# Lucid Dreaming > Attaining Lucidity >  >  2015: Year of the Breath, meditation, WBTB, confidence and dedication

## FryingMan

I made a 2015 resolucid to work on awareness of the breath throughout this year.   I'm slightly leery of making a year-long commitment to something, but I do feel confident that breathing and awareness of breath is a unifying theme in so many areas: meditation, relaxation, mindfulness, that I'm already working on, so it's not much of a stretch.

I will be making updates in this thread to follow my progress.

Breathing:
In particular, a number of times a day, I notice that I'm breathing, take a deep breath, and tell myself "I'm now aware that I'm breathing," and try to maintain that awareness, and make a strong "lucid moment" each time that happens.

Meditation:
In addition, I'm dedicated to daily meditation sessions, wherever I can grab them.   Total quiet and lack of disturbance is hard to come by in 30-minute chunks in our crowded/noisy/small home, but I live near a park and figure I can at least go sit under a tree there (or on a bench now since there's snow everywhere).   I'm trying to maintain a mindful/meditative mindset all through the day.   I'm finding this easier to do for longer periods of time the more I do it.

WBTB: hate it hate it hate it, but there's no denying its effectiveness: fogelbise, Sensei, Canis, Dreamer, you can't go wrong with this veritable Who's Who of awesome LDers who all use frequent WBTB.   So I'm going to jump on this bandwagon.   Ew!   I will learn to looooove WBTB, yessir I will!

Confidence: came across Ctharlie's link to a youtube video about the Lucidipedia guy talking about how he regained and strengthened his LD practice after realizing that endless acquisition of "tips tricks and techniques" was a distraction.  Techniques can help to focus *you*, but the *you* is  the most important part.  *I'm a lucid dreamer!*

Dedication: don't just pay lip service, do all these things!   Every day!   Stay excited!

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## FryingMan

First progress report: I admittedly got a late start on the year: I have an excuse, I was traveling, and extended holiday activities kept sleep off balance.

WBTB: This last night I've now finished my 2nd night of noticing wakings during the night.   My "WBTB" consists so far of just sitting up on the edge of the bed.  I'm working up my nerve to make it to the rocking chair beside the bed next.   I also voice recorded middle of the night dreams during the night, I want to return to this habit from which I've lately gotten away.

Breath: Progress!   In the major dream of the night I had *two-breath-related events*!   The first was me building a system of breath temperature measurement.   The second one was me using a breath-regulation system myself, feeling myself inhaling and exhaling into this apparatus which provided breath resistance (the point of the apparatus was to stop hyperventilation from being scared, there was a freaky alien intelligence learning how to use our computer system and activate the warships against us, you see, and I left the room scared but doors were opening automatically for me everywhere, more signs of the alien intelligence controlling our systems and probably leading me into a trap!).

Confidence: *I'm* a lucid dreamer!

Meditation: short session before bed.

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## ~Dreamer~

I'll be really excited to see your progress this year, FryingMan!
You're off to a great start with this kind of motivation.  ::goodjob2:: 

I was also very pleased to see that "resolucid" has made its way into another thread.  ::chuckle:: 
And I'm very honoured to be listed among your "Who's Who of awesome LDers", you flatter me!

Good luck, keep us posted!

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## InnerVision

Great plans, FryingMan! I wish I could bring myself to put this much time into LD'ing. May I ask what kind of meditation you do? I have just (2 days ago) started practicing Vipassana meditation (also focussing on breathing to start with) and any tips/experiences are very welcome!

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## FryingMan

^^ InnerVision I'm a total meditation newbie myself.   To start with, I'm more or less following Allan Wallace's "Attention Revolution: Unlocking the Power of the Focused Mind".   He promotes Shamatha (concentration) meditation, focusing on the breath to start with, so that's where I'm starting.   With all the WILD attempts, and focused relaxation to get back to sleep (which takes an iron will to avoid getting drawn into tempting but agitating daydreams) I've done this last year, and some meditation sessions, I find I have no trouble keeping focus on the breath for minutes at a time.   Though, after about 10-12 minutes my mind starts to "fidget," so working up to sessions of 24 minutes of total focus or so is my goal.

The goal eventually is to work up to vipassana, awareness of awareness, which to me seems the very definition of lucidity.

Also, with the exception of the focused meditation sessions, it's not really much time at all away from the waking day.   It does help to be able to sleep in late in case of insomnia after WBTB, but exercise (another exhausting 2-hour x/c ski session today) should take care of the body's needing sleep.   It's really a matter of choosing how to live; tuned in/paying attention, or zoned out/coasting through life on auto-pilot.

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## LouaiB

I love wbtb! I like waking up to listen to music in the night!

I'm doing mindfulness training too, but still lazy at everything lol.

Good luck fryingman! Be sure we (lol I have to hitch myself into this too) are on the road to professionally! We WILL be pros, because we are dedicated to this! We LIIIIIIIVE for this...well, mainly for this (remember, LDing isn't a thing. LDing is a platform. What we're really doing, what we really want, is the things we DO in the LD! You don't buy an Xbox for it's own sake, no, you buy it for the games you play using it. Now think of the things you can do using this platform (LDing)! Pretty much ANYTHING you can imagine! Technically, we got the holy grail of pleasure, excitement, ecstasy, drama, deep emotions, creativity, etc. I still get amazed by the possibilities!)

Just remember, Laberge said that theoretically you always get better at LDing if you're training. Sooo, it's time to hit the gas even stronger, cuz we never get slower, we can only accelerate, and we'll fly! Just wait for it!

*motivational speech ends*

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## InnerVision

@Fryingman: 
Thanks for the quick answer!

That sounds quite like what I am doing now. I started by reading 'Mindfulness in plain English' by Venerable Henepola Gunaratana, which was recommended to me by someone on these forums. It uses concentration as a tool for achieving awareness rather than a goal in itself, but of course to you need to improve concentration to start with. 

I do recognise the drifting of the mind after some time. First, my concentration is increasing quite nicely and I can feel that I am getting deeper into my meditation, but then after some time my daily thoughts seem to slip through and I can feel my focus slowly decreasing, until the point where I give up. 
That said, I've only meditated 3 times in my life so far so I'll probably encounter many many more things in the coming weeks/months  :tongue2:

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## FryingMan

I'm also more or less (we'll see how long this lasts) dedicated to avoiding galantamine and choline supplements for a year (galantamine + choline in particular).  I'll stick with melatonin for sleep when needed, and with multivitamins from time to time, but that's about it.

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## Ctharlhie

Fryingman; if you are reading Wallace, I'm guessing you are familiar with Dreaming Yourself Awake? If not, read it!

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## FryingMan

Yep I've gone through most of DYA, thanks though!

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## FryingMan

Night #3, lucid #2!

meditation yesterday: didn't really, boo, come ON now, find a time/place even if you have to go out into the cold!

WBTB: did it again!  Only, I got confused about time: I thought it was around 5.5-6 hrs, but it was *7* hours after bedtime, no wonder I had a heck of a time getting back to sleep, but I *did* get back to sleep and another great dreaming session including a short KILD.   Vivid and amazing final dream moment: astonishing eyes on a girl at a counter: violet at first (matching her shirt?) then silver/gray, captivating, amazing!   Oh, and I *make it to the rocking chair!*  haha maybe tonight I'll get brave and go to the kitchen.  We'll see.

Woke up during the night but didn't record until WBTB, if I had WBTB'd at the proper time (5 hours probably) I would have entered into  my key dreaming time (5.5-7 hours) with more awareness, instead in this time I had a fairly long almost-epic non-lucid.

Back to sleep victory: woohoo, even at 7 hours (took a while though, and indulged in daydreams a bit too much, but eventually gathered the will to settle down to get dreaming).   It's such hard work to quiet the mind, but it's so worth it.

Dreams were generally pretty awesome and fairly aware all night long.

Breath awareness: a number of times throughout the day, none in dreams.

Confidence: feeling *excited* for tonight!   *I* am a lucid dreamer!

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## Memm

I concur sir, making 2015 the year of the no-technique, just practice!

My routine is going to be something along the lines of:

- Feel a connection with my dream(s) upon waking up before doing anything else (_connecting_ instead of just remembering)
- WBTB (notice more micro awakenings)
- Staying in touch with Openness (Unbounded Space / Inner Refuge / whatever you wish to call it) during the day
- Taking at least 10 minutes to settle down away from the computer and other technology before bed
- Not focusing on any technique or anything while falling asleep, just letting the mind wander to whatever takes up its attention and just being mindful of this (I have this current theory that focusing while falling asleep is leading to focused, tunnel-vision dreams and that being more open is actually better for vividness and presence, I'll see how this goes)

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## FryingMan

^^ Nice, Memm!   I tend to "hold on too tightly" when falling asleep, going into a long sequence of "just set ONE more intention, ONE more", hoping that the more I set intention, the more I'll remember to recognize the dream state in-dream.   Does it work?    I don't think so.  Instead it just makes it harder/longer to fall asleep as my mind becomes more active.  The "relaxation effect" comes up here and has something to say I believe that the more relaxed one is, not looking for particular specific results, the more the positive results happen.   We'll see!   

Do the awareness work during the day, and at bedtime, "Let's see what's out there!".   

Sounds good.

By the way that STNG link contains Star Trek the original S01E22, Space Seed, which I probably haven't seen in around (well many) years, that's awesome television, "they don't make 'em like they used to!"    Even for ST episodes that is probably one of the all time great ones.

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## JustASimpleGuy

Sounds like a great plan! Being a rookie at LDing I'm not going to comment on those aspects of your intentions, however I do have a few things to share about meditation. I sit 30 minutes every night between dinner and bedtime and try to get an additional one or two 45 minute session in during the day on weekends. I either attend breath or for a more expansive state I attend awareness itself. Sometimes I vary within a sitting. Depends on the 'feel' of the flow of the sitting and which technique seems to best fit.





> Meditation:
>  In addition, I'm dedicated to daily meditation sessions, wherever I can grab them. Total quiet and lack of disturbance is hard to come by in 30-minute chunks in our crowded/noisy/small home, but I live near a park and figure I can at least go sit under a tree there (or on a bench now since there's snow everywhere).



My experience is as you becomes more familiar with the territory and that state of being, external noises and distractions will bother you less and less. In fact it's a great aid in exercising attention and awareness when you're ready for it. The example of outdoor meditation can be quite amazing. Direct perception without filters of all the sensations the outdoors can deliver to our senses. The way I would describe it is being an integral participant in nature's dance, which if you think about it we are. It's a oneness and it's expansive.





> Breathing:
> In particular, a number of times a day, I notice that I'm breathing, take a deep breath, and tell myself "I'm now aware that I'm breathing," and try to maintain that awareness, and make a strong "lucid moment" each time that happens.



During the day I use breath in a similar manner, but I also use it to center myself when I want to practice mindfulness of anything. Walking, driving, cooking, showering, eating, whatever. It's a great compliment to, and reinforcement of my formal practice.

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## FryingMan

WBTB is not all sunshine and roses, this is why I (used to say) I hate it: up at 5 hours for about 20 minutes, and haven't slept a wink since then and it's now about 9 hours.    There will be ups and downs, this is clearly my major, major challenge.

Next time, maybe don't go to the rocking chair, just sit up on the side of the bed briefly.

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## FryingMan

> During the day I use breath in a similar manner, but I also use it to center myself when I want to practice mindfulness of anything. Walking, driving, cooking, showering, eating, whatever. It's a great compliment to, and reinforcement of my formal practice.



Yes I do this too, ala Jon Kabat-Zinn's "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life" -- using the breath as a initiator of a "stop...  be present, pay attention" moment.

Thanks for the other notes as well on meditation!

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## KonchogTashi

> WBTB is not all sunshine and roses, this is why I (used to say) I hate it: up at 5 hours for about 20 minutes, and haven't slept a wink since then and it's now about 9 hours.    There will be ups and downs, this is clearly my major, major challenge.
> 
> Next time, maybe don't go to the rocking chair, just sit up on the side of the bed briefly.




 WBTB is absolutely essential for myself as well. I keep it under 15 minutes to ensure that I can get back to sleep, and make sure its after 5 hrs. of sleep so that if things go off the rails I can still function in the day ahead. I have made a commitment to get up every night, even if just to use the restroom, perform a state test, and MILD off to sleep in 5 minutes. For myself, without WBTB I think my chances of lucidity drop into the basement.

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## FryingMan

^^ Yes I am dedicated to finding the magic balance.   My latest idea is to count breaths rather than keep checking the time, and stay in a near-sleep dreamy state as much as possible.   I completely woke up this morning during my WBTB.

I wasn't totally wired awake the entire time after the BTB, most of the time was drifting near sleep: in fact, I *almost* made it back to sleep; I may have made it back to NREM for a bit, but no more REM/dreaming.   I think I saw a dream scene forming at one point but focused on it too quickly and it vanished.   Wife's snoring this time was just a bit too much for me to process and hit sleep, so a short night it was.   Fabulous early dream though of a magical night sky scene so it wasn't a total loss, waking at that time allowed good recall of it.

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## FryingMan

WBTB: last night: no sleep issues, woke a lot during  the night, including several times with a "buzzy dreamy" feeling, recorded a few times, sat up on the edge of  the bed briefly, said a few mantras, went right back to bed (couldn't take 2 nights of 1/2 a night's sleep), but no lucidity.

meditation: briefly before bed, with distractions

dreaming: lots (dozen or more) of disconnected scenes

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## FryingMan

WBTB on 2015-01-15: short, got back to sleep fine

WBTB on 2015-01-16: seems like I've been doing WBTB *forever* but it's only been 6 days/a week?   Last night I tried adding drinking a cup of milk and one small piece of dark bread, I had them by the bedside, just ate them and after quick pee went right back to bed.   It was another slooooow back to sleep despite several hours of swimming.   Shows that it's most likely mental excitement keeping me awake.

Several wakings though: 3 hrs (no recall), 4.5-5 hours (big recall, WBTB), probably 2 hr BTS then 9.5 hrs (big recall).  Resumed "Opti-Men" vitamins, I find a big difference: with them, recall is consistently coherent and story-like, stretching the limits of memory to recall it all.  When I went a week or so without the vitamins recall started to become more fragmented.

Getting a quiet moment in before bed but not a 20 minute meditation session…gotta stop procrastinating!

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## FryingMan

It's not going great so far.   Not finding quiet enough places for meditation, WBTB more often than not results in a back-to-sleep fail and insomnia, and no lucids after the first couple a week ago.    Recall is generally up and high, though, and dreaming is still pretty good.    That's to be expected with more noticed wakings, thus more chances to recall/record earlier dreams.   I'm naturally hitting the 5hr window fairly often.    Back to sleep fails and not drastically increased lucidity is impacting confidence.   

Generally by the end of the day, though, my confidence and excitement about the night has returned and is high.    I'm a bit frustrated that by this time I'm not more often recognizing the dream state.

Just.  Need.  To.  Get.  Back.  To.  Sleep.   Faster.   Somehow.   Somehow!

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## JustASimpleGuy

Concerning meditation, have you tried meditating under less than optimal conditions? Granted that's not an easy thing to do initially, but the real gain is in being distracted and gently bringing attention back to the object being attended (breath, mantra, candle, etc...).

Another possibility is taking advantage of any small space of time during the day where you have quiet. I know this might sound odd, but at work I sometimes do a 5 minute bathroom meditation. Just go into a stall, sit on the throne and get 5 or so minutes in. It all adds up over time.

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## FryingMan

Yes I need to grab those quiet interludes where I can, good idea.   I understand there is a benefit to practicing under non-optimal conditions (especially since my primary focus is using meditation as a tool for recognizing the dream state, with all its distractions), but sometimes it's just tooooo much.  Well, onwards.   The year is young, and this thread is only a week old, haha it seems like it's been forever already!

And another thought: maybe I'm just trying too hard overall.   Working in some of the "relaxation effect" may be beneficial.

I really do like the "Let's see what's out there!" mindset.    That jives with the relaxation effect.

