> 
> To be honest, this is a very hard technique, but i still like to stick with it for the reasons mentioned above and i really have no idea why would anyone hate it! you get more LD's, so it's hard to complain.



I think people take issue with the presentation of King Yoshi's guide as an "ultimate God mode" to LDing (my words, not his), which it is not.  Yes, it _may_ result in more lucids, but it can fail just like any other technique, and has its own flaws--namely, that you can be well aware of _what_ you're looking at, check out the contours, textures, shapes, etc. and still have no frickin clue that you're dreaming.  King Yoshi does say to continue performing reality checks throughout the day, and I think these two together are better than just ADA, but even that can fail and result in semi-lucids.

So you're right--it's a good technique.  I do NOT think it will result in what King Yoshi refers to as "the pinnacle of lucid dreaming," that is, with every dream being lucid.  If that happens, there is something else going on besides ADA.  And you're right--the technique is hard.  :smiley:

----------


## HeWhoShapes

> I think people take issue with the presentation of King Yoshi's guide as an "ultimate God mode" to LDing (my words, not his), which it is not.  Yes, it _may_ result in more lucids, but it can fail just like any other technique, and has its own flaws--namely, that you can be well aware of _what_ you're looking at, check out the contours, textures, shapes, etc. and still have no frickin clue that you're dreaming.  King Yoshi does say to continue performing reality checks throughout the day, and I think these two together are better than just ADA, but even that can fail and result in semi-lucids.
> 
> So you're right--it's a good technique.  I do NOT think it will result in what King Yoshi refers to as "the pinnacle of lucid dreaming," that is, with every dream being lucid.  If that happens, there is something else going on besides ADA.  And you're right--the technique is hard.



Makes sense, never reached that "pinnacle" myself, maybe i need more practice ,but even then I don't ADA(or any technique for that matter) alone can get you lucid all the time, thats why I combine different techniques.

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## Dodge631

Picked this up, found it to be helpful in decribing mindfullness and awareness.
http://www.mindfulexperience.org/res...definition.pdf

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## Memm

I come bearing more links!

Insight Meditation: Living Meditation, Living Insight, Dr Thynn Thynn

I found these quite insightful:

Living Meditation, Living Insight: Staying with the Moment
Staying with More Moments
Living Meditation, Living Insight: Meditation in Action


I think I identified with the following the most when it comes to dreams:





> P: If things are very hectic I cannot even redirect my attention to another activity, but find I have to just live in the chaos.
> 
> Well, letting go of the mindfulness can be appropriate. But we must also talk about living in the chaos. How do you deal with the chaos?
> 
> P: Sometimes I become involved in the chaos and get carried away by it.
> 
> Yes, if your mindfulness is not strong enough you can easily be drawn into the chaos. The mindfulness I am talking about is the mindfulness of your own mind. If you are not aware of your thoughts and your feelings about the chaos, you can easily slip into interacting in the situation, reacting to the chaos. Before you know what's happening, you are already storming through the chaos, thus creating more chaos.
> 
> If you are mindful of your own feelings as you notice the chaos, you can choose how to act in the situation.
> ...



If you replace "chaos" with "dream" it makes a lot of sense from a LD point of view, I find currently my dreams are so hectic that I don't have even a moment to stop and wonder if I'm dreaming, I'm too busy within the chaos of a dream. I suppose this means my mindfulness is still not strong enough to deal with such situations, dream or no dream.

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## MisakaMikoto

> If you replace "chaos" with "dream" it makes a lot of sense from a LD point of view, I find currently my dreams are so hectic that I don't have even a moment to stop and wonder if I'm dreaming, I'm too busy within the chaos of a dream. I suppose this means my mindfulness is still not strong enough to deal with such situations, dream or no dream.



The way you behave in dreams is based on waking life
If you perform Mindfulness even when your very busy then that habit will appear aswell in your dreams  :smiley:

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## Memm

I feel there's a problem with the word "habit" we tend to use everywhere because plenty of habits don't make their way into dreams.