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## Memm

I just recently saw an article (lost the link) that had a Buddhist practitioner (monk if I remember right) saying that our minds are already multitasking on so many things and you should set one of those tasks to be following your breath, even if you're doing something else at least some part of you is still working with the breath.

Found this to be an interesting idea, will probably take some reminding before it becomes an actual habit but I suppose eventually calmly breathing will be part of the mind's background tasks.

Also I'm finding that it takes vigilance to not fall into the "trying" mentality, I woke up this morning thinking "damn, didn't have an LD" and almost automatically tensing up with the _need for effort_, but effort to do what? Meditate until my legs fall off? The only way to progress with anything is in a relaxed manner, tensing up just fills the mind with "why didn't it work? It should have worked, right? How come it didn't work?" and then while you're spending all that time discussing the issue with yourself, RCing or following the breath or just being aware gets thrown right out the window.

Disappointment does create energy though, but it gets soaked up by the tension almost immediately, so once disappointed I feel I must quickly remove the tension then I'm just left with the energy that I can direct towards something actually productive. It's also almost impossible to come up with any real solutions while being closed and busy wallowing in disappointment.

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## JustASimpleGuy

I have found it's really easy to integrate the breath into physical activity. It especially comes natural to walking or running, but also things like rowing a boat, paddling a canoe or kayak, or riding a bicycle. I've even applied it to fishing, both on casting and retrieving. The possibilities are only limited by imagination. I think most people do this naturally without being mindful of it, so it's just a matter of being aware.

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## InnerVision

@ Memm
I can't agree more! I run into the issue of overthinking, tensing up etc. very often and it only works against you. It really depletes your energy levels that could've been used much more efficiently.

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## JustASimpleGuy

> Also I'm finding that it takes vigilance to not fall into the "trying" mentality, I woke up this morning thinking "damn, didn't have an LD" and almost automatically tensing up with the _need for effort_, but effort to do what? Meditate until my legs fall off? The only way to progress with anything is in a relaxed manner, tensing up just fills the mind with "why didn't it work? It should have worked, right? How come it didn't work?" and then while you're spending all that time discussing the issue with yourself, RCing or following the breath or just being aware gets thrown right out the window.



The old Should Have, Shouldn't Have of ego leading to Not Good Enough or Something's Wrong mentality. We all go there from time to time. And you're right, it's not productive and actually self-sabotaging.

The work put in is a process and leads to where it leads. Be true to the journey. Believe in it. Enjoy it and live it. Be present in it.

For me I find it a very simple and effective technique to simply use the breath and be present in the breath and the moment when these thoughts and feelings pop up. It's a great way to ground and center one's self. To derail a negative thought-train. To refocus on the process and the path.

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## FryingMan

> I just recently saw an article (lost the link) that had a Buddhist practitioner (monk if I remember right) saying that our minds are already multitasking on so many things and you should set one of those tasks to be following your breath, even if you're doing something else at least some part of you is still working with the breath.



Nice!  I like this!





> Also I'm finding that it takes vigilance to not fall into the "trying" mentality, I woke up this morning thinking "damn, didn't have an LD" and almost automatically tensing up with the _need for effort_, but effort to do what? Meditate until my legs fall off?



Guilty!   As charged!   Over and over again!





> The only way to progress with anything is in a relaxed manner, tensing up just fills the mind with "why didn't it work? It should have worked, right? How come it didn't work?" and then while you're spending all that time discussing the issue with yourself, RCing or following the breath or just being aware gets thrown right out the window.
> 
> Disappointment does create energy though, but it gets soaked up by the tension almost immediately, so once disappointed I feel I must quickly remove the tension then I'm just left with the energy that I can direct towards something actually productive. It's also almost impossible to come up with any real solutions while being closed and busy wallowing in disappointment.



Usually by the end of morning I'm positive and looking forwards to the night again.   In "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep" the author emphasizes the importance of being thankful for your dreaming experiences, whatever they are.

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## Memm

Being thankful is a really good point and something I've been neglecting, which might be why I'm struggling the last week, so thank you for bringing that up.

Other descriptions might be appreciating or valuing the dream experience, then I suppose that the mind understands that it's something positive and forms stronger connections. Generally experiences that we take for granted don't stand out enough for the brain to remember properly, that's why in mnemonics the most important thing is making the memory something out of the ordinary.

I think this discussion is definitely showing that it's more important to form the correct mindset for LDing rather than the correct technique.

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## FryingMan

I had a fairly long, vivid non-lucid dream this morning that I wanted to describe as "boring" but I will avoid doing that since I do not want to form any negative associations with dreaming.  It was pretty cool in fact because I was thinking a lot about things, the scenario though was fairly "mundane."

No WBTB last night, early morning appointment and catching up on some sleep.  I will probably make WBTB efforts not every night now but make it a more planned event looking forward with anticipation, to avoid the mind getting accustomed to it and not thinking it's anything special.

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## JustASimpleGuy

I'll concur with what you and Memm said about being thankful. A little technique I picked up a while ago and having nothing to do with dreaming is practicing gratitude. Just pick little things throughout the day and be grateful for them. Simple things like waking up, having a roof over one's head, food on the table, etc... It builds appreciation for the things we do have.

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## InnerVision

> I had a fairly long, vivid non-lucid dream this morning that I wanted to describe as "boring" but I will avoid doing that since I do not want to form any negative associations with dreaming.  It was pretty cool in fact because I was thinking a lot about things, the scenario though was fairly "mundane."
> 
> No WBTB last night, early morning appointment and catching up on some sleep.  I will probably make WBTB efforts not every night now but make it a more planned event looking forward with anticipation, to avoid the mind getting accustomed to it and not thinking it's anything special.



Good attitude on the negativity!

Also, it's probably good what you're doing with WBTB, just watch out for letting it slip. The first phase in giving up trying to get used to something is your mind trying to convince itself that it is not necessary. You can decrease the frequency but keep consistent with yourself and don't slack or you'll end up slowly forgetting about it.

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## FryingMan

> Good attitude on the negativity!
> 
> Also, it's probably good what you're doing with WBTB, just watch out for letting it slip. The first phase in giving up trying to get used to something is your mind trying to convince itself that it is not necessary. You can decrease the frequency but keep consistent with yourself and don't slack or you'll end up slowly forgetting about it.



Wow am I glad I made this thread -- so much great input and so many wonderful, helpful suggestions.   I started my current WBTB splurge when very caught up on sleep and now after several failed back-to-sleeps and other life-messing-with-my-dreaming/sleeping (don't you hate when that happens!?) situations, I'm now behind on sleep so just need to recharge and then continue.   I absolutely love getting at least two solid bunches of recall, waking around 5 hours, and I'm determined to learn the gentle art of falling asleep (it takes iron will as I love to daydream after WBTB which keeps me up) after WBTB.

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## InnerVision

Yes it can indeed mess up your life and routines. There's no reason of course to wear yourself out, slow down when you need to. And I completely agree recall is almost always doubled for me with WBTB, it works great!

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## FryingMan

I have just now placed a sticky tab with a "B" written on it on the top middle of my monitor to remind me to maintain a "multi-tasked" thread of attention on the breath.

No WBTB last night, catching up on sleep still, had a great non-lucid flying dream, though.   Did not record middle of the night dreams and so lost them, but the final dream was great so it was a good night.

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## Memm

So one thing I noticed is I can't trust myself, haha.

By this I mean that even if I feel "oh I think my mind is pretty clear tonight", skipping a short calm abiding meditation session (even if just 5 minutes) before bed is a terrible idea. Just because you think your mind is clear, it's really not, after a long day there is so much subtle junk floating around that is really detrimental to LDing.

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## FryingMan

Also, a full 24-minute breath attention session yesterday with no distractions, went pretty well, I was a bit surprised how much my mind wandered but I haven't done a session that long before.  I never went very long though before noticing and bringing back attention to the breath.   Was quite comfortable at the 24-minute alarm and could have gone longer.

Today, an outdoor session in the park in the -12C sitting on a bench, shorter, probably more like 8-10 minutes max.   Followed by mindful walk.

Per Sageous's advice I'm focusing more on my desired dream goals than "getting lucid" as a goal.   One of my major dream goals is an epic flying adventure around the Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco, and lo and behold I had a great flying dream (non-lucid though) last night.

Plan to keep up with the dream expectation and setting intention to notice flying as a dreamsign.

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## Memm

He is talking about a different topic, but this part seems very much relevant to not losing mindfulness.

http://youtu.be/t2YSM3inP-k?t=32m44s

@32m 44s

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## FryingMan

Unplanned WBTB last night.  Still catching up on sleep.   6th hour waking, recall, pee, and can't sleep for 30 minutes.  Get out of bed and go to kitchen, drink milk, chat with Sensei on laptop, bitch & whine about not sleeping, really starting to feel sorry for myself, then I start to feel really tired about 1.75 hours later and run to the bed, fall asleep in about a minute, and have a really fabulous final REM cycle (in my DJ)

http://www.dreamviews.com/blogs/fryi...ed-girl-63671/

I've encountered this pattern before.  Maybe, just maybe, my problem with WBTB is that **I'm not staying up long enough to get tired enough to quickly fall asleep again**!!!.    This is a real epiphany.   As is realizing that staying in bed not sleeping is a big waste of time.   Well, it's great for breath meditation but the purpose during the night is sleep and dreaming.   Staying up 1-2 hours is a big gamble….but maybe it pays off big time enough to try it again?

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## FryingMan

> He is talking about a different topic, but this part seems very much relevant to not losing mindfulness.
> 
> http://youtu.be/t2YSM3inP-k?t=32m44s
> 
> @32m 44s



Thanks for the link!  Hey that's THE GUY…Mr. Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep.  Does he have any Dream and Sleep material on youtube?

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## JustASimpleGuy

Hey FM, that's some pretty impressive dream recall!!!

I generally remember one dream from a given REM cycle, probably the last. Sometimes two and on rarer occasions three. But I will say before I started DJing I only remembered a couple dreams per week, so I've experienced a huge increase!  :smiley:

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## Memm

> Thanks for the link!  Hey that's THE GUY…Mr. Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep.  Does he have any Dream and Sleep material on youtube?



Only this one as far as I know:

Dream Yoga, Recorded on 12/19/13 ligmincha on USTREAM. Buddhism

The full list of videos is here:

Internet Teachings | Ligmincha International

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## FryingMan

> Hey FM, that's some pretty impressive dream recall!!!
> 
> I generally remember one dream from a given REM cycle, probably the last. Sometimes two and on rarer occasions three. But I will say before I started DJing I only remembered a couple dreams per week, so I've experienced a huge increase!



Thanks!   I've focused a lot on dream recall from the very beginning.  My approach to dream recall is always reach for recall every single time I find myself awake, always.  No breaks from dream recall!  And to be thankful for recall.  Keep it up and over time the recall will grow and grow.   I think having good recall is critical for LDing since it really develops the feeling of "presence" while in the dream.   You can't get lucid unless "you" are there to begin with!    Dream recall and day awareness work  together to build this "presence" in the dream.

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## JustASimpleGuy

Yup! Right now I'm not really concerned about having an LD or when it will happen. Of course that's my goal, but right now my main focus is dream recall and secondary is LD-specific awareness practice during the day.

To my benefit I naturally awake two or three times throughout the night, and prior to DJing I'd just fall back to sleep within minutes if not seconds. So now I take some time to recall and record then go back to sleep. Aside from a huge boost in numbers of dreams recalled, I'm beginning to notice different aspects of dreams I've never noticed before, like specific conversations with DCs. The other night I actually asked a DC to help change the content of a dream, even though I wasn't aware I was dreaming. That is totally out of character and the first time I can remember doing so in a dream.

Yeah, I'm really enjoying all this recall and going back over my DJ and reviewing dreams.  ::biggrin::

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## Arnov

Great plan. A lot of people get frustrated with lucid dream training and often give up pretty quickly. 

Lucid dreaming is like any other skill, you will not be a master overnight. It takes hard work and consistency.

Best of luck with your progress. 

BTW if you're having trouble with meditation there's a free app called "Headspace" that offers short (10 minute), guided meditations you can try out. I found it very helpful when I was starting my meditation practice.

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## Memm

So I've been trying to narrow down the exact mental "properties" that lead to having an LD and I had a spontaneous DILD yesterday and 2 unfortunately short WILDs this morning (which would have been amazing and decent length if my sister's kids weren't staying over and waking me up with their noise while I was trying to WILD).

Hopefully I can continue this tomorrow!

Hint: I'm not using any technique.  ::content::

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## FryingMan

> So I've been trying to narrow down the exact mental "properties" that lead to having an LD and I had a spontaneous DILD yesterday and 2 unfortunately short WILDs this morning (which would have been amazing and decent length if my sister's kids weren't staying over and waking me up with their noise while I was trying to WILD).
> 
> Hopefully I can continue this tomorrow!
> 
> Hint: I'm not using any technique.



Share those properties, man!

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## Ctharlhie

^ what he said!

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## Memm

I definitely will, just want to make sure it's 100% repeatable, but right now I'm quite confident since I did the exact same thing twice in a row and got the exact same result twice in a row, that's why I'm teasing haha.  ::chuckle:: 

*Suspense builds*

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## FryingMan

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, aw c'mon, let us help you test your theory!  There's a competition on and the nights are slipping by!   As the Scotsman said to the fly who landed in his pint,  "Spit it oot, lad, spit it oot!"

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## Memm

It's difficult to explain precisely because it's not any sort of technique, so whether it works or not depends purely on how well you grasp the concept and put it into practice, so I can't do a step 1, 2, 3 guide but I can point in the direction.

I've been using Trello to keep notes on the mental properties we've discussed in this thread and also my own ideas for the last couple of weeks and it seems like last two nights I've "glued" it all together into something that can actually be practised towards.

I'll try and list the key points, each one is important and _must_ be present otherwise you won't have the right state of mind.


 As we mentioned in the thread you need to actually want to have an LD tonight, as in you need the desire for it, this may sound simple but it means pushing all your other "life problems" out of your mind, just like we do in meditation, when you sit down you think "I might have other issues going on, but right now I'm meditating", so you might have other issues going on, but at night you LD.
- Meditation on the breath, this needs to be done, at least 15 minutes before you go to sleep, or better yet a couple of times during the day, but you have to understand why you're doing it otherwise it'll be pointless, here I will explain what you are trying to achieve because you need to keep this in mind while you meditate and later when you actually try to LD, some meditation experience would be helpful but not necessary as long as you get the idea:

When you sit meditating, your mind is on your breath, you know when you breath in and when you breath out, what you are doing is focusing on what you are currently doing, more importantly what you currently *want* to *focus* on. Your mind wonders away even though you know what you want is to focus on your breath, this is why you don't succeed in having an LD, you want to have an LD but your mind wonders away. This is why you *practice the ability to not forget what you're doing* through the meditation on the breath. It doesn't have to be just the breath, you can practice while brushing your teeth, when your mind wanders you bring it back to brushing your teeth because that's where you want your mind to be.

This is *the most important thing to understand* out of all the points here, you *have to* practice and build this ability to focus on whatever you want to focus on and return when you lose that focus, dreams are overwhelmingly distracting, without this practice you simply get lost and can only LD at times when your mind just happens to be focused rather than having it under your own control. This all sounds very difficult but it's actually not, I found that even 20 minutes before bed is enough as long as you realise what it is you're trying to achieve and "keep at it" as you go to bed (see #1, #3 and #4).