Dreams themselves seem to be combined from "significant" events during the day / week or even something that strongly came to mind before you fell asleep. I once spent 20 minutes mentally rehearsing Tai Chi movements as I was falling asleep and one of my dreams that night involved me using Tai Chi moves. Or something that came to mind the other night during my WBTB was a thought about Dreamviews and my next dream involved me doing something on the forum mixed in with something I was contemplating the night before.

Whereas things I've been doing for years, let's say sitting on the computer, almost never happen in my dreams, I'd say that dream about Dreamviews I just mentioned was the only exception in I don't even know how long. You could call me doing everyday things on the computer a habit, brushing your teeth is a habit etc... but you don't get dreams out of them. When you get into the habit of something it seems to actually *disappear from your dreams.*

So I think the word "habit" comes along with the connotation of something done automatically, mindlessly or with minimum thought. Something you just got into the "habit" of doing, something you just *happen* to do every day, or every now and then.

So would mindfulness of chaotic situations as a habit go into your dreams? I'm not so sure.





> habit ~ noun    common
> 
>  2. (psychology) an automatic pattern of behavior in *reaction to a specific situation*; may be inherited or acquired through frequent repetition



I think the key here is *in reaction to a specific situation*, but to react to a situation you need to be mindful in order to notice when it occurs, so essentially I'm thinking without mindfulness you don't see the situation and thus you don't use your habit of being mindful in that situation. Your habit is actually triggered by mindfulness!

In dreams we seem to be least mindful, so even if something happens in the dream to which we normally react to habitually, we just go with the flow of the dream, the habit doesn't get triggered.

From my experience of dreams the things that are in dreams tend to be:

*The things that our minds are currently contemplating*; sometimes obvious like our last thought before we fell asleep, sometimes less so like the one movie scene from several days ago that has left a deeper than usual impression. Dream incubation is all about contemplating something before falling asleep so that it's on our minds during the night and enters one of our dreams. So perhaps if you actually actively pondered on one of your habits before sleep it would in fact enter one of your dreams, like if you thought about your hands then in a dream you might use your hands, if you think about how you hands look as you fall asleep you might end up studying your hands in a dream (this may trigger lucidity), MILD and many other techniques are basically based around this.*Our emotional state*; if we are upset or otherwise unstable in some way we tend to have nightmares, when sad we tend to perhaps more uplifting dreams of the things we wish for since sadness normally comes from something we don't seem to be getting, when excited or impressed we might have more impressive dreams of grandeur. It probably depends on the person but I think it probably boils down to similar types of things, depending on how you currently deal with certain emotions that will probably be how your dreams deal with them*Our thought process*; how we actually see, interact and decide what to do with in the world; this is a bit more subtle I suppose, the simplest way to describe it is if you see a maths problem inside your dream you will try to solve it the same way you would in the real world, you "work things out" the way you normally do, if you easily get frustrated when something doesn't go your way then if something doesn't go your way in a dream you will likely also be frustrated etc...

Personally I find the last dot point the most interesting, see back when I had heaps of DILDs there were probably two significant factors as far as actually being in a dream was concerned:

My dreams were more realistic, I had a lot more dreams taking place in my actual house or some other places I've actually been to, I also had plenty of FAs. Nowadays my dreams are almost all fantastical, there's little in common with reality and I don't remember the last time I even had an FA.I was very much aware of all the dream "laws": electricity doesn't work in dreams, shadows go the wrong way, RCs fail, your hands look weird, you feel "light" etc... in fact I kept finding new things every dream like that my dreams are frequently darker (as in amount of light) compared to the light level of my day activities and so on.
I was highly aware that dreams worked by slightly different rules and since my dreams had more realism in them it was easy to tell reality from dream reality. So I would be watching TV and I would realise I was dreaming because I was *actively comparing reality to dreams*, it wasn't a "habit" (like see a TV, do a reality check) it was a brand new way of seeing the world, it was a thought process. 

I can't seem to do this now that my dreams are works of fantasy, I have nothing in the dream to compare to reality since barely anything there is based on reality as I know it in everyday life, it's all based on fiction and how do you compare fiction to fiction? Oh there's a dragon, well of course there is, I've read so many books and seen TV shows with dragons, why wouldn't there be a dragon. Basically from what I can tell my new thought process (I'm okay with whatever comes up, since fiction is fiction and it's all fun) is not adequate for realising I'm in a dream. In fact I enjoy my fantasy dreams, which probably makes it even harder to realise I'm dreaming since I'm too busy having fun and there goes any mindfulness I might have had...

Maybe if I started criticising fiction works.... hmm my own post seems to be giving me new ideas now. =P

Time to try some things out.  ::yddd::

----------


## moscampfire

I'm cool on Buddhism. Where Buddhism calls it "mindfulness", my generation called it "awareness", and, as an ageing hippie, I kept the faith and valued new awareness all my life. Lucid dreams are dreams like the waking world- physical awareness, smells, bodily sensitivity, choice of experience, Consciousness. It's not that regular dreams are not conscious, but that a lucid dream is MORE conscious, as if it were a physical event. I'm not sure how mindful I am in a normal dream. I assume that I am, within the laws of that experience. But in Lucid dreams, I am applying my mindfulness in the same way I apply it in waking consciousness. Because I am taking the waking self into the dream state, with all my beliefs and assumptions, I respond to events from my own beliefs and experiences.
I have had lucid dreams that did not include all the baggage I carry in physical life. I have experienced total consciousness without memory of my current life. But I still felt totally, physically aware, not afraid of the tendency of the environment to offer unexpected events, and without a sense of need to control my experience. 
I've had Lucid dreams where I required control. But the ones where I let my control go seem to be the most interesting.  :smiley:

----------


## ThreeCat

> I feel there's a problem with the word "habit" we tend to use everywhere because plenty of habits don't make their way into dreams.
> 
> Dreams themselves seem to be combined from "significant" events during the day / week or even something that strongly came to mind before you fell asleep. I once spent 20 minutes mentally rehearsing Tai Chi movements as I was falling asleep and one of my dreams that night involved me using Tai Chi moves. Or something that came to mind the other night during my WBTB was a thought about Dreamviews and my next dream involved me doing something on the forum mixed in with something I was contemplating the night before.
> 
> Whereas things I've been doing for years, let's say sitting on the computer, almost never happen in my dreams, I'd say that dream about Dreamviews I just mentioned was the only exception in I don't even know how long. You could call me doing everyday things on the computer a habit, brushing your teeth is a habit etc... but you don't get dreams out of them. When you get into the habit of something it seems to actually *disappear from your dreams.*
> 
> So I think the word "habit" comes along with the connotation of something done automatically, mindlessly or with minimum thought. Something you just got into the "habit" of doing, something you just *happen* to do every day, or every now and then.
> 
> So would mindfulness of chaotic situations as a habit go into your dreams? I'm not so sure.
> ...



I agree with you to a certain extent (concerning what habits tend to show up in dreams).  In WL, I have worked on releasing OCD behviors from my life.  They were frequent and quite habitual, and yet they never showed up in my dreams.  On the other hand, however, I have made it a habit to be critical towards waking life and truly question whether or not I am dreaming.  I have found that _this_ habit does carry over into the dream world.

I think it may all go back to expectation.  For some reason, I may never have expected my OCD to enter my dreams, and so it didn't.  My mind viewed it as unimportant and ridiculous, even though it was addicted to the behaviors.  On the other hand, my mind views dream work as highly important and beneficial, and so the topic of lucid dreaming almost always comes up during the night, as well as conversations with other dream characters on how to have more lucid dreams.  These dreams are almost entirely non-lucid.   ::D: 

But consistency is good.  Keep it up and I'm sure you'll see some good habits showing up in dreams.  Just keep looking for them.

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## martakartus

Thanks for sharing, I found this very useful  :smiley:  I've tried ADA sometimes and it feels too overwhelming. I guess you can get used to it, but it must take a long time. If you're working or studying it can be very difficult to be aware at all times.

Also, the meditation guide you shared is the best I've read so far. I'll adapt my meditation routine to it.

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## majah

Two more phenomena lacking in dreams:

Sense of posture
(IRL I try to keep my back straight and my head up)

Sense of balance
(In dreams I perform sort of acrobatic actions and never fear to lose my balance)

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## Ctharlhie

So apparently longterm meditation counteracts the deterioration of REM sleep associated with aging and brings on quicker REM onset and increases REM density! Evaluation Sleep Architecture.pdf

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## FryingMan

I read something that showed that REM sleep (measured as total time in REM) does not decline much at all even onto late old age (80s and beyond) as long as there are  no conditions like dementia.