So you are developing your ability to keep your mind on your chosen subject of intention, this doesn't happen in the first 5 minutes of meditation, you need to give time for the mind to settle down, you can't do that with effort you can only do it with more time, you should be okay to get up again when you get to the point where you don't want to get up anymore and you're happy to just follow your breath.  ::wink:: 

As a sort-of-related side-note, it's a good idea to do the practice "for other people", so when you first start you can think something like "may everybody be happy", the reason for this isn't some sappy Buddhist notion, it also helps calm you down because when you do something nice for other people you automatically feel good and that's a good state of mind to have because it frees you from all the crappy emotions you gathered during the day that get in your way.- This third point is equally important and shouldn't be forgotten, it requires a change of mindset about sleep, normally people go to bed, put their head on the pillow and are "knocked out". The normal mindset of somebody falling asleep is "finally I can get some rest" or "siiiigh *unconsciousness*". When you close your eyes to go to sleep you need to think "I'm not sleeping, I'm resting", this assumes some level of awareness is still present. There's no need to force yourself to stay awake or conscious, that's not what I'm talking about, you just need to stop considering sleep as the "dead zone" of consciousness, which is a really strong habit for most people which is why as soon as you feel like you're "falling asleep" you need to replace that with "I'm resting, not going unconscious", but without force because you still need to fall asleep, you're not doing anything differently, you're just thinking about it differently. Hopefully this is understandable. While doing this it's useful to refer back to your breath to remind you of #2 and at the same time or slowly replace it with #1 because that's your intention to LD, the breath is just the practice, what you actually want to have your mind on is LDing.
- WBTB - hopefully this point will not be needed after enough practice when we can LD every dream, but right now none of us can keep the above points in mind throughout the entire night 100%, the good news is that when you wake up (don't use an alarm IMO) your mind will still _mostly_ be in a good state if you did the meditation well and didn't mentally knock yourself out when you went to sleep (you can let sleep knock you out, which will happen anyway, the point is not to hit yourself see #3). Now you return back to your breath to ground yourself again, remember #2, you don't need to do the entire practice session, just enough to get remind you what you're doing it for and bring you back to the state of mind where you can focus on whatever you want to focus on without wandering off. This might take a minute (if you did the other parts well then your mind should be mostly set) otherwise if there are kids screaming around the house it might take a while because they are messing with your ability to stay your mind, but it's still possible, more meditation practice will make it easier to do this under any circumstance. Remember #3 also, DILD or WILD is irrelevant at this point, it's like SSILD (except I can explain why and how it works  :;-):  ) at some point you will want to stop following the breath, because that's just the practice and instead simply remember #1 because that's what you want the mind to be on rather than the breath. At this point you will either go into a dream straight away (or after 30 minutes of listening to people ignore your need for sleep) or you'll fall asleep and remember what you're doing in your dream (because #2 and #3 gave you the mental skill to not be distracted by dreaming and bring your mind back to #1).


Don't exert yourself, you may want to put some "force" into it during meditation if your monkey mind is running wild, but if you do or don't it'll settle on its own given enough time, patience and perseverance are the key not effort.

Also don't literally try to keep every single bit of the above in mind as you fall asleep, you'll go crazy with effort, mind on the breath then you feel good you go back to #1 and #3, then you feel your monkey mind is still active you go back to #2 for a bit, keep it balanced, the point is simply not to lose what you gained during the meditation session, especially when you do WBTB.


The success of this depends *solely* on how well you understand and internalise what I'm talking about, you can get it really quickly (those with meditation experience or those with good mind control) or it will take practise before you understand what you're practising. Either way you succeed based on your comprehension rather than how long you've been doing it.

#2 Meditation will help with everything else, do that correctly and don't lose what you gained during the meditation and everything else will flow from there.

Also everything else we discussed in this thread is worth internalising.


Phew that was not as short as I wanted it to be.... you asked for this.  ::blahblahblah:: 


Welcome to the no-technique zone, try not to have your brain explode.  ::holyshit::  ::chuckle::  ::huh2::  :Uhm:  ::makeitstop::

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## Ctharlhie

Great stuff. I've been falling into the technique trap recently and needed to see this, the worst of it is when you start treating meditation as a technique as Tim Post warned against. I think this is what he was advocating when he talked about non-technique.

Self-awareness and recall are the foundation, all technique is simply superstructure. But, to follow this architectural metaphor, say you built nothing on this foundation, what would arise from this foundation? Intent?

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## Memm

Well meditation is a technique that builds a certain mental skill (or multiple skills), it's this skill to not lose track of what you're doing that's needed to have an LD, some days you're simply in a good mood and DILD/MILD works and other days you're thinking about what happened during the day and forget that you wanted to LD, or you're too busy fighting a dream dragon or whatever. That's why you need to practice keeping your mind on your chosen subject, then while fighting the dragon the mindfulness you've been developing will go "wait a second, this isn't what I was just focused on" and BAM! Lucidity.

You don't need any of this if you're already naturally focused, but you still need the other points I wrote about to bring it all together. Also you might just think that you are naturally focused but you don't quite realise what is actually going on inside your head and still need to practice, either way practice is good, for LDing you only need to practice to an extent where you can keep it up during sleep or get back to it easily during WBTB.

Also the other good skills it develops at the same time is calm abiding and openness, openness is actually needed to remember your dreams, for example the other night while working on the breath during my WBTB I suddenly remembered my dream, when I woke up I didn't even know I had a dream and I wasn't trying to remember a dream, something simply connected because I was in a state where nothing was blocking that connection.

Past couple days my dream recall has been pretty great from practising those 4 points, it's also I think the first time I successfully WILDed in the middle of ridiculous noises (although I couldn't keep it up) and I also didn't care one bit about how long I stayed up (I actually went back to bed about an hour later) or what technique I was doing, just simply focused on my breath for a while to try and cut through the noise and then used that state of focus to not drift off into unconsciousness.

I think the main difference between my earlier meditation sessions and what I'm doing now is the understanding of what exactly I'm working on and how it relates to LDing, you can't just build the mindfulness you need to use it, it needs to be directed towards something and the other 3 points in my list is how I'm channelling it in a sense.


In fact it might help to think of #1 as your bullet, #2 as loading your gun then #3 you take aim and #4 you keep it steady and fire to hit your target.

Or #2 is you fuelling up your car, #1 is finding on the map where you want to go, #3 is driving down the road and #4 is stopping to read the map and make sure you're heading in the right direction.

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## FryingMan

^^ Brilliant, Memm, brilliant!   You've put it all together in a way that strongly resonates with the way I think of things.   I definitely knock myself out & empty my mind in bed at night, my excuse is that this is the only reliable way I've found to get back to sleep.   I've suspected for some time that this blacking out is suboptimal.   It works great, if all you want to do is sleep, but hinders the goal of lucidity.

So for me this "rest, not sleeping/blacking out" is the real trick/challenge.   WBTB: not a problem, I can wake without alarms.     Meditation before bed: 2nd biggest challenge, but I've started adding "unwind" time before bed, this will be just an extension.   Daytime "be here and now": I'm working on it, but progress has been lukewarm.    I will continue.   Thanks so much for this!

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## Memm

Just to mention my only day-time practice is now and then I centre back on my breath for a minute just to try and keep the "focus on what I want not on what my mind wants" engine running, I don't really do anything else.

My main practice is the 15-30 minute meditation right before bed followed by making sure I don't just "black out" like you say and then during WBTB I basically do the same thing as during the day, basically keep the engine active, I find this to be the hardest part depending on noise / heat (it's boiling in Australia right now) / stray thoughts from drowsiness etc... but the practice before bed makes this a whole lot easier than normal and I think continued practice will probably turn all of these 4 things into a natural habit which will hopefully cause LDs every single night with minimum effort! Everything is hardest when you first start, it should become a rhythm quickly as long as I don't get lazy, that's my aim anyway.

Also changing from sleeping to resting hasn't effected my sleep at all, I think it's important to use your mind comfortably rather than exert some sort of force, you can actually mantra "just resting, not sleeping" a couple of times and that should do the trick.

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## JustASimpleGuy

> Great stuff. I've been falling into the technique trap recently and needed to see this, the worst of it is when you start treating meditation as a technique as Tim Post warned against. I think this is what he was advocating when he talked about non-technique.
> 
> Self-awareness and recall are the foundation, all technique is simply superstructure. But, to follow this architectural metaphor, say you built nothing on this foundation, what would arise from this foundation? Intent?



Here's a great quote from Bruce Lee. Of course it's about martial arts, but it can also apply to meditation:

"Again let me remind you Jeet Kune Do is just a name used, a boat to get one across, and once across it is to be discarded and not to be carried on one's back."

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## JustASimpleGuy

> Daytime "be here and now": I'm working on it, but progress has been lukewarm.



I have to tell you this thread has inspired me to be more mindful of my daily waking mindfulness outside of formal meditation practice. It's also been lukewarm for me and not because I find it difficult when engaged, but simply because it's so easy to get distracted and forget, especially at work.

What I started doing yesterday is using a reminder. I was thinking of getting one of those cheap silicon bracelets. You know, kike the LiveStrong ones? I even found a site you can order one with a customized word or phrase like 'Awareness' or 'Breathe'. I didn't want to wait so I have these mini bungee cords in my kitchen draw. They are just a tad big but not enough to slip over my hand. That's actually good because it constantly moves around and is a great reminder to simply breathe and be mindful. If I get too used to it on one wrist I can put it on the other.

Then I got to thinking. What else can I use to mix it up? How about a small piece of cotton stuffed into an ear? Or even a nostril? Maybe a dime or penny in my shoe?

Anyway I did really good yesterday with being mindful, even at work. Not 100% of the time but far and beyond anything previously imaginable to me. It's pretty much like ADA, which in reality is mindfulness. It just never occurred to me to try to keep it up all day.

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## FryingMan

I have sticky bookmarks on my computer monitors with the letter "B" for "Breathe!"

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## Memm

Really tried last night but everything was against me, 30 degrees and a thunderstorm so it was hot and ridiculously humid at the same time, barely got any sleep because of the noise in the morning as well. Did 30 minutes of meditation before bed but it just wasn't enough to keep me focused.

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## FryingMan

I reasonably successfully implemented the "the night is for restful lucid dreaming" mindset last night.   I noticed a number of little wakings, each time immediately bringing back this mindset and "continuing to rest" which led right back to sleep.  I was concerned about insomnia but it didn't happen.  I feel a little bit under-slept in the morning, but I went to bed 2.5 hours after my preferred bedtime, and my wife was snoring the entire night (again).  I did not pursue recall on these wakings, but in one case I did wake from a dream and recalled it fairly well so quickly went over it and again set my mind to resting and lucid dreaming.

I think the waking day focus/attention work is great.  I like to include the subtext of *why* I'm paying attention: the ultimate goal is to be continually aware of my state (wake/dream).     So it's not just the night where the goal is lucid dreaming, but all through the day as well.

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## Memm

Very true! I wholeheartedly agree practising is 10x more effective when you know why and have a goal, otherwise it's just repetition with no depth to it.

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## Ctharlhie

Memm, I have to thank you for that post. It really challenged my outlook. I realised that what I had intended as a rigorous and organised practice just looked to my unconscious like a load of boxes to be ticked before I was allowed to have a lucid dream. So I cut down my day and night practice to the bare essentials, meditation, SAT, microWBTB, recall, and didn't even think about trying to induce until I'd got my baseline practice of two micros done. And I had a very cognizant lucid dream where I remembered my intended task! (albeit with teleporting hitches). The most important thing was knowing that I had everything that needed to be done to become lucid, all I had left to do was sleep!

I think you should do a full write up of your ideas on attitude as a tutorial.

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## Memm

Thank you for the kind words, I'm happy my view on things helped, it's FryingMan's thread that pushed my thinking into this direction so my own thanks goes to him.  ::D: 

I want to first reach my goal of being able to LD most nights of the week before making an official guide about this though, but hopefully after a year of experimenting and posting on Dreamviews maybe we finally cracked the code, haha, that would be a dream come true.  ::dreaming:: 

My wish is that one day when people ask "how do I LD?" they can get a straightforward answer and succeed.

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## Memm

I think there's one thing we've been neglecting and that's the impact that our physical state plays on our mental state.

I've been so concerned lately with my mental state that something so simple has alluded my attention, was doing Tai Chi practice today and realised the better and more comfortable my posture the clearer and more mindful I became.

So my final (I think) suggestion for everyone including myself is that when you are standing, sitting, doing your sporadic awareness, ADA, RC, breathing, meditation or ideally any activity that you seek a still, content, comfortable and relaxed position where you are not stretching anything that doesn't need to be stretched or tensing anything that doesn't need to be tense, not collapsing your back or your waist into awkward and contorted positions etc... and only after that do your nose plug or whatever.

This is almost an instant shortcut to a clearer brain.

Last post for a while, going to concentrate on more practice and less discussion, good luck everyone! =]

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## Ctharlhie

And to you!

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## FryingMan

Thanks Memm, good luck, and yes, I concur about less talk more practice!  But not "trying/efforting" too hard!   With mindfulness and memory!

I think this notion that "night time is for rest and lucid dreaming" helped me get lucid late this morning.
I had a broken WBTB at about 5 hours where all I did was journal and set some intention and a quick pee, and I found I was too awake to fall back asleep through my wife's loud breathing/snoring.

So, I got up and sat quietly in the kitchen playing a calm game on the laptop (black background so not too much light) for a few hours, and got REALLY tired after about 2-2.5 hours, where I returned to bed and my deep sleepiness at that point helped me to sleep through the wife noise.   It still took a while, it was a slow back-to-sleep, and I thought again about how bed time is for rest and lucid dreaming, not unconscious/unaware/blackout sleep.

I had a long string of dreams across probably 2 sleep cycles, finishing up with a short LD which I think was at first a waking lucid moment but I was able to go back in by manipulating HI into a real scene mentally, and *then* before getting carried away I recalled my intention to connect to waking memories and stated that my waking body was sleeping in bed and this entire experience is a fantasy.   I then called out "brighter" about 3 times, (I've never commanded a dream like this before, I credit the connection to waking memory raising lucidity to the point to realize I could do this), each time I said the word it was like a "clarity/brightness" knob got turned up a little more, until the scene was fully visually there.   Then I looked around appreciating the funny/dream-ness of the scene (there was a big group of identical little girls in identical dresses doing a dance line packed into a tiny space) and kissed a girl and then woke up.    Not bad for what initially may have been a waking moment.

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## Ctharlhie

Your dream reminds me of a lucid I had in which I started chanting "clarity" to stabilise. Each time I repeated it the word got louder until it became louder than my waking voice, louder than any physical sound could ever be. It started dominating the texture of the dream, so that it felt like the dream was as much about the word clarity as it was anything else. Still in my top 5 most vivid LDs.

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## FryingMan

It's interesting because I always read of others doing this but I up to that dream yesterday never had done it myself.  Mostly, my LDs always have clear visuals.   What I find fascinating is that I had the reflex-level response (that's what it felt like, I did not go through any moment of thinking "oh, the visuals are a bit grey, maybe I should just call out to brighten it) to call out "brighter," and really got excited when it worked immediately.  It's like my first LD when I instinctively did a "spin" to try to save the fade to gray without needing to think about it first.

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## Ctharlhie

In case you don't spot it, check out this thread http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...-sleeping.html seeing as I know you have trouble with falling asleep from WBTB

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## FryingMan

OK, time to grade January fulfillment of goals: 

WBTB: "A" for effort, "C" for effectiveness.   Lots of WBTBs but lots of insomnia, but little lucidity results.  I have learned something valuable though: if I can't sleep, then just get out of bed, go sit in the kitchen doing something quiet on the computer and in an hour or two I get really really sleepy and can then fall back to sleep fairly easily.

Meditation: "D-".  Only a couple formal sitting sessions.

Breath awareness: "B+".   All throughout the day, I keep rediscovering my breathing and using it to center myself in the now, telling myself "I'm now aware that I'm breathing," and reminding myself that my awareness has a goal: recognizing the dream state while in dream (getting lucid).  The awareness doesn't last long because when I'm thinking of my breathing I can't seem to breathe without controlling every breath explicitly, which gets tiring quickly and so I end up letting to of that awareness soon.

Confidence: "C".   Frequent vacillations between manic enthusiasm "I'm an awesome dreamer" and depressed thoughts "I suck at this after all this time and work why am I not lucid more?"

Dedication: "B".   Especially in the last week or so picked up on Memm's suggestion of framing the purpose of the night: to rest, and to have lucid dreams/recall dreams, not to black out with no awareness.   First weeks quite dedicated to nightly wakings and WBTBs, lost a bit of steam for WBTB after many multi-hour insomnia sessions.