But I've seriously started mindfulness meditation now, 10 minutes a day working my way up gradually to 30 over a couple of weeks.  So yeah, I'll take any benefits that I can!

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## Bharmo

Very interesting study! Although it should be noted that the guys who showed the "not deterioration of REM" practiced Vipasana meditation for 6-8 hours daily  ::shock::

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## ThreeCat

> Very interesting study! Although it should be noted that the guys who showed the "not deterioration of REM" practiced Vipasana meditation for 6-8 hours daily



What, dreamb?  Are you not dedicated to the practice?   :smiley:

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## FryingMan

> Very interesting study! Although it should be noted that the guys who showed the "not deterioration of REM" practiced Vipasana meditation for 6-8 hours daily



Everyone knows it's the first 15 minutes that really matters, the rest is just icing on the cake  ::rolleyes::

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## Ctharlhie

Ron Crouch (the alohadharma guy) says 30 minutes daily with weekly longer sits and the occasional retreat is sufficient to progress along the path to enlightenment, so I think 15mins daily is enough for our needs  :wink2: 

The teacher running the mindfulness course I'm attending at uni said that 30mins of yoga nidra is equivalent to 3hrs of REM sleep, and changes sleep architecture.

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## Memm

> The teacher running the mindfulness course I'm attending at uni said that 30mins of yoga nidra is equivalent to 3hrs of REM sleep, and changes sleep architecture.



I know meditation / yoga can do a lot of amazing things but 30 minutes = 3 hours of REM sleep? That seems fishy to me on many different levels, proof requested.

----------


## EbbTide000

Ctharlhie

That monk is asked "Is mindfulness (alone)  Enough" to achieve Nivarna? The monk * basically* says * Yes*

Wikipedia says:





> Nirvana*(Sanskrit, also*nirvāṇa; Pali:*nibbananibbāna ) is identified as the goal of the*Buddhist path. 
> 
> In Sanskrit/Pali, the term*nirvananibanna literally means "blowing out" or "extinguishing". 
> 
> Within the Buddhist tradition, this term is defined as the event or process of the extinction of the fires*of attachment (ragadvesha) and ignorance (moha*or*avidya). 
> 
> In the Buddhist view, when these*fires*are extinguished, one is released from the cycle of rebirth (samsara) and suffering (dukkha) comes to an end.



☆☆☆

Monk Radio: Is Mindfulness Enough: Monk Radio: Is Mindfulness Enough - YouTube

☆☆☆(4:18) uploaded 8/8/14, 4 days ago. (805 views)

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## FryingMan

I was in a very severely panicked state of mind in a dream when I was walking through my parent's home becoming more and more convinced that it had been burglarized while I was away (I didn't turn on the alarm as I recalled).

All of a sudden I just stopped -- and realized that I was in a state of panic that was controlling me, and that this was not helping anything.  I took a breath, let the panic leave me, and continued on with the dream.
Didn't get lucid though :/.   I've been practicing the "Stop!" method in "Wherever You Go, There You Are" where you just stop whatever you're doing and notice your breath.   

I think this is really hopeful!    I will work on incorporating a notion of "dream" along with these "stop" moments (actually I usually do an RC at the same time).   Yay!

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## ThreeCat

> I know meditation / yoga can do a lot of amazing things but 30 minutes = 3 hours of REM sleep? That seems fishy to me on many different levels, proof requested.



I've heard it discussed as being equivalent to two hours of DEEP sleep, which makes sense, as the object of yoga nidra is to navigate deep sleep.  I have never heard that it equates to REM sleep.





> I was in a very severely panicked state of mind in a dream when I was walking through my parent's home becoming more and more convinced that it had been burglarized while I was away (I didn't turn on the alarm as I recalled).
> 
> All of a sudden I just stopped -- and realized that I was in a state of panic that was controlling me, and that this was not helping anything.  I took a breath, let the panic leave me, and continued on with the dream.
> Didn't get lucid though :/.   I've been practicing the "Stop!" method in "Wherever You Go, There You Are" where you just stop whatever you're doing and notice your breath.   
> 
> I think this is really hopeful!    I will work on incorporating a notion of "dream" along with these "stop" moments (actually I usually do an RC at the same time).   Yay!