LDs: 2? 3?  Lowest monthly frequency in a while.   Have to pull myself out of this ditch.

February goals: daily meditation!   Keep up breath awareness, eradicate depressive lack of confidence phase, maintain and beef up dedication.

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## JustASimpleGuy

Concerning breath awareness, trying to control every breath explicitly and eventually tiring of it...

If I think back to when I first started regular meditation I had the same experience. Over time that lessened and now it's pretty much non-existent. I think it was just daily practice and after several weeks I became so familiar with the sensations and patterns of breath the mechanics faded back into the background.

The other thing I think is I stopped focusing on the actual breath. The air coming into and out of my nose and flowing down my trachea and into my lungs and instead focused on the sensations of the body. The movements of diaphragm, stomach and chest cavity and the sensations of air passing over the upper lip and through the nose and down the trachea. Another thing I like to be aware of is the transition between in breath and out breath. The rhythm of that transition.

One other thought...

I'll also use daytime breath awareness as an anchor. That is use it to remind me to be mindful of mindfulness. It simply puts me back into mindfulness and if I tire with breath I can shift mindfulness to something else like gravity, interoception, a sound, a smell, an itch, feeling, emotion, thought, whatever.

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## FryingMan

^^ Thanks.  I don't *want* to directly control the breath, but I can't seem to be aware of it without controlling it.   Good points though.  Yes I use it as a anchor/"catch" to become mindful again.

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## KonchogTashi

> Meditation: "D-".  Only a couple formal sitting sessions.
> 
> Breath awareness: "B+".   All throughout the day, I keep rediscovering my breathing and using it to center myself in the now, telling myself "I'm now aware that I'm breathing," and reminding myself that my awareness has a goal: recognizing the dream state while in dream (getting lucid).  The awareness doesn't last long because when I'm thinking of my breathing I can't seem to breathe without controlling every breath explicitly, which gets tiring quickly and so I end up letting to of that awareness soon.
> 
> 
> 
> LDs: 2? 3?  Lowest monthly frequency in a while.   Have to pull myself out of this ditch.



First: This is a great thread, thanks for sharing your progress!

regarding the above quoted sections: Meditation sessions, don't be too hard on yourself. Meditating regularly is very much like practicing LD induction in a number of ways, on its most basic level its a habit. We all know that starting a new regular habit requires many "false starts" and often takes quite some time to be seamlessly integrated into our behavior. Unless, of course, it is a destructive habit and then it mostly seems to be very easy to habituate. From my experience it took many years of practice to work up to a "never miss a day" meditation practice. Just keep the intent set and practice when you can and the habit will grow.

Breath awareness (awareness in general with regards to mediation) In meditation we are always looking for that balance between attentiveness (focus/effort) and relaxation. In buddhist mediation traditions we are always looking out for the "faults" of torpor (lethargy or sleepiness) and agitation. In general agitation can be exacerbated by too much effort, trying too hard. Striking this balance takes alot of hours of sitting and vacillation back and forth between too tight and too loose. I have found that just keeping up with regular practice allows me to find this subtle balance more and more. 

Regarding LD frequency: You are obviously way ahead of me in this department, but I have never broke 5/month. I was tremendously heartened by listening to an interview with Robert Waggoner recently where he stated he had "between 2 and 4" LDs a month. Just thought I would share. 

Thanks again!!

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## JustASimpleGuy

> ^^ I don't *want* to directly control the breath, but I can't seem to be aware of it without controlling it.



Yup, totally understand. Like KonchogTashi said, it's a fine balance between too much and too little effort/attention. For me it's all about becoming more and more familiar with the territory. Over time it gets easier.

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## FryingMan

Thanks people, it's great to have some support and suggestions from people farther down the breathing/awareness path!

I know what Sensei would say about Waggoner's LD rate: "obviously a rank amateur"  :smiley: .    It's interesting to note that Sensei also mentions that just a few years ago that such a result would be considered among DV's "advanced" lucid dreamers, my how things have changed!  I know  I know it's not good to compare oneself to others, to each his own path, etc.   But knowing it's possible, and that I want it, keeps the fires burning.   Besides, I've experienced myself in the last year 14/month, multiple per night, and dense periods like 7 in 10 days.      And as Sageous would say, it's "quality not quantity," but come on, LDing gods, at least throw us a bone of a few little ones per week in between the incredible long, high awareness, amazing LDs (the "quality" ones).

Non-lucid dreaming remains very good when I'm rested and when I can keep my mind on dreaming and recall during the night (see last night in my DJ), and that's a big motivation help.    

I keep waiting for something to "click" and for an increasing number of those vivd non-lucids to become lucid.   Or rather, I'm searching for that "twist" to make that click happen actively.    It'll come, I'm sure.   Maybe it's just the accumulation over time of increase self-awareness and improved access to memory and experience in directing intention properly.

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## FryingMan



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## InnerVision

Wow, I think I've found my major struggle with LD'ing in the first picture  :tongue2:

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## FryingMan

I've been working on incorporating Sageous's advice from his excellent recent thread, "Memory: the forgotten fundamental".   For the 2nd time in a LD I affirmed that my waking body is asleep in bed out there in the waking world, and  that this entire dream experience is a fantasy taking place in my mind.   It resulted in a visual-quality save (things got suddenly blurry, an I "realized" I was wearing glasses which were causing this, took them off and visuals were fine again), and indeed in a super-vivid bright ultra-HD  experience following.    I succumbed to caveman mode after that but still I think that the experience was longer and higher quality than it would have otherwise have been without this realization.

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## FryingMan

I've had epics two nights in a row now, with last night being perhaps my new favorite dreaming night of all time.  Fights, weird beautiful fish, lots of girls, semi-lucid flying a jet plane over a breathtaking vista, wow...

stop-presses-what-night-not-lucid-who-cares-semi-least-fight-flight-sex-64314/

Interesting that I've shifted my focus recently to micro-WBTBs.   The strategy seems to be working so far.   I try not to get up at all, suppressing the need to pee if need be, and totally relax while thinking about my intent that the night is for dreaming.   

I also took a cue from Ctharlhie, and try falling asleep while meditating/visualizing a white ball of energy in my throat area (from dream yoga).    Trying basically for a WILD at each waking, I think this may be generating amazing dreams!

Micro-WBTBs may be the key for me, I seem to be able to avoid insomnia.  I only performed mental recall during the night and was able to remember a fairly good number of earlier / mid night dreams.   Some details of the beginning of some dreams were lost, however.

It was also very cold in the room during the night so my sleep was interrupted/uncomfortable at times.  I got up only once to turn back on the heater and push the window most of the way closed.

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## FryingMan

I am looooving micro-WBTBs.   More sleep time & more dream time.   I don't seem to see a lucidity boost from get-out-of-bed WBTBs, just get more tired & frustrated.   Maybe I'm just getting better at relaxing my body and mind in getting back to sleep[*].   A short lucid late this morning, as I seemed to recognize in-dream that I was missing opportunities to get lucid (haha!).   Very waking-like situations in late morning, almost nothing odd to grab on to (except for the gale-force winds blowing in from the department store's front door….doh!).

I'm maintaining excitement and generally a positive attitude (nothing like multiple great dreaming nights in a row to help out with that), dreaming/recall is at times extremely vivid most nights.    Boldness in dreams on an uptick, I need to use that as a catch.   Strong location awareness in my childhood neighborhood, and seeing childhood home from a distance, recognizing it.
[*] It's almost like magic -- every single time I really "let go" completely physically and mentally, with perhaps a bit of concentration on a dream yoga visualization (symbol in the throat), I seem to fall back asleep and into dreams, even in late morning.

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## FryingMan

and yet another back to sleep success and more dreaming after a late morning waking from wife's alarm and son S2's noisy heading off to University.   Late to bed (tsk tsk!) though and in a not good mental state after making an ill-thought-out foray onto the non-dreaming portion of DV where rudeness and insults rule the day, meant non-ideal dreaming.   Some nice sexy moments here and there and an aware struggle with access to memory in one case made it a decent night in the end.

I've also started talking to my SC, negotiating, cajoling, convincing,  that "we need to work together on this lucid dreaming thing…it's good for us, it makes us happy, so come on, let's get lucid together in dreams!" (my precious!), I think it's helped somewhat.

Two nights ago I encountered "lucid pie" at the end of a vivid medium-epic.

Bold sexy moments continue, which is good.

In some some my back to sleep practice is formal meditation.   While aiming for sleep is not part of formal meditation, it does involve constantly noticing and (re-re-re-)-releasing mental and physical tension and letting go of wandering thoughts and concerns.    It really works wonders.   I may even work up the boldness to try get-out-of-bed WBTB with the confidence that I can get back to sleep afterwards.

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## FryingMan

Confidence is interesting, and tricky.   The best results clearly arise when you can establish a positive feedback cycle of good results -> higher confidence -> even better results -> even higher confidence, and round and round, until there is no question in your mind that your results will *always* be good.   It becomes a part of you.   Yes you must still expend the effort, but you do it just *knowing* you'll have great results.

I'm there with dream recall.  I enter every night *knowing* that I will recall dreams, probably a lot of them, in vivid detail.   It's just not a question in my mind any more, it just *is that way*.   I can even remember dreams now across sleep cycles, woohoo!   Even though recall peak experiences are not every night, I know that they will always return.  And even on "off" nights I remember lots of short dreams.   In most dreams I now feel like I'm living the experience.

Now, how to do that with lucidity?   I tend to hot and cold streaks with lucidity.   I several times got to the point where when dozing in late morning, I had a 'special feeling' that "if I just fall asleep again, I *will* have a lucid dream," (and has come true,  several times), but I cannot invoke that feeling on demand, it just happens or it doesn't.

I've been contemplating a theory for a while: that my issue may be that I think that lucidity is "something that happens to me, or doesn't," (passive) as opposed to "something that I *do*" (active) -- that it's a choice I need to make in the dream: to recognize the dream state.   It's like lucidity is something that is bestowed upon me from outside, as opposed to being actively generated from inside.

Perhaps self-hypnosis/auto-suggestion can assist making this mindset transition.   Any ideas/suggestions appreciated!

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## JustASimpleGuy

> Perhaps self-hypnosis/auto-suggestion can assist making this mindset transition.   Any ideas/suggestions appreciated!



I've been using autosuggestion in two forms lately. I have two playlists on my iPad nano. One for recall and the other for lucidity. I also installed a subliminal message app on my PC and I have the same affirmations on it. Now the audio is not subliminal and I play it low so I can just hear it. I figure one reinforces the other. The PC app can be found at Mind Of A Winner and it's a free download. It's simple but functional and hasn't caused any issues on either my home PC or work laptop.

My recall is getting much, much better. I was averaging 2.5 a night for January and so far for February I'm approaching 4 a night. Even last night I went to bed dead tired because I was oncall for work this past week and I got called several nights for work problems. That combined with WBTB and DJing left me really dragging. I turned in at 8:45 and awoke naturally around 12:45 with only one dream recalled. I then slept through to 5:45 and thought I only had one small fragment of a dream, but when I started writing it down it filled in and I also had three more shorter dreams come to the front of my memory. I am pleasantly surprised. I was so tired I was expecting the night to be a blackout.

As for lucidity I'm not there yet, but this past week I had one dream where I had mounted a light on my neighbor's garage that only I could see and it flashed periodically. It was supposed to help with awareness while dreaming, but the neighbor was doing yard work and kept getting in my line of sight. Hah! That has to be a direct connection to the PC app, as not only does it flash very brief affirmations on the monitor but the task bar and system tray icon is a light bulb!

I also had two other dreams this week LD-related. One about almost WILDing during a prison break while we were laying down hiding from the guards and another about arranging sleep schedules on a camping trip to accommodate WBTB.

I can't be certain it's all due to autosuggestion because I'm doing lots of other work, but I'm thinking there's a connection. Just seems to have ramped up since I started with autosuggestion.

The other thing I'm thinking of trying is SSILD because self-hypnosis is supposed to be the basis behind that method. Plus if I'm up durting WBTB to DJ I might as well make use of the opportunity.

EDIT: For the audio and visual affirmations I use second person, not first person. I did some reading on autosuggestion and that is what's recommended.

I also agree with your statement about confidence, though at this point I can only relate it to recall...

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## FryingMan

Did a proper WBTB, first in a little while, attempted a WILD using an anchor of repetitive moment (walking dribbling a basketball, playing basketball at the park where my old junior high girlfriend MB used to watch me), and I dreamed about (crazy) basketball.  The first dream (I think) after the WBTB I did get lucid but lost it/transitioned quickly.   It took a massive oddness for me to grab lucidity (an owl was standing on my window, entered the room, and turned into a 4-foot tall thing that walked around the room).

full dj: 2015-02-23, (1.5 year anniversary) [LD #100 -- triple digits!] flying, pot, park, picnic, basketball - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

p.s. this was my 100th LD!   Woohoo!

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## Urside

> p.s. this was my 100th LD!   Woohoo!



Congratulations! That is great!
Next step: 4 digits.

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## KonchogTashi

Congratulations on LD #100, an impressive milestone! I rejoice for you!

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## FryingMan

> Congratulations! That is great!
> Next step: 4 digits.



This will be this year's Christmas present I'm sure (haha, wouldn't that be sweet!).

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## FryingMan

Celebrating another back to sleep moment.  Late this morning: found the discipline to finally focus on the breath, continually letting go of all trying/effort/tension and decided "well at least I'll have a nice little meditation session if I don't fall asleep," and once I finally made the decision to stick to it, and after returning from a few distracting trains of thought, I fell asleep pretty fast!    I'm continually amazed how well that works.    There must be a way to merge this ability into WILD practice: just somehow fall asleep slightly less quickly, with just the tinyest smidgen of awareness intact.

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## JustASimpleGuy

> There must be a way to merge this ability into WILD practice: just somehow fall asleep slightly less quickly, with just the tinyest smidgen of awareness intact.



I have to think there is a connection. When I'm deep in meditation I notice a couple of things. 1) I have a lot of hypnagogic imagery gong on but I usually don't pay it much attention because it's a distraction from breath. I treat it just like a thought or other distraction. 2) My body, especially my legs, arms and hands, feel very heavy and almost numb like they aren't there, and there's a subtle vibration or resonance going on. 

I actually tried this laying down the other week, thinking it was the doorway into WILD, however I couldn't get the correct state of mind. Perhaps I just need to work on it? I'm use to meditating in an upright position.

By the way, congrats on your 100th LD!  ::goodjob::

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## FryingMan

Another bed-ejection FA: it is really nice to have such obvious cues!   

I spent about 30 minutes before bed on a self-pep-talk, visualizations, dream sign review, etc.  Including  a talk with my SC about giving me really obvious cues (DCs telling me to do an RC, etc.) to get lucid…maybe the bed-ejection FA was my SC cooperating!   My bed ejection FAs are when I "wake up in bed", then soon one end of my bed lifts high up, spilling me out onto (the ground, into a tunnel, etc.).   It is not a subtle or confusing thing: I realize instantly that it's a dream event when it happens.

2015-02-25 (LD #101) epic adventure, friends & family, weird buildings, caught FA (bed eject) - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

Of course I went caveman immediately, bypassing all planned and rehearsed stabilization (DANGIT!), grabbed a girl and (amazingly enough) remembered to count to 5 first, but excitement was building so high so fast that I didn't make it past 3 before waking up….argh.  It was very late morning so it may just have been an unavoidable waking moment.

I had an official sitting meditation  session yesterday evening for 24 minutes.   I got lost in thoughts/scenarios several times, probably almost into dreams it felt like, not waking concerns, but brought myself back.    I made it through the 24 minutes without "fidgeting" or worrying about the time.    About 15 seconds after my end-of-session alarm, my wife called me.  Normally she calls in the middle of my sessions, so I laughed out loud at that fortuitous (for once!) timing.

In a slight shift in approach, I'm trying to always WILD now during the night when returning to sleep, trying to aim at least a little bit on the awareness side of sleep, if I make no progress after a while then I aim completely for sleep (this too happened).

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## FryingMan



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## Dodge631

how is it going frying man? i just started reading this thread today and really do enjoy reading all the updates you post. i noticed a definite change about halfway through all your posts. A much more confident set of posts! i look forward to your next update

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## FryingMan

Thanks for reading!  I've been planning my February update.    Dreaming in February was fantastic, but again not much in the way of lucids, just a couple.    Meditation: just not getting it done D-/F.   Confidence: C+, kind of wavering.   WBTB: C, not noticing wakings much.  Recall: A- some really great dreams but a slow period at the end.

Some rather dramatic family stuff (elderly family member basically in the midst of passing away) is going to be a hindrance for a while I suspect.   

I'm wondering about breath awareness as the fundamental trigger, vs. body/legs/gravity awareness.    It's hard to hold breath awareness for long.   Maybe I just need to keep it up.     I need more STOP/slow down moments/critical reflection.    Haven't been getting out and about much recently, need to do that.

I've been more mindful during personal conversations, which is good because I talk a lot in dreams, much more even than waking life.  And during conversations is when I tend to zone out the most.

I'm wavering back and forth between general mindfulness via breath vs. returning to targeted ADA/RC like legs/gravity.    I'll guess I'll give breath the year but I need to really pick it up to give it a proper shot.      I'm concerned that general mindfulness maybe too "diffuse", and that a saturated, singular, sense focus like legs/feet/gravity may be required in order to pierce the dullness/fog of  the dream state.   I'm not sure.  Mindfulness is quite good for vividness/sense-of-presence of dreams, though.

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## JustASimpleGuy

> I'm wavering back and forth between general mindfulness via breath vs. returning to targeted ADA/RC like legs/gravity.    I'll guess I'll give breath the year but I need to really pick it up to give it a proper shot.      I'm concerned that general mindfulness maybe too "diffuse", and that a saturated, singular, sense focus like legs/feet/gravity may be required in order to pierce the dullness/fog of  the dream state.   I'm not sure.  Mindfulness is quite good for vividness/sense-of-presence of dreams, though.



To me there's really no difference except a different object of attention. Of course one object might feel more natural to attend than another for a given individual. Maybe that's the trick? On the other hand the more difficult the attending, the more gain can be had. More of an exercising of awareness.

Even within mindfulness of breath there are different schools of thought. Some attend sensations of breath at the nostrils, or upper lip, or diaphragm or stomach. I tend to attend sensations of breath wherever I notice them. I'd probably be admonished by some for doing that, but it just feels right to me.

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## Memm

> Even within mindfulness of breath there are different schools of thought. Some attend sensations of breath at the nostrils, or upper lip, or diaphragm or stomach. I tend to attend sensations of breath wherever I notice them. I'd probably be admonished by some for doing that, but it just feels right to me.



I read about noticing sensations at the nostril opening but just can't seem to do it, there just isn't much or any sensation there for me. When a nun was showing us how to meditate she told us to follow the breath and as we got more relaxed to notice it going deeper down, so I don't think you'd be admonished for anything.

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## Dodge631

I too am starting meditation and breathing awareness techniques. It has been short so far so ill have to wait and see how it goes. Ill keep with it for a while unless it works great and ill continue

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## FryingMan

I managed to get myself to do another full 24-minute (well more like 31 since my cat got up and started wandering around the room and scratching at the door, so I got up and put her out and restarted, and re-started my 24-minute timer) session of following the breath.  Just like the previous ones I've done I came out feeling great, and I wasn't constantly thinking "how much time is left?" like when I started last year.

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## JustASimpleGuy

> Just like the previous ones I've done I came out feeling great, and I wasn't constantly thinking "how much time is left?" like when I started last year.



I hear ya! I can physically and mentally/emotionally feel the afterglow for hours, and like you I no longer anticipate the end of the sitting. In fact I'm usually surprised when the timer goes off and if the sitting is particularly pleasing I sit through it for another 5, 10 or 15 minutes.

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## FryingMan

Today was a good day for following the breath and staying mindful.  Certainly, I was aided in  that I was in non-routine places and doing non-routine things today, but still I managed to maintain mindfulness with very frequent breath and foot/leg/step and location/strange object focus more or less continually for the entire afternoon into the evening.

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## Dodge631

Glad to hear from you again so soon. I tried meditating the other day and before i knew it, 20 minutes past in what felt like only 10. It is hard for me to make it to 10 without a thought coming into my mind still. in fact, every 2 breath cycles something slips in, though i try not to pay it attention. keep up with it and i will try too!

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## JustASimpleGuy

> It is hard for me to make it to 10 without a thought coming into my mind still. in fact, every 2 breath cycles something slips in, though i try not to pay it attention.



Thoughts are okay and in fact very helpful. That's your opportunity to exercise awareness by gently shifting attention back to breath. Acknowledge the thought but don't follow it. Don't be critical or judgmental. Simply shift attention back to breath.

With enough practice the thoughts become more and more wispy and you'll catch them closer to when they arise.

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## FryingMan

^^ Don't try to suppress thoughts, let them happen, just notice when they happen, acknowledge them, and let them melt away & return your focus to the breath.

I've now completed two days of maintaining long/high daytime awareness (much higher/longer than usual) and despite being in a stressful life situation and being in a period of very low (for me) recall, I had two short but stunning LDs this morning.   

Maybe my day work was all wrong before!?   Too relaxed?

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## Memm

I'm finding that if I don't at least have 20 or so minutes to decompress / meditate before bed then I don't even get any dream recall let alone LDs, so maybe pushing yourself a bit is good.

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## Dodge631

thanks for the tips guys. that should help me out quite a bit knowing that. i have been able to realize i thought flowed in, and bring myself back to breath concentration. hopefully i can get a good session in tonight! best of luck to you too

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## FryingMan

DJ for the LDs this morning: both outside (kind of rare for me, both really amazing)

2015-03-08 LDs #102, #103, amazing vivid building, stunning garden - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## FryingMan

Nice epic last night: flying/fighting: 2015-03-09 (semi-lucid) epic (flying/fighting), late weird sexy-contact moments - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

followed by some weird-ish sexy moments.

I'm happy that I've managed two more or less full days of continual breath awareness.  It's really a whole new level than what I was doing before.    I believe that this "stepped up game" may be precisely what I need, at least until that clever subconscious gets used to it.     The more I go in this discipline, the more I think that just doing "one thing" forever just can't work -- you always need to take a slightly different tack, regularly, to keep your mind slightly off-balance, from slipping into "unaware awareness" or the illusion of awareness.   Or maybe just the recognition that "false awareness" exists and acting diligently to counter it.   There's always the danger of slipping into extended periods of mindlessness, we must be constantly on guard against this.

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## FryingMan

In fact in the spirit of full disclosure, I'm using 3 things now for "triggers:" the breath, each step when walking, and location(+ especially transitions).   I hope I can keep this up.  I'm trying to do it in a relaxed manner, not with a tight/scrunched up mind.   With each step when walking I'll set up a rhythmic sort of mantra: "I'm lucid / I'm dreaming" alternating back and forth with each step.   Taken together, they all three cover pretty much all waking moments and situations, helping me bring my mind back to the now more often than if I was only using one.   

I have a lot of excitement about this tweak to daytime work, and that it will help accelerate my progress to the next level (more frequent lucidity, allowing me to work on sustaining high lucidity for longer periods in dreams).

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## JustASimpleGuy

> The more I go in this discipline, the more I think that just doing "one thing" forever just can't work -- you always need to take a slightly different tack, regularly, to keep your mind slightly off-balance, from slipping into "unaware awareness" or the illusion of awareness.   Or maybe just the recognition that "false awareness" exists and acting diligently to counter it.   There's always the danger of slipping into extended periods of mindlessness, we must be constantly on guard against this.



It's probably no different than the principal of 'accommodation' when doing resistance training. Eventually the muscles become accustomed to the same movements, sets, repetitions and they hit a plateau where further gains are increasingly diminished. So you mix it up every now and then.

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## FryingMan

I'm maintaining my boosted daytme awareness, at least at higher levels than before.  The "triple trigger" combo of breath, footsteps, and location seems a winner for this.  

I had a real get out of bed WBTB last night and managed to fall back asleep doing a mantra afterwards.  Gaining confidence again in my back to sleep technique.  

Recall continues to be on the low side, but I'm feeling very well rested.  Must great recall vs good rest be a zero-sum game?

I met / thought about 2 dv members in a nonlucid last night (met dreamer, thought about /remembered seeing sivason).  I did RCs in front of dreamer to show I was a LDer.  After waking up and recalling this I did a big mental face palm because BOTH RCS INDICATED DREAM!!!!!  My explanation that I could breath through nose pinch?  I just wasn't holding my nose tightly enough, and said "ah, it's unreliable anyway!" [FALSE!] and promptly moved on. Grrrrr!

Well it's a better sign than not thinking about dreaming, and interestingly, it came fairly early in the night.

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## Urside

> Must great recall vs good rest be a zero-sum game?



I believe it is, at least for me. Up to the point where I both feel tired, and my dream recall plummets. Here goes the dry spell! Time to forget about dreams and take a break for a few days  ::zzz::

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## FryingMan

Well I fell off the wagon a little.  I took 1x 4mg Galantamind capsule last night during a quick WBTB.   I've been off of all supplements (except multi-vitamins) for about 4 months now.  I've been missing the really awesome LDs and so gave in.   As a result I had my best LD of 2015, and one of my best ever perhaps.    I'm sort of bummed that it worked -- I really wanted to develop my natural ability.  I'm sure all of my work led to this great LD so it's not really so bad in the end.

In terms of supplements, this is the smallest possible dosage, I didn't take any melatonin at bedtime, and no extra choline (the 4mg galantamind has 50mg choline and some B5 in addition to 4mg galantamine).

It was a major victory in that I got almost immediately back to sleep after taking the G -- which I've never managed to do before.    My back to sleep has been very successful recently: I focus entirely on just relaxation: letting go entirely of mental and physical tension, continually letting go over and over until I fall asleep.

I wanted to get more lucids on the fumes of the galantamine, so I just kept going back to sleep on every waking.  I ended up sleeping until about 11 hours after bedtime.  I had more non-lucids after the LD, with just OK recall, and one entirely forgotten.  Not bad, usually I don't remember much at all after about 8 hours.

I think I may return to supplementing around once a month and see how it goes.

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## FryingMan

Breathing awareness in-dream: in a non-lucid last night I was under "magical" water and was carefully testing my breathing: it felt a little weird but I could breathe.

Another in a string of botched (missed) RCs last night: on a bus, the driver takes a wacky shortcut on a precipitously sloping gravel path (tilting 45+ degrees to the left, I'm sure we'll overturn), some guy dives into the bottom shelf of a chest of drawers in the aisles and it slams shut with him inside.   I think "Whoa!  There's some weird stuff going on here!  <Nose pinch> Hmm, air seems to be leaking out, better keep trying" and I don't get lucid.   AAAAAARGH!

I suppose there's a glass half-full interpretation to this: I'm on the bleeding edge of getting lucid a lot.   3 times this week, I'm either highly semi-lucid or actively doing RCs but just ignoring the results.   What gives?!    Those should all have been lucids….

In my early days, just even touching my nose in a dream would make me lucid.  Now, it seems like it takes much more concentration to get lucid, and nose pinch is becoming more and more vague.  In fact I had to fall back to the levitate test in my last lucid after a vague nose pinch result….strange, or normal progression?   Am I getting too accustomed to nose pinch somehow?

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## Memm

> Breathing awareness in-dream: in a non-lucid last night I was under "magical" water and was carefully testing my breathing: it felt a little weird but I could breathe.



This is what I'm worried about, that simply being aware is not enough. I've also started doing breath awareness but I'm tackling it a bit differently, I don't really care how long I can keep breathe attention I'm more concerned about when I forget about it, at that point I go "oh right, breath", it feels like a "lucid" moment and I'm back in business. I'm assuming that rather than simply being aware of my breath in my dreams it will act more as a jolt of memory and I'll start wondering what it is that I'm forgetting -> lucidity.

Other than that I've been a bit preoccupied with other things, last few weeks have been wasted on dealing with life problems, I still try to forget about it all every night, but other than good dream recall I'm not getting any lucidity, probably because I'm swimming through the day like through a fog currently, bit out of it.

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## FryingMan

re: breath awareness: I think of it both ways: 1) as a "trigger" moment when I realize I've lost it, and 2) as a continuous reminder to be aware of the moment and my state.    It's great that it's showed up a few times, I hope that it will become more and more and stronger and ultimately associated with dreams.

That it did not bring lucidity right away is not a concern.  Setting up the association with lucidity comes with time.    First step is getting any sort of awareness into dreams.

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## Ctharlhie

I'm starting to think this continuous breath awareness, any "all day awareness", is way too ambitious. This kind of mindfulness is the longterm result of intensive meditation practice, including retreats, I don't think it's plausible to force it from the word go. I'm switching to Puffin's sporadic awareness model now and I think perhaps it is more of a matter of the quality of awareness at sporadic points in the day and directly before a REM period than a more diffuse continuous awareness.

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## FryingMan

Well only 8.5 months to go, so we'll see.   I've seen some hopeful results from my recent raised intensity (LD, semis, doing RCs in-dream [near misses]).   It's all about finding that balance.   I have no opportunities for retreats, ever, so I must make every day my retreat.

I'm working in sporadic peaks of awareness/ critical reflection moments, but trying to maintain the background level of awareness at the same time.

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## Memm

> I'm starting to think this continuous breath awareness, any "all day awareness", is way too ambitious. This kind of mindfulness is the longterm result of intensive meditation practice, including retreats, I don't think it's plausible to force it from the word go. I'm switching to Puffin's sporadic awareness model now and I think perhaps it is more of a matter of the quality of awareness at sporadic points in the day and directly before a REM period than a more diffuse continuous awareness.



I'm thinking the most important times to practice are when under stress, just like in a dream, it's easy when you don't have anything to do but when you're in the middle of something like talking to people or driving then those are the times you need to have a "lucid" moment.

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## FryingMan

> I'm thinking the most important times to practice are when under stress, just like in a dream, it's easy when you don't have anything to do but when you're in the middle of something like talking to people or driving then those are the times you need to have a "lucid" moment.



These are clearly key times, any sort of engagement to the point of losing mindfulness, entering action/reaction "reflex" cycles.

But there are also a number of quiet/contemplative/thinking moments in dreams: my goal is to catch all these moments: the calm and the action-packed alike.

It's a hopeful sign that I at least recognized the dream-like scenario, even if there was too much "action" going on to properly convert the RC into lucidity.  I mean, the bus was going to tip over!

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## Dodge631

i think DV glitched out and my post never made it up, if there is a duplicate can a mod delete it? i cant see. but i hit post and it disappeared.

anyway i had said i liked reading these daily updates. lots of usefull info really. these conversations offer a lot. i like how you use spoilers in your DJ to basically censor sexual content, that way you can really post what you experienced and keep it suitable for a wider audience of readers. i had my first LD with full "caveman" mode last night and i used your idea of spoilers to cover the graphic scenes and that way i could detail the whole dream into the DJ and make it so those who dont wanna see it dont have to.

also your breathing techniques and awareness stuff has helped shape how i do mine. its definitely kept me on track with breath exercises and its now becoming better and more attainable.

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## FryingMan

^^ Glad to have a happy reader!   Your dream was awesome, by the way.   Very long, nice work!  
 Loved your spoiler sections, also very good length  :smiley: .   Love those leggings

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## Dodge631

> ^^ Glad to have a happy reader!   Your dream was awesome, by the way.   Very long, nice work!  
>  Loved your spoiler sections, also very good length .   Love those leggings…



appreciate the feedback! Thats one thing i always liked to have as well, people who read dream journals i posted. its fun to share dream, no two are alike! and agreed, love the leggings lol

edit: added more detail and changed a few things in the spoilers, think it makes them sound more appealing. I doubt i will put this much effort into typing my next lucid though lol. I hate english class here at college, but I typed more and with more detail in this dream journal than i do most assignments i get, and i did it for fun and had a bit of a passion doing it, but when it comes to english papers i hate writing them lol.