FryingMan, this is really good.  You can tell your practice is starting to sink in.  I also think you were probably very close to lucidity.  Congrats, man!

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## HeWhoShapes

just came by to say this thread is very useful!

I really got into meditation and buddhism in general and all the links u guys put up are very good!!

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## yaya

WOW! it is the best ADA tutorial i have even seen since i was a human!

previously i practiced ADA with paying attention to all sensory feelings which was nearly impossible as i would get head ache. although they gave me vivid dreams but i couldn't continue it as it gave me too much stress!!!

maybe what you and hakuf has done is better in long period of time...i mean noticing only one element which is absent in dreams in our waking life. 

now i practice DILD (and HI interaction too) and it would be better to combine your method with that to speed up the process of constant LDing.  

so i need more clarification in this regard and i will thank you so much if you answer them!

1- is it enough to only pay attention to sense of presence of clothes? because for example, other things like gravity is not very distinguishable for me . but sense of presence of clothes is more tangible and it continuously exist despite of other stimuli like sound or breathing which are not linearly present (also noticing breathing is hard for me because when i notice it, even in meditation, i change the rhythm of my breath and that's annoying). 

2- how many minutes per hour i should pay attention to the presence of clothing? (is 30 minutes per hour enough? of course these 30 minutes are not continuously and i will do it when i remember).

3- i know it takes many month to be able to have LD in this manner (which worth trying because once you master it, you can have LD on a regular basis) but how many month it took you to have LD on a regular basis according to your ADA method and how many LD do you have in a week by this approach? and how many minutes per hour you can notice your target? and what is your target of attention?

 sorry for asking so much questions but if you know me, i am kind of person who needs many clarifications to be able to do something right. otherwise i do them wrong. LOL....

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## JustASimpleGuy

I like this approach too and my take on it is be mindful of how I am relating to experience and particularly the sensations, feelings and emotions that arise. In essence it's no different than mindfulness of breath, just not a formal sitting.

So I don't try to soak in every possible bit of sensory information bombarding me. Just the pertinent sensory information incidental to what I am doing in the moment. And if I'm doing nothing except sitting on the couch watching TV, that's when I'll pay particular attention to breath, heartbeat, clothes, gravity, pressure from glasses on my ears and bridge of nose, etc...

Now I'm the opposite on gravity vs clothes. To me clothes can be a very subtle sensation against the skin unless I'm moving, whereas I always feel the pressure of mass being attracted to mass on any part of me resting on a surface.

As for timing, I do it whenever I'm cognizant I'm not doing it. I've taken to wearing a small bungee cord around my wrist as a reminder. I was going to get one of those cheap silicone bracelets, like the LiveStrong ones, but I had some small bungees in the kitchen draw and I actually like them because they are much looser and move and jiggle around a lot without being able to slipover my hand. It's really a great reminder, and when it gets too comfortable on one wrist I switch it to the other.

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## Synapse

Hi yaya, I'm a less experienced LDer than you so I don't know how much I could help, but I have some thoughts.





> previously i practiced ADA with paying attention to all sensory feelings which was nearly impossible as i would get head ache. although they gave me vivid dreams but i couldn't continue it as it gave me too much stress!!!



Yeah my brain kinda feels funny when I practice awareness... but I just think of it as my brain undergoing big changes for the better. For me it actually feels better than being consumed by random thoughts and worries; the main reason I'm not practicing awareness whenever I can is simply because old ways of thinking die hard, I guess... :/





> 1- is it enough to only pay attention to sense of presence of clothes? because for example, other things like gravity is not very distinguishable for me . but sense of presence of clothes is more tangible and it continuously exist despite of other stimuli like sound or breathing which are not linearly present (also noticing breathing is hard for me because when i notice it, even in meditation, i change the rhythm of my breath and that's annoying).