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## FryingMan

I think the more detail you write on a regular basis is good for your recall.   You're also teaching your subconscious that dream memories are important to you.

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## Ctharlhie

Hey FMan, check out this thread by cusp: http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...usey-mild.html

Seems a little silly maybe, but looks like a strong non-verbal anchor if you're still struggling with throat-lotus  :smiley:

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## FryingMan

I'm going to keep up with throat-dot/lotus.  I've never gotten anywhere with body separation approaches: I'm always awake and when I move I lose the progress of the relaxation and have to start all over again.    I'll keep this in my back pocket, though, thanks!

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## FryingMan

Day work down a bit for a few days, but starting yesterday I picked it up again at high intensity.   Lucid walks are excellent to re-establish WL awareness focus.

I'm getting in "21 breaths" sessions here and there but not enough, NOT ENOUGH!

I'm using mantras connected to my footsteps to bring back awareness in the day.  With each footstep I'll go through this little ditty (one line per step), rhythmically:

   I'm lucid
   I'm dreaming
   I'm walking            (footstep / gravity awareness)
   I'm breathing
   Location
   Location
   Location
   Location

then start over.   So an 8-step pattern.  I keep it up until I feel like I'm "fully back".

I've been doing lots more hand checks.  I'm trying to de-emphasize nose pinch IWL to avoid sinus issues.

Taking one day at a time.   "Just for today, I will work really diligently on maintaining continual awareness."    Really watching location transitions: in dreams I usually don't notice footsteps, if I'm moving and transitioning location and  I don't notice footsteps, I'm probably dreaming.   

Is this a waking location?    Keep an eye out for dream signs.   Pay close attention to conversations.  How odd is this?

And in general, "What's the situation, here & now?  Dream-like?"   I'm trying to do this a lot, and working for continuous questioning eventually.

Starting some prospective memory targets during the day, as well.   It's hard to always choose new and unexpected targets that still have a good chance of encountering during the day.   Some I get, some I miss.

Waking a lot around 5-6 hours, and generally always getting back to sleep.   Early night recall has been really low but I'm not emphasizing early wakings.   I generally always come out of late morning with 5-10 scenes.

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## Memm

You're doing awesome FryingMan!

All I can say for myself is that if I don't do my meditation / martial training then I get no dreams and I also feel a bit depressed.

If I do my meditation then I get great dream recall and I feel pretty good.

Clearly the only thing to do is more, more, more.

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## FryingMan

> You're doing awesome FryingMan!



Thanks!





> Clearly the only thing to do is more, more, more.



Yes, yes, but . more of WHAT!?   I'm basically trying a little bit of everything.  I suspect that the answer also includes being awake more during the night, which I *do not like*.   For now I'm putting my eggs heavily in the day-work basket, and hoping I can build strong enough awareness over time that I can get good, high-frequency DILDs eventually by punching through the fog of the dream state.   The "hammer" approach.

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## Ctharlhie

The double bind is that those associated with lucidity through day work (yoshi, hukif) wake up throughout the night :/

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## FryingMan

But Hukif always goes immediately back to sleep.  He's told me that if he's up for even 5 minutes, he never gets back to sleep.  So he doesn't do WBTB, and doesn't do WILD.    Is he just naturally a light sleeper?  Perhaps.   Not sure what to do about that.

----------


## Ctharlhie

> But Hukif always goes immediately back to sleep.  He's told me that if he's up for even 5 minutes, he never gets back to sleep.  So he doesn't do WBTB, and doesn't do WILD.    Is he just naturally a light sleeper?  Perhaps.   Not sure what to do about that.



Play the hand you're dealt. I may be a deep sleeper, but I also have a good memory. Others may have vivid imaginations, or high confidence. Your dream recall is way above average, especially given your aversion to waking during the night.

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## FryingMan

Well, yeah.   But how?   About the only thing I can think of is just keep trying really hard, without stop.    And turning recall into lucids: lots of daytime MILD?   What comes to mind is continual focus on "is this situation like my dreams?"   By now I know pretty darn well what is dream-like, and what is not.    And that comes through sometimes in dreams, when I get a jolt, but not always.    My waking memory's pretty good and my recall is great at times, but I think my access to memory in dreams is just average, meaning: pretty piss-poor.   I suppose more day-recall might help here.

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## Memm

> Yes, yes, but …. more of WHAT!?



I was referring to meditation. =]

Without seated (or walking / slow movement) practice of meditation I think it's very, very hard to keep up mindfulness during the day. I've been trying but unless I take time off to do my practice the rest of the day just does not pay off as much. 30 minutes to concentrate on just yourself seems to matter much more than all the other hours of the day.

This will of course change with more practice, but day practice just seems like little paper cuts at the issue of mindfulness while taking the time to do it with more focus is like driving a car into it.

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## FryingMan

^^ Yes.  I think it takes more of everything.  I hear you that "everything" is better with more meditation.

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## Memm

> ^^ Yes.  I think it takes more of everything.  I hear you that "everything" is better with more meditation.



I know it's hard to find time for it though, at the very least I try to do it as I'm falling asleep, but it's not as effective and doing it with full alertness. But you can do things like walking meditation to your car in the morning or something like that to fit it into the day schedule.

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## FryingMan

I've been calling the stuff we do in the day and night "work" but maybe I should re-label them "play" or just "practice."   I've slipped into doing day practice very seriously.   I think a more appropriate attitude is one of fun/lightheartedness.   View each lucid moment as a fun time, building towards future LDs.

There's lots of things I'm doing in the daytime, I listed some of them (the rhythmic walking mantra for one), but I think it's safe to summarize everything with just "paying attention" (with the subtext of recognizing the dream state).    It's easier to think of it that way, too, instead of trying to keep a long laundry list of things I "have to do" during the day to promote lucidity.

Just pay attention!   Enjoy/have fun doing it!

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## KonchogTashi

> Just pay attention!   Enjoy/have fun doing it!



A nice gem of wisdom here, thanks!!

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## Memm

> I've been calling the stuff we do in the day and night "work" but maybe I should re-label them "play" or just "practice."   I've slipped into doing day practice very seriously.   I think a more appropriate attitude is one of fun/lightheartedness.   View each lucid moment as a fun time, building towards future LDs.
> 
> There's lots of things I'm doing in the daytime, I listed some of them (the rhythmic walking mantra for one), but I think it's safe to summarize everything with just "paying attention" (with the subtext of recognizing the dream state).    It's easier to think of it that way, too, instead of trying to keep a long laundry list of things I "have to do" during the day to promote lucidity.
> 
> Just pay attention!   Enjoy/have fun doing it!



I definitely agree that it should all be playful, at least that's what the Buddhist nun I know keeps telling me haha, apparently I'm too serious a lot.

But I feel like maybe you shouldn't take on so much at a time as well, what I mean is when you practice you're just working on developing your mindfulness and concentration skills, don't worry about LDing while doing that, it's later in the day you turn from practising the skills to using them and directing your fortified mindfulness / concentration onto the intention of getting an LD. I think giving all your focus to one thing at a time will develop it faster.

----------


## FryingMan

Perhaps.   But I'm wary that the result will be mindfull non-lucids where I'm really tuned in to what's going on but still have no notion that I'm in a dream.    I remember Hukif telling me when I was working on ADA-RC stuff, that he told me "not only keep your mind on the <RC of your choice>, but remember *why* you're doing it: to recognize the dream."

I'll see how it goes.   I'm not super happy with progress (seems little to none so far?), but maybe I just need to wait, or maybe I need to do fewer things at the same time as you suggest.

----------


## Dodge631

one thing that has helped me is that "why" part you mentioned above. part of it initiating from seeing or experiencing something weird. I see weird things in my dreams all the time, things that make no sense. these are in my non lucids. so for me when i see stuff weird sometimes i do a rc in the dream and nothing changes in it and my mind thinks my environment is still IWL a lot of the time. i have to understand that i am doing it because something seems weird. so now when i rc i make sure it has a purpose, or it doesn't do me any good. now it seems i dont use rc at all when i am lucid. i just start becoming more aware when my mind starts picking up on strange things and hopefully comes to the conclusion that i am in a dream, and that usually gets me lucid. so make sure every questioning you do in reality has a "why is this this way?" moment. I am only a beginner but i hope that can be of some help. i can be a bit unorganized in my writing so please ask me to clarify better if it made no sense.

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## FryingMan

On second thought, I think you may be on to something, Memm.    Your point has been echoing around in my head for a while and it resonates well.   Someone/thing "upstairs" in my head definitely agrees with you.

I'll give this more focused, pure "playfully paying attention" the next 3 months.      I'll then need to add an evening "ramping up" and gathering of focus on lucid dreaming for the night.  That's probably a good thing to do, anyway.

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## dolphin

If you're recalling your dreams, your already paying attention. You need to pay attention to something in order to recall it, right?

In your dreams, you want pay attention to things dream related-conflicts with reality or actions/thoughts about dreaming. So, if you're doing day work, you should to pay attention to do those same things that you need to while your dreaming. You're practicing for the dream world.

For your night work, you should continue your day work as much as you can until become lucid in your dream. Your dreams occur at night so it doesn't make sense to do something very different.

You'll know you're making progress when you find yourself paying attention to the topic of dreaming in your dreams.

----------


## Memm

> but remember *why* you're doing it: to recognize the dream."



To me the why isn't to get lucid, it's to develop better concentration / sati. If your sati is strong enough you should theoretically simply go "my intention is to LD tonight" at bed time and you'll continue to remember that intention during your dreams, because your memory / mindfulness has been practised to the point where it is strong enough to do that. Otherwise it'll never be something you can control (get LD whenever you want), you'll always be at the mercy of what your state of mind just happens to be that night, if you're highly focused, well rested and feel good you get an LD and if you had a bad day and your mind is all over the place you don't get an LD, the point is to have some degree of control where your intention = what happens, rather than having an intention but the rest of you doesn't really feel like following along.

It's cliche but this is about merging body / mind / intention, so what you think is what you get. If you take martial artists as an example, the feats they do is because they control their bodies through intention, they want to do something and the body follows instantly, for most people the brain and the rest are almost two separate things that argue with each other. Similar with LDs, just because you want to remember to have an LD tonight doesn't mean the rest of your brain is going to agree, it takes meditation to calm the brain down until it accepts any and all commands you give it without fuss.

This I think is also why Stephen LaBerge's most successful technique in his book wasn't dream signs but doing prospective memory training.

----------


## FryingMan

dolphin and Memm, I think you're *both* right.    My mind is far from my control -- e.g., the many  times I can't get back to sleep after a WBTB.   And I frequently follow daydreaming thoughts when I should be getting back to sleep.    But for me the goal *is* lucid dreams.    If I can just get the thought of dreaming to appear in my dreams a lot more, I know I'll get lucid a lot.

Memm, you mentioned memory with regards to mindfulness, how does memory training come out of mindfulness practice, or should one do other things focused on memory?  PM exercises, or something else?

So for now I'll continue with focusing on *paying attention* more, both during waking and during dreaming.   Without scatting my thinking around too much, more focused.

I actually had an amazing string of very vivid, very present dreams last night.  I was just too involved with what was going on to remember to recognize I was dreaming.

An interesting side note, I actually remembered a fact (after a long struggle) in the dream that I frequently struggle to remember when awake (the name of a composer of a piece of classical music I heard in the dream).   I was really happy with that accomplishment.  Until I realized upon review of the dream I was thinking of another piece (not the one I actually heard) ….haha.   But still I did recall the name correctly in dream:  "B….B….B…[Oh come on, my son played a piano piece by him…]..B…Bar…BARTOK!   Bartok…woohoo!"

The piece I "misremembered" (but correctly recalled eventually the composer: "Romanian Folk Dances" by Bartok)




The piece I actually heard an excerpt from: 
(I particularly recommend from 00:00 to 1:23 and 14:46 to 15:25 [this latter excerpt is what I heard in my dream])
You can probably guess where my instrumental allegiance lies from these excerpts (but I'll never tell  :tongue2: ).

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## FryingMan

> For your night work, you should continue your day work as much as you can until become lucid in your dream. Your dreams occur at night so it doesn't make sense to do something very different.



What I call "night work": recall, WBTB, (M/W/DE)ILD, surely you don't mean not to do these things…?

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## Memm

> Memm, you mentioned memory with regards to mindfulness, how does memory training come out of mindfulness practice, or should one do other things focused on memory?  PM exercises, or something else?



In a lot of ways mindfulness _is_ memory training, but older languages tend to encompass so much more meaning in each word. There is a similar issues with Chinese words for martial arts, for example we say "turn the waist" in english but the Chinese word "kua" (that I read) really means waist / hips and much in between. Similar with "sung" which is often translated to "relax" but really means a whole bunch of other things. Getting off track but my point is don't think "mindfulness" is just "being aware" or something only to do with awareness.

Anyway.

I probably don't know all the ways but here is everything I can think of:

- Focusing on the breath calms down the mind, removing extra thoughts, this trains concentration, meaning you can zip from one object of attention to another and not get sidetracked

- The second part is the act of returning to the breath when you do get sidetracked, without memory, as in remembering what you were just doing, you would never come back to the breath, so this trains memory / PM

- The mind not getting sidetracked means it can spend more power on whatever your current attention is on, it's not just that though, the mind "opens up" and relaxes so whatever you focus on you remember much better

- It also I think trains the "inner eye" or "little spy inside the mind" (read this description somewhere) also known as "mindfulness", which is not something that ever really goes away, it's that ability of noticing what your current state is, or noticing that you're currently noticing, honestly I don't know how deep this rabbit hole goes  :Cheeky: 


The trick is if you simply get rid of all thought (which you can force to do) you get higher focus, and this trains concentration but not memory per se (although it affects it), so it needs to be a balance between concentration and coming back to the breath.

I'm not an expert but in my experience it's good to start with the focusing on just the breath and later when you've relaxed to let your mind wander to the noises you can hear, or the feelings in the body, or whatever else you can get distracted by and then returning back to the breath and then repeating that. The only warning with doing this is that it can make you hypersensitive when your mindfulness of the surroundings start to outweigh your concentration. I once got up from meditation and every light in the house seemed like the sun and even the ticking noise the clock on the wall was making made me dizzy, I had to pick a spot and just stare at it with all my focus for a few minutes to return to normal.

So imagine what a highly focused mind could do for getting you lucid. That was like an hour long meditation though and I haven't done anything similar since.

Anyway, have fun, the mind is very powerful and mysterious.


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

It occurred to me some things might be difficult to understand without having some degree of experience with meditation, or at least how deep it can go. I am by no means an expert and I encourage everyone to read as much as possible on the subject to gain a full understanding but I want to share what my own meditation session might feel like and maybe it might help a bit. I doubt I've even scratched the surface but personally I think breath meditation is pretty safe so you can experiment a bit, there are other subjects that you can meditate on (such as death) which I have never done and I definitely think should never be done without supervision from somebody very well trained.

So here is a break down of what I do / might happen, take it all with a grain of salt, just my experience, maybe somebody can admonish me for some of these. This particular example would be single-pointedness / calm abiding meditation.

1. I sit down on a chair (I can't sit in half-lotus or any lotus for long enough yet to really get anywhere, but on a chair I can easily sit for 30 mins or more)

2. Make sure my back is as straight as possible, don't hunch over

3. Close my eyes and focus on the breath going in and out of my nostrils, it might be hard to get the location at first but gets easier with practice, try not to move the "location" of your breath detection because it messes with your focus

4. At first my mind is still having thoughts but I just keep focusing on the breath as much as I can and relax

5. The more my mind calms down the more I also relax, relaxing also helps fix your posture because everything sinks downward the way it should

6. Mind quietens down more and more, still some stray thoughts here and there but it's getting better, the better it gets the more focus there is

7. At some point I'm relaxed enough that I stop controlling the breath and simply pay attention to it, if you try to force yourself not to control the breath then that won't work, but if you simply have the intention of not controlling it then that will eventually lead to not controlling it

8. I don't think about whether I am successfully not controlling the breath or not, I don't think about how long I'm sitting for or if I'm doing it right or anything like that

9. At some point the focus on the breath going in and out is all there is

10. At some point I might lose the breath, I might control it a bit just to find it again

11. At some point (if you sit long enough) the focus is so great that you lose your body and the breath going in and out at the point of your focus is all there is

12. When you "lose" the body you feel light and floaty, at this stage the focus is quite extreme, it's the kind of focus where you could probably track the beating wings on a fly  :wink2: 

13. I stay like this for a while, it's a great feeling, I don't want to get up anymore

14. I decide I've done enough and start coming around

15. Feeling returns to the body (if you lost it), the focus does not go away, I'm still highly focused

16. Slowly open eyes, take it easy

17. Massage face / head / ears / eyes / legs and anything else

18. Get up slowly and move around a bit (walking around helps)

19. Done! The focus gained is still with me, still highly focused, anything I look at is crisp in detail, I'm not distracted by any thoughts, I can sit down and do assignments or anything else with complete concentration


Don't worry about the senses thing, basically somewhere around #10 you can pay attention to your body and any sounds. For example let's say you meditate near your computer, you let the noise of the computer drag your attention from the breath for a moment, you "note" that your attention is no longer on your breath and when the noise is no longer of interest you return back to the breath. Other things you might "note" is the air, smell, your current feelings (emotional or just the body) etc...

Another way to practice the mindfulness part is to loosen up the focus and let your mind wander again then return to the breath.

Reaching #13 does take some practice and it's harder on some days than others, but once you get there once or twice you basically know "the path" your mind / body takes to get there and you can do it fairly quickly (like ~20 minutes).

Disclaimer: take with grain of salt, if you have a bad feeling stop, don't do anything stupid like meditating on a heavy subject (like death) without serious guidance / supervision, keep warm, don't get up too fast, and just generally take care of yourself

----------


## Ctharlhie

Hey, Memm, you're meditation practice sounds like it's going great! I've only dipped into the kind of state you're describing a handful of times. So I have to say in regards to this:





> 11. At some point (if you sit long enough) the focus is so great that you lose your body and the breath going in and out at the point of your focus is all there is
> 
> 12. When you "lose" the body you feel light and floaty, at this stage the focus is quite extreme, it's the kind of focus where you could probably track the beating wings on a fly 
> 
> 13. I stay like this for a while, it's a great feeling, I don't want to get up anymore
> 
> 14. I decide I've done enough and start coming around



Don't get up! You're actually developing a good degree of absorption here, maybe jhana even.

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## Ctharlhie

Awesome stuff with your in-dream recall , Frying (I also like Bartok) Last night in a dream I actually started recalling both my UK and Australian mobile numbers when I was giving them to a DC!

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## dolphin

> What I call "night work": recall, WBTB, (M/W/DE)ILD, surely you don't mean not to do these things…?



What I meant was don't completely disregard your day work at night. Continue your day work during your WBTB and include your intention to continue your day work during your dreams in your mantra.

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## Ctharlhie

> What I meant was don't completely disregard your day work at night. Continue your day work during your WBTB and include your intention to continue your day work during your dreams in your mantra.



Yeah, this^

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## Memm

> Don't get up! You're actually developing a good degree of absorption here, maybe jhana even.



Haha, still have to get up eventually, that's why the jhana's are not enlightenment, they're still temporary (even though some monks can stay like that for weeks) you still have to get up eventually and eat or whatnot.

From what I understand it is the first jhana yeah, but not perfected. Even if you don't reach this kind of focus you're still already working on your concentration / mindfulness, don't worry about the jhanas.

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## FryingMan

I had again very present, very vivid dreams last night, culminating in a final epic dream that was for the most part just like waking life (except for my "working" toy lightsaber and when I took a short ride hanging on to a quad copter drone).   But not a hint of "I'm dreaming."   Well, maybe one, tangentially, where I used my will to change the color of the blade.    Somehow I knew I could do that by concentrating and visualizing the change I wanted.

I recalled more dreams before this last one but I an de-emphasizing recall in order to notice wakings and get right back to sleep, and the 3-4 prior also vivid dreams were reduced to fragments.

Great dreams, but the ongoing lack of lucidity is very discouraging.    I'm going 3-4 weeks in between lucids despite very strong day practice. 

I forced myself back to sleep in the morning and continued to dream for about another sleep cycle.   These dreams (as is typical for after 8 hours of sleep) were also interesting, felt present, but very fragmented.

Paying attention is great for enhancing the experience (and memory) of the dream -- but not for lucidity apparently.   Heck, I'd almost prefer my dreams of a year ago where I'd get 4-6 pretty good LDs per month.

I'm really trying to avoid galantamine.   I feel using it regularly would be like "giving up."     

There's just one small step missing, getting the notion of "I'm dreaming" into my mind in a dream.   If I can somehow do that, with the vividness and presence, my lucidity will skyrocket.

I set long, strong intention again at bedtime last night for noticing wakings and going back to sleep and getting lucid in dreams, which wired me pretty awake.  I was able, though, to get to sleep without any melatonin.

The major BTS in the morning amidst traffic noise, etc. via concentration on the breath and continual releasing tension was a success.    I'm getting pretty good at that.   I need to somehow work in a touch more awareness in order to enter the dreams aware.

edit: the one great thing about continual emphasis on following the breath is that insomnia is not too upsetting any more.   Can't get back to sleep?  OK, let's just do a meditation session on the breath then.

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## Memm

Maybe doing some prospective memory exercises might help?

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## FryingMan

> Maybe doing some prospective memory exercises might help?



It's worth a shot.   Doing PM and intention/reflection worked for me in the beginning.    It's just so tedious continually choosing new targets that I'm bound to encounter during the day.

I'll try more daytime MILD work as well of the prior nights dreams and dreamsigns.

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## Memm

> It's just so tedious continually choosing new targets that I'm bound to encounter during the day.



I think the way the book suggests is pretty good, just a list of targets for the entire week, then you start from Monday again. Noticing that they never came up probably also builds PM so they don't all have to happen.

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## FryingMan

The thing is that all the targets in the book (well, many) have become permanent awareness boosts, like: putting my key in any lock, etc.    With my mindfulness work I notice these things during the waking day, but somehow not during dreams.   Hopefully returning to proper PM exercises will make the recognition moments "stronger."

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## Memm

Wouldn't it help to think that putting the keys in the lock is only a Monday PM event? On Tuesday it's irrelevant, I think the key here is to remember that you wanted to remember something including what that was, rather than simply noticing.

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## FryingMan

So I tried a different approach last night: working on "unbending intent."    Creating in my mind an unshakable, absolutely overwhelming intent, utter confidence, that I would have a lucid dream.  In particular, that I would have a lucid dream at 5am.

I went to bed later than I wanted, but at some point during the night, I woke with no recall and was bummed at first, but I quickly checked the level of darkness in the room and decided there was a lot more night left and drifted off back to sleep.

I then woke from a long, vivid, present, "bright", half-nightmare, semi-epic great dream.   So packed with dream-signs that it's about as close to lucidity one can get without being lucid.   I spent several minutes reviewing it for recording, then reached for my phone to record the main details, and noticed the time: *5:08am* (cue the sound track to the Twilight Zone)!!!!!

Took me about an hour to calm down enough to fall asleep again, which I did, and continued to dream, but not like the previous dream.

I think there is something significant in this notion that "I have an appointment with lucidity" during the night, a very important appointment, one that I should be looking out for.  Utter, complete confidence that I will remember to recognize the dream state.

I think this is just another way of wording Memm's notion that "the night is for (lucid) dreaming."

It bears more serious experimentation.

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## Memm

I think I mentioned this before but I think that amount of intensity is actually bad because the entire reason we don't realise that we're dreaming is that we're too busy (too intent / preoccupied) with what we're currently doing in the dream to even fathom that we might be dreaming.

When we were talking about PM exercises I actually dreamt that a new book on lucid dreaming came out and I was reading it and even discussing the new content, too preoccupied with that to notice it was a dream. Really aiming for a more calm and mindful approach I'd say, imagine if the dream was just about you sitting there and doing absolutely nothing, I think you'd notice it's a dream right away since you're not busy with anything in particular.

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## FryingMan

I may have made it sound more intense than it was.  

I think it's the difference between "gee, I sure hope I get lucid tonight" and being more focused.   Like you said before, "knowing that the night is for lucid dreaming."   That lucid dreaming *is what you do* in the night.   Not pass out and maybe, perhaps if the stars all align properly, perhaps once in a rare while get lucid.

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## Memm

Ah, yeah. It's too bad that it also takes some work just to not worry about your day / tomorrow long enough to get into that mental state that it's time to sleep and LD.

We have picked up so many bad habits.  ::disconcerted:: 

I've been skipping out on my practise lately because my excuse is life is kinda crappy at the moment, but that's no excuse if I want to LD; so I *will* do meditation before bed _every night_ no matter what from now on, and I'm going to write up a list of PM targets for each day of the week and stick to that.

No more falling off the wagon.

Oh and I'm going to journal it so that if I'm missing an entry you can tell me off.  ::D: 


Here's a quick PM list, may modify it as I get new ideas:




```
Monday
- see a red car
- feed cat
- read a comic

Tuesday
- go on dreamviews
- drink water
- hear a loud noise 

Wednesday
- check facebook
- open door for cat
- stop at a red light

Thursday
- practice anything taichi related
- get txt
- see a bicycle

Friday
- charge phone
- eat something sweet
- talk to someone

Saturday
- play a game
- feel something metallic
- notice a strong smell

Sunday
- get an email
- shower
- be in a dream
```

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## FryingMan

> I've been skipping out on my practise lately because my excuse is life is kinda crappy at the moment, but that's no excuse if I want to LD



Sounds like my insomnia moments.  Wallowing  there feeling sorry for myself for having this stupid brain that doesn't go back to sleep on command and generate hour-long vivid stable LDs.   I have to build firm resolve, and say, "OK, you want to LD, or even just to dream some more?  Get your a$$ down to relaxing and falling asleep.  You know what it takes, so stop wasting time."

Relaxation is hard work!

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## Memm

Haha very true, also that trick of just meditating instead of worrying about falling asleep knocks me out pretty fast, it's really good.

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## FryingMan

Catch-22.   If I would just calm down and be aware of my thoughts and surroundings in a dream, I'd surely stop moving/reacting and notice the dream state frequently.     But I'm too busy moving & reacting to slow down and notice.

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## dolphin

Imagine stopping at a dream sign while you're driving through the dream.

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## Memm

Data!

Clipboard-1.jpg

So far I've noticed:

- The more vague the PM the harder it is to notice it, play _the_ *some game* instead of play _a_ game. Attach senses see / touch feel / smell etc...
- If you can't get decent sleep it doesn't seem to matter what else you do  :Sad:

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## FryingMan

The meditation I'm getting in is mostly of the walking-variety.

Daytime awareness tweak: I'm working on strong location awareness on transitions, with one-two deep breaths to get centered in the present moment on all major location transitions.    Just a few seconds, but really trying to peak up the critical faculties on a reasonably frequent basis throughout the day.

Very late nights working this week on an important project deadline, so 2 nights of basically no recall and being very very tired, but last night I had several semi-epics and a semi-lucid sexy time at the end (and one either real or a false WILD partial-transition where I felt vibrations, my dream body separating loose from my waking body, and I called to my father to "pick me up" [meaning pick up my dream body], so I could enter the dream, but no visual dream formed).

full dj: 2015-04-17 the universe owed me a couple semi-epics and a sex-fest after 2 no recall nights - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## FryingMan

> «You have to force yourself to do something even when you don't have any desire. This is how your spirit and character is tempered. You have to overcome yourself, to step over your ego, your weakness. When you don't have any power left you have to move further relying on your spirit»



Went on a nice dream/meditation walk today, by the end of it I was a bit tired of thinking about dreaming, doing RCs, building intention for the night, etc.   But I'm going to keep on doing it, anyway  :smiley: .

I did actual physical handwriting last night for about 15 minutes for setting intention.  Turned up intention to very high, because I think it just hasn't been strong enough recently.   Fitful, not restful sleep for what seemed the first half of the night (that happens when intention is too strong/forceful sometimes at bedtime), stayed in bed a long time, made it back to sleep in the late morning with the help of  breathing/lotus-in-throat meditation, and ended up with a lot of little pieces of dreams recalled.

I still have great hope for meditation: it's really clear how my dreaming mind is jumpy, fogged, unclear, unsettledif I can just get the practice of observing my mind strong enough for long enough, I think this will result in more lucidity.

Haven't really been setting goals, other than general ones, for dream actions or for getting lucid.   Need to get back to that, and to tracking the night I think via waking recording of dream recall, and to noticing wakings more throughout the night.

Non-lucid dreaming generally still very very good, lots of recall, a lot of presence ("I'm there"), boldness with the dream ladies  :Awesome Dance: , just need to get lucidity back higher on the importance scale.

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## Memm

> I still have great hope for meditation: it's really clear how my dreaming mind is jumpy, fogged, unclear, unsettled…



While I was driving home today I had the thought: what's the difference between my current state of mind / awareness and how I am in my dreams?

And I realised there was no difference.  ::?: 

I wasn't even considering that question in a particularly lucid way, I could have just as easily been pondering it in a dream.

So I remembered what being lucid felt like in a dream and tried to apply that instead, it did produce an entirely different feeling. But it was also very fleeting.

Might try applying the "lucid feeling" to my meditation just to see if that produces anything interesting.

My current meditation practice has definitely increased my happiness / focus level, but I think perhaps mindfulness hasn't been building as fast, mostly just single-pointedness. So I can't say I'm disappointed in my progress, at least for life in general. : )

Now that I'm a bit happier I'm sure focusing on LDing will be easier too.

Also I'm still keeping records in Excel but it occurred to me that there's much more going on usually than the data I'm building, so it doesn't really paint much of a complete picture, although it's fun seeing trends in the numbers.

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## FryingMan

> While I was driving home today I had the thought: *what's the difference between my current state of mind / awareness and how I am in my dreams*?
> 
> And I realised there was no difference.



Well for me there's one HUGE difference: in dreams, unless I'm lucid (or nearly so), I'm *almost *never* thinking about dreaming*.    And this is somewhat odd, since in waking life, for the past 1 3/4 years, I've been thinking about lucid dreaming all through the day, every day.   I even made some half-jokes about this, that my absolutely guaranteed dream sign in every dream is: not thinking about dreaming.      But this is serious, too: just getting the thought of "dream" into a dream can be enough to snowball into lucidity.  Such a small thing, yet…so huge.    

In the early days of practice, this thinking of dreams was new and showed up in dreams, but now I seem to have become accustomed to thinking of dreams during the day, and seems to be filtered out by my brain's "day residue accumulator" that decides what subjects to present in dreams… how to combat this?  Stop thinking of dreaming during the day for a while?  Think of dreaming less during the day?   Somehow that seems not right, but...

LaBerge may have recognized the fundamental truth back in ETWOLD: lucid dreaming is all about remembering to remember...

What is this (not remembering dreaming) a failure of?  Memory (general/life)?  Intention?  Prospective memory?

Also, in dreams, my mind is usually firmly stuck in action/reaction loops.   Only once recently in a dream do I recall recognizing my rising frenzied reaction to a stressful situation and calming myself down.

Another thing: a lot of my dreams are quite short (as best I can determine from my recall): scenes jump around a lot.  With each scene change it's like the universe begins anew and I must start from scratch fighting for lucidity.   With longer, vivid, more stable dreams, lucidity seems more attainable.   I use this as one of my critical reflection questions: have I been in one stable location for a long time?   But if my mind/memory gets fully "reset" each time, that's harder to accomplish.

Meta-cognition, being aware of one's thoughts (which is, basically, meditation/mindfulness), also seems the key.

So, as always, it comes down to: self-awareness, and memory….