I think it's better if you pay attention to more than 1 stimulus... If I'm not mistaken, the point of ADA practice (or awareness practice in general) with regards to lucid dreaming is to connect your mind into the present moment instead of random thoughts, so eventually that connection will 'spill' into your dreams and be able to identify them as such. If you're paying attention to many stimuli, that may get you better chances of spotting something odd when you do it in a dream.





> 2- how many minutes per hour i should pay attention to the presence of clothing? (is 30 minutes per hour enough? of course these 30 minutes are not continuously and i will do it when i remember).



Just keep it up for as long as you can. From what I've heard, constant practice will make it easier to hold awareness for longer periods of time, and eventually it will become second nature.





> 3- i know it takes many month to be able to have LD in this manner (which worth trying because once you master it, you can have LD on a regular basis) but how many month it took you to have LD on a regular basis according to your ADA method and how many LD do you have in a week by this approach? and how many minutes per hour you can notice your target? and what is your target of attention?



If you're practicing it daily, it could give you quick results. Around half of my lucid dreams occured on nights after I've gotten a lot of awareness practice done during the day. But I don't know how long it would take to practice awareness before you could LD, say, almost every night.
It might help to appreciate the benefits of awareness in waking life as well, to make your ADA sessions longer. For example, as I mentioned above, I feel less stressed when I practice any sort of awareness, and I notice a lot of interesting stuff than when I am just being distracted by random thoughts.

Hope this helps even a little bit!  :smiley:

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## yaya

thank you all for your helps! 

JustASimpleGuy, how many weeks or month you are doing that method and how many LD do you get by that? thanks!


Synapse, you are right about the reason of head ache or overwhelming feelings at first days of trying ADA as our brain is under heavy changes and thanks for your clear answer about your results about ADA.

 i think the ADA according to king yoshi (who i respect him too much) is a way to only keep our thoughts focused and not to think about random thoughts and also to train our mind like a muscle to make it more aware in dreams (as in dream yoga, we should pay attention to many stimuli just to make our mind to be strong enough to able to not be dormant in our dreams).

 in other word, the more we are present in our daily life, the more we are present in our dreams. so i don't think paying attention to environment itself is useful for clear reasons which have been discussed a lot in this forum and ADA should be with self-awareness.

but something new or bold about Ctharlhie ADA is that it is not only all day awareness, but it is all day reality check. that's why it catched my eyes. i mean for example, he said feeling the tactile sense of the feet on the ground is an element of absence in our dreams so by every step and feeling of walking on the ground, we actually do a reality check (no feeling of tactile sense= dream and feeling of tactile sense= we are awake). 
but in other ADA versions, for example, we simply watch the room. well, in our dreams, we also may see the room and its details. so it wouldn't help us directly but to make us more present or make our brain stronger and more aware as in some practice of dream yoga.

so i think Ctharlhie ADA is better for newbies like me as it has the element of constant RC in every moment of the practice and even paying attention to one stimuli would work well as it worked for hakuf (i hope i spell his name right. LOL).

just a thought...maybe i am wrong!

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## JustASimpleGuy

> JustASimpleGuy, how many weeks or month you are doing that method and how many LD do you get by that? thanks!



I've been doing daily mindfulness in very, very small doses for 6 or 7 months, but as a compliment to my daily meditation practice. I've always meant to be more diligent about it, but I just never was. About 4 or 5 weeks ago I became interested in lucid dreaming. No LDs yet but I've really been working dream recall and doing some RC work. I was vacillating back and forth between which daily awareness work felt right for me. SAT, ADA, Dream Yoga, etc... So about a week ago I decided to try this approach to ADA. As I said in my above post, it's really what I was intending to do, more or less, in conjunction with my formal meditation practice. Lucid dreaming gave me the incentive to take it to the next level. :-)






> so i think Ctharlhie ADA is better for newbies like me as it has the element of constant RC in every moment of the practice and even paying attention to one stimuli would work well as it worked for hakuf (i hope i spell his name right. LOL).



My thought on this is along the same lines, and I'm thinking putting particular focus on the interoceptive aspect is particularly helpful as that is the common denominator to how we relate to all experience, both external and internal. The act of gathering information through the senses builds up a database of experience that shapes our expectations, but the more personal and intense aspect is how we react emotionally, especially if something is outside of the ordinary realm of experience and expectation.

EDIT: One other thought...

Choosing one particular thing to be aware of throughout the day can act as an anchor for awareness. I know how difficult it is to practice being mindful of the routine things we do throughout the day. Eating, dressing, brushing teeth, etc... They are all discreet events that are done and over in relatively quick order, and for myself I often find so is mindfulness.

However having one thing like gravity or breath or something else that is ever-present can keep us more mindful of being mindful for much longer periods of time. I also find when I am being mindful of one thing, I can be mindful of anything else that requires my attention. I think the trick is to pick something that an individual normally has a strong sense of awareness for. For instance you mentioned the sensation of your clothes is more present in your Now than gravity.

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## Ctharlhie

Ok, sorry for the lateness of my response. Hopefully these comments will still be relevant!




> WOW! it is the best ADA tutorial i have even seen since i was a human!



Thank you, that is very high praise  :smiley:  





> 1- is it enough to only pay attention to sense of presence of clothes? because for example, other things like gravity is not very distinguishable for me . but sense of presence of clothes is more tangible and it continuously exist despite of other stimuli like sound or breathing which are not linearly present (also noticing breathing is hard for me because when i notice it, even in meditation, i change the rhythm of my breath and that's annoying).



If breath is hard for you (me too!) the one you should always be mindful of is your body. As often as you can "dip into" your awareness of other phenomena. Don't force it.





> 2- how many minutes per hour i should pay attention to the presence of clothing? (is 30 minutes per hour enough? of course these 30 minutes are not continuously and i will do it when i remember).



Yep do it as often as you can, that's all you can do. What's needed is less than you think. For instance, Puffin's DILD guide claims to take only 10 minutes out of your day! For me this seems about right. Not to say that you shouldn't do more awareness work than that, but also don't obsess, stress will kill your LDs surer than anything. So just root yourself in your body whenever you remember and expand your awareness to other phenomena a few times a day combined with RCs maybe (see Puffin's guide)




> 3- i know it takes many month to be able to have LD in this manner (which worth trying because once you master it, you can have LD on a regular basis) but how many month it took you to have LD on a regular basis according to your ADA method and how many LD do you have in a week by this approach? and how many minutes per hour you can notice your target? and what is your target of attention?



When I first started ADA I started having LDs straight away, and in the first few months I got 8-15 LDs a month... and then real life happened. So, no I haven't mastered ADA or LDing. What I am doing at the moment is finding a way to make my LD practice a sustainable lifestyle. The good news is that (thanks to ADA and all the talk of fundamentals) the amount of self-awareness needed has been somewhat over-stated, you really don't need to do that much work (10 minutes meditation daily, 5-10 SAT 'moments' daily). The bad news is that dream recall and general dream awareness has been understated, and that's the part that I'm working on integrating into an erratic student lifestyle at the moment. 

My main advice, please don't go crazy with all these techniques: remember your dreams, meditate, nighttime awakenings, SSILD or other technique. That's all you need to yield regular dreaming (which I define as going lucid more nights of the week than not).

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## Ctharlhie

As an addendum to that post aimed at everyone: The surest way to get better at mindfulness is to establish a daily meditation (see the alohadharma link in the OP) practice and allow mindfulness in its everydayness to arise spontaneously. If you meditate regularly you cannot fail to become more mindful, and then you will be achieving lucid living, and benefiting your waking as well as dreaming life. Relax, let it be. Your lucids aren't going anywhere, really. The best thing is to look back at your last lucid and see how much awareness work you put into that lucid, and then, do that, and keep doing that every day, and go to sleep without expectations, knowing you have done enough. This is why SSILD is effective. You are raising your awareness whilst simultaneously putting the thought of LDing out of you mind.

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## yaya

Thank you very much Ctharlhie for your clear answers! 

shame on me that i saw it late. the speed of posting on this active forum is so fast that if i don't check it one day, some posts would go under the other new threads (i always check the last above threads LOL...).

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## Dodge631

thanks to this guide i have started to do meditation recently, thanks for sharing!

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## FryingMan

> As an addendum to that post aimed at everyone: The surest way to get better at mindfulness is to establish a daily meditation (see the alohadharma link in the OP) practice and allow mindfulness in its everydayness to arise spontaneously. If you meditate regularly you cannot fail to become more mindful, and then you will be achieving lucid living, and benefiting your waking as well as dreaming life. Relax, let it be. Your lucids aren't going anywhere, really. The best thing is to look back at your last lucid and see how much awareness work you put into that lucid, and then, do that, and keep doing that every day, and go to sleep without expectations, knowing you have done enough. This is why SSILD is effective. You are raising your awareness whilst simultaneously putting the thought of LDing out of you mind.



Really great summary, Ctharlhie!

I've had an epiphany of sorts over this year, re: mindfulness/self-awareness, how to practice it, and how to explain it.   It is really simple!

Just: pay attention!  That's all.   Nothing more, nothing less.

It works its magic the more you do it.  The more you do it, the more you want to do it.    Don't over think it, don't ask "but what exactly should I pay attention to?"    Instead, just learn what it feels like to be in a state of paying attention.   

It is the opposite of not paying attention: remember what it feels like to be zoned out, and catching yourself there as you return to lucidity, realizing that you were just in an "autopilot" state just before.  There.  That moment, that's mindfulness.   Also, on reddit a guy posts a sentence periodically "You are now aware that you are breathing."   Your attention turning to your breath as soon as you read that sentence: that's attention/mindfulness/lucidity, that's the goal.

For lucid dreaming practice, I like to add the underlying purpose as a subtext to the attention: remaining aware of my state (dreaming/awake).

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## Polaris

Mindfulness is basically being focused on whatever you are doing at the moment, whether it be driving a car, washing the dishes, talking with someone, etc. You want to focus on the action in the present moment and being aware of you doing it, as opposed to being lost in your thoughts. As you get better you actually start to see your thoughts and emotions arise in your mind and you aren't as captured by them as a result. Most people are consumed by their thoughts and emotions, mindfulness helps you be aware of them. It promotes overall awareness as well.

Definitely need to combine it with mindfulness meditation practice, though, for best results. I practiced meditation for awhile, then fell out of practice, but now am back at it as part of my LD training.

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## RelaxAndDream

Hi,
i´ve read here a bit some time ago and for some times now i thought about the object oriented RC/Awarness:

Now my questions for objects:

-do you think to know what you wear that day and keep track about it the whole day would be sufficient? so not like in the OP the feeling itself but the exact cloth you wear and check this like you check a digital clock. or do you think it might be a problem to know (expect) to wear this or that and to look down and to see exactly that? or might it work because even if you expect something to wear it might look different in a dream? or do you think you just have not enough awareness in dreams so that this is to complicated?

-i wear glasses. when i look over them i see blurry. can one use this as a check? like keep track of wearing my glasses and to look if i see without them?

do you know if someone had success with this kind of RC/Awarness? couldnt find anything about it in the forum.

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## FryingMan

I think the issue with specific memory "anchors" like this that change every day is that dream memory is pretty tricky already.   My *guess* is that constant anchors (feeling of breath, gravity, "dreamy feeling", etc.) may be more effective.    Blurry vision check may be more effective, if you see clearly in dreams.

The most important thing though is that you're aware of your awareness and remember why you're checking in the first place (to recognize the dream state) and hold this though all through the day along with the specific checks you do.  Otherwise you may find yourself checking your clothing a lot in a dream and rationalizing "Oh I guess I wore the green shirt today" and going on with your dream non-lucidly.

I'm coming to the conclusion that specific targets are less useful.  Maybe that's just me.   I aim for general mindfulness, being aware of my awareness, and striving to reflect upon whatever my current experience is, and evaluate whether or not it's dream-like.   And to maintain that "I'm on the lookout for the dream state in order to get lucid in dreams" all through the day.   It may be that such an approach has a longer curve towards hitting lucidity compared to targeted approach, but I'm hoping that it will lead to much more lucidity in the long run.

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## DenMorke

Just for reference : Jon Kabat-Zinn - Wherever You Go, There You Are. Excelent introduction for mindfulness meditation.

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## AstralMango

Fantastic stuff! I've thoroughly enjoyed reading the whole thread.

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## TDHXIII

Right in time for the new year, i found this. Going to meditate daily this year!

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