I set strong intention again last night, and had a long insomnia period in the middle of the night.   I officially tried a WILD at one point and got almost all the way to sleep, perhaps even a flash of a dreamlet, before I got too uncomfortable, and had to turn over, and just aimed directly for sleep.
Maybe this strong intention is doing precisely its job: disturbing my unconscious/unaware sleep?  That's sort of unfortunate if true, because the quality of sleep is worse.   Maybe I just need to work on returning to sleep faster from the wakings.

Recalled some nice scenes later, including a magical crystal/snowflake/fractal cloud in the night sky, and a beautiful petite girlfriend who was a government official whose official uniform really turned me on  :smiley: .   Although, I was also stuck in a loop of concern about all my high tech items (laptops, video cameras) getting stolen, and how I really shouldn't put them out on the fence outside.

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## FryingMan

April wrap-up: some great non-lucids, but not much happening lucidly.

May has begun with LDs two days in a row in the first week.    Flying is making a major appearance recently, to the point of being a major dream sign (including the urge to fly).   7 out of 8 dreams recently in one night were flying dreams, that was a really amazing night with recall spread over multiple sleep cycles.

Breathing awareness…..bleah, not happening much.   Getting the odd meditation session in, just the other day I did 30 minutes.  Seated sure makes a difference versus lying supine for avoiding laxity.

I've slowly been working back in location awareness.    But maybe that's ill-considered.   Ctharlhie says "use your strengths," which for me is (generally) recall.   What does having great recall mean?   It means I'm very familiar with my dreams.    There are so many dream signs, though, should I pick one or think of all of them?     In the end, perhaps what this means is that "dream feeling" ADA/RC style may be the way to go.   Location takes a lot of cognition.   "Dream feeling" is more of a instant holistic check of the overall situation.   

So I may supplant breathing with ADA/RC "dream feeling" for a few months, maybe the rest of the year.  It has a good feel to it (haha).

And nothing matters more than good sleep.   Without sufficient rest, the night is just one big black box of nothingness.

Some BTS successes, and some failures.    More seated meditation is required to tame this unruly mind so that it performs on cue.

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## Memm

So, it's been a while.

I've noticed something that might be interesting the last week or so, if I focus on vision while falling asleep (just looking at the darkness) and ignore thoughts I seem to get much more vivid and easier to remember dreams.

I know there are areas of the body that have interesting affects if focused on, maybe good to experiment with some of the ones related to dreaming.

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## FryingMan

I've had quite a week!  5 LDs Saturday night, 3 Sunday night (TOTM basic(I)), and one last night (TOTM advanced (I)).   The two nights in between I got to bed too late and didn't do WBTB.   Getting to bed early and being well rested and sleeping long enough, surprise surprise, seems incredibly I portent to getting lucid.   Oh, I'm on a business trip so I'm sleeping alone in a very dark room (blackout curtains!  Hooray!).  I hope this stays with me upon return.   I think keeping yourself off balance and not stuck in a routine helps with lucidity as well.

I basically dedicated all of Saturday to one giant lucid / critical evaluation fest.  It seems to have worked in a big way!  (combined with the early-to-bed timing)

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## FryingMan

And another LD last night.   That's 9-10 in 7 days, LDing in 4 out of the 7 last nights (5, 2-3 [across 3 cycles], 1, 1), beating my previous best of 7 in 10 days (ignoring the 10-15 DEILD chain I had in a single night last summer).   Better than the quantity is the quality: about half with high awareness ("TOTM-worthy": I got both totm basic (i) and totm advanced (i), my first totm advanced).

It seems as if my awareness has been waiting for me to get my sleep right.     On the nights where I've gotten lucid this week I've gotten to bed "early" (10pm is early for me), and I have avoided alcohol.    I drank 2 nights ago and hardly recalled anything at all.     Alcohol + too-late to bed = bad dreaming, no alcohol and to bed reasonably on time = excellent dreaming.    

I've long suspected my higher erratic bedtimes (varying by as much as 3-4 hours per night) we keeping me off my best.   This seems like solid proof of that theory.

Last night I remembered my goal to engage the dream.  I turned on a sink in a kitchen and stuck my hands in the running water.  Felt totally waking-like, and doing this really brightened the dream and brought it into good focus.  I also read the lettering on the dishwasher.   Took a piece of pizza out of the fridge and ate it (without much attention unfortunately, but it was uncooked anyway).   Then I went out a door and encountered a fast, wide river of meat: like flattened bacon or prociuto.    Went on for a while longer.  Several solid minutes of awareness, very enjoyable!

For LDing to happen there must be a "perfect storm" of "just right" conditions (at least for me).    I'm learning that sleep schedule is extremely important for me and is a major part of those conditions.

Keep that day work up, keep it high, build dream recall super high, get your sleep right, and at some point, all the pieces will come together.

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## FryingMan

2 more LDs last night: 1 pseudo (or real maybe) WILD, then one short DILD where I just "instantly knew" I was dreaming and sort of "forced" myself into lucidity.  The thinking was like "come one, this *must* be a dream" with no outstanding clues that I could think of.   Maybe a connection to memory that I intended to get lucid again after waking from the first WILD-like dream?

2 WBTBs, (fairly short, just getting up to pee, but fairly long BTS).  I even had 2 glasses of wine in the evening (non-lucid recall was crap, though).

I've got a big reservoir of confidence going.  It's a good place to be.  This is possibly my biggest/best run yet, LDs in 5 out of the last 8 nights.    Sleep conditions excellent: alone in bed, dark room, very quiet (still had earplugs in).   I'm travelling and last night was yet another new location (well I've been here before, with family, but still a non-typical location).

Major achievement last night in the WILD in that I initiated a sexy-time where the DC did not shrink to doll-size and I got a waking-level visual detailed POV eyeful of the "good bits" right there in front of me.   Initiated action with the steady POV view.   None of the usual dream-like sexy time troubles: nothing was vague, and things "fit" just right.  Still woke in just a few seconds into it, but I was so elated that I finally reached this milestone.

So basically, I'm hitting on all my goals right now (well, minus meditation, but day awareness work still high): confidence, dedication, WBTB are really in full swing.

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## Memm

You're really on a roll FryingMan congrats!

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## FryingMan

Thanks, it's been a blast!   Another lesson learned: eating a large, carb-loaded meal right before bed is also a bad idea: slept very fitfully and with poor recall last night.

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## FryingMan

Travel, jet lag and not sleeping well for about a week due to my family situation (lost a parent a few days ago) has put dreaming on the back burner.  Sleep schedule all over the map but recall has started to make a bit of a comeback the last couple of long sleeps I've had.

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## FryingMan

Well here we are at the half-way point of 2015.   I feel like I've made some really considerable progress, particularly that LD hot streak towards the end of May was really great.   But waking life situations have really interfered with dreaming for most of June.   There were some near-lucid dreams a week or so back, and I feel like I'm starting to make my way back.    Regular sleep schedule and getting to bed early enough is a top priority, as is getting my mind back on dreaming for more of the day.

Sitting meditation is still suffering due to procrastination.    Ah heck I'll go do a session right now, since the house is quiet.    Need to start making life decisions (stay up late and watch a movie or get to bed) in favor of dreaming again.

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## Zaephr

I'm making a lot of progress on my own as well. After a long dry spell I'm going to try using your "Awareness of Breath" concept to assist me in my own oneironaut adventures. Doing so many exercises for your lucid dreaming journey is quite the task and I can see how it can be overwhelming at times.

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## FryingMan

I've had excellent dreaming nights about 4 nights in a row.   One very high awareness LD (but short, wife made noise in house that woke me, ARGH!) where I started with my full lucid ritual, one very low awareness LD next night, and all nights generally long and with very vivid dreams.   One epic two nights ago, and a string of interesting dreams last night as well.

Sleep schedule not that great but I'm out of the city in my "lucid hideout" sleeping solo in the bed where I got my first LD ever  :smiley: , and it's super quiet here and I can sleep in just about as late as I want.

I've had back-to-sleep success just about every single night, each time adding more dreaming time.

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## FryingMan

Dreams a bit weak recently, poor fragmented recall, mostly due to poor sleep (bedtime) schedule I bet (and family stress).   I did get a short LD this morning, but it was low awareness and I went right for girly action and even that didn't work out as her mouth collapsed in on itself and got all wrinkly when I tried to kiss her.  Bleh.   The non-lucid parts were way more interesting.

I've been off the ball on critical reflection right in the moment a LOT recently: it's always delayed.   I get caught up in the moment first, then only afterwards when doing a mental review do I notice the missed opportunities for state reflection (i.e., "am I dreaming?").   Big family argument, son on a rampage, wasn't until later that I realized "aw man, that was time for a RC."  Cat was furiously trying to dig something out of its mouth/stuck in its teeth, all I could do was watch in fascination and take the cat to my wife to deal with it (haha, hey, I was working), and again only afterwards "Oh man, another missed 'odd' moment".   I did the RC then, but it was too late.    With the way my dreams transition all the time I don't have the luxury of reviewing prior moments, I must catch the moment as it happens.   I used to do that a lot better and more consistently in dreams last year.

Sounds like a good PM target to work on: "the next time anything odd happens, I will reflect on my state."     Also generally means I'm a bit weak on the mindfulness.

edit: On the plus side, I've realized that I'm more aware of the process of falling asleep, usually in fairly late morning.  I will notice the change in the "feel" of my mind as I descend into sleep.  I hope this is a good sign for future WILD attempts.

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## FryingMan

Really picked up the day work in the last couple days.   Staying mindful almost all the time.   Dreaming still just "meh" due to crazy bedtimes, but a few epics or semi-epics here and there.   Got lucid late this morning after waking up and  falling back asleep while doing recall (great way to re-enter dreams, if you're still tired enough!) into my last dream, got lucid quickly, did advanced II TOTM, and generally had a great time.

Full DJ: 2015-07-2 LD #127, beer garden, tent, shiny boots, flashlights, bacon, talking with coatrack - Dream Journals - Lucid Dreaming - Dream Views

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## FryingMan

I've now listened to PercyLucid's MILD audio class all the way through, and it was worth the time.   First track there's a lot of review, but a few important new items, and the 2nd and 3rd tracks have some really good ideas and way of approaching the practice.

And I have to say, WBTB is magic, check out this DJ entry: TOTM-fest, maybe the best ever LD: long, multiple scenes, multiple dream saves.

It wasn't even all that long being up, but I did voice record notes from prior dreams (about 3 minutes worth of voice notes).   But it took me a long time (probably an hour) to get back to sleep, so that counts as a fairly long WBTB.

Being tired during the day is worth it if it means regular experiences of that caliber.  Oh my, yes.   It took about 18 minutes of voice notes to get it all down!

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## LouaiB

You're really dedicated man!
Nice seeing ya so fired up  ::D:

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## FryingMan

Thanks!   FryingMan's "Three D's" of lucid dreaming: *D*edication, *D*iligence, *D*etermination.

Whatever you want to excel in must be *really important* to you, and you must love doing it.

I had a WILD/FA-like "bed ejection" LD last night that never went visual but lasted about 30 seconds.  Pretty cool, but getting visuals would have been better.   It took me *hours* to get back to sleep after WBTB.   At one point I resolved to totally relax (for the 3rd or 4th time, sigh), and I went *deep*, really fast, right into REM atonia buzzing.   I got a bit excited, but stayed calm.   I felt my dream body (legs, which were elevated over my head with the raising of the foot of the bed), but didn't want to move them too much because I could also sense my waking legs in their original position.    Waited patiently for visuals but instead  I think fell asleep non-lucidly.

Followed by a FA with delayed realization.   I've been getting these delayed lucidities more.  I think this is a sign of higher awareness kicking in, and of continuous daytime critical reflection.   I was moving around the "house" after "waking up" and scooting out of my room, getting a vacuum cleaner to suck up the scary spiders (high res with beady little nasty spider eyes, looking at me!  At least they were mostly normal sized except for the original "brood mother" spider that was larger) that had inexplicably strung a lot of webs only about 1 foot above my bed.   It's fascinating how expectation works: saw a spider in the corner where the two walls meet near my bed, look at it, think is it dead?  It's moving, gets a bit bigger, I back up away from bed, see more spiders, then see spider webs with the spiders sitting on them.   My SC was summoning them all from my expectation!

Then  I was talking to my best friend who was playing a sexy video game on the computer but for some reason he wasn't answering me when I asked what the game was called.  I asked him several times and he never answered.

Then I thought I should go vacuum up those nasty spiders and just stopped in my tracks and thought "spiders?   Wait…<nose pinch>..I'm dreaming!"

I felt really foolish for just walking around doing mundane things in the "apartment" instead of getting lucid right away at the sight of the spiders.   Normally I either get lucid right away at the shocking event, or never get lucid.   I have gotten "reflect upon the (dream) past" lucidity before but it's fairly rare.    

Better late than never, though!

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## FryingMan

My general approach has transformed somewhat during the year.    This has turned into a big wrap-up I can consider this my end of 2 years of practice summary (in another week or so is my 2nd anniversary of LD practice beginning).

Mindfulness has always been at the top of the list.   And dedication/determination/diligence.    

WBTB has fallen to the wayside, along with noticing wakings in general, and that may be the reason for not making leaps and bounds in LD frequency.   But I've picked it up again:  Last 3 nights: 

* 3 nights ago: to-bed mostly on-time (a bit late, midnight-ish) WBTB, medium-long BTS (an hour?), awesome long multi-scene DILD followed, 2 out of 3 TotM attempts succeeded.   

* 2 nights ago: late to bed (2:30am), no WBTB, no LDs, poor recall.  

* Last night: to bed ON TIME (10:30pm), WBTB @ 5 hrs, long BTS, LDs followed.    

Meditation: nope.   At least, not formal, sit, close your eyes, follow your breathing for 30 minutes.     I wish I could get this started and keep it going.  I end up working on it while trying to fall asleep, but daytime practice  I think would make everything  better.

Breathing: just slightly.   I'm more focused on general mindfulness/critical reflection that strictly only following the breath.   Still, using the breath as a trigger to return to mindfulness.

Pay attention: this is the name of the game.   Pay attention to all conscious moments, experiences, the present.   Bring your attention back again and again, all through the day.   And always keep at least a little of that attention on evaluating your state: (wake/dream).    

Paying attention when awake leads to paying attention when dreaming, equals dream awareness, and is an important component in good recall.  _You can't remember something well that you're not paying attention to!_

Also, I've been trying to remember dreams without night-time recording all the way through to morning, over multiple wakings.   I've gotten decent at it.  I think this is a great exercise for stretching the size and duration of dream memory.   It takes a lot of time though, reviewing dreams on every waking, and especially in the final waking of the day.   Going over them again, and again, and again.

My big burst of LDs back in May showed me that indeed I can be a high frequency lucid dreamer.

The next big push is: positive attitude, excitement, goals, and *timing* (WBTB), while maintaining all the other stuff I've done this year.

2 week vacation coming up starting tomorrow: hopefully the change of location and all the new sights and experiences will lead to awesome LDs!

Mantras: general activity mantra: "I'm lucid, I'm dreaming, I'm <activity>, I'm breathing"   where activity is walking/driving/cooking/working/etc.  Generally keep this going when not mentally engaged in work or conversation.  When walking I say each phrase with each step.   Sometimes I'll add in "location, location, I stay aware of location."  Like this:

I'm lucid, I'm dreaming, I'm walking, I'm breathing (4 steps)
I'm lucid, I'm dreaming, I'm walking, I'm breathing (4 steps)
I'm lucid, I'm dreaming, I'm walking, I'm breathing (4 steps)
Location (2 steps)
Location (2 steps)
I'm aware -- of my location (3-4 steps).

then repeat.   Sometimes I'll stop the mantra for a full-awarenes inhale and exhale.

Less often, then, I'll add in PercyLucid's mantra: "I WILL have lucid dreams TONIGHT -- or VERY SOON", generating a lot of excitement.

Then sometimes "I'm a lucid dreamer!   Lucid dreaming is easy for me!"

"I remember my dreams!  I remember ALL of my dreams!   My dreams are precious to me, and remembering them is so very very important!"

"Thank you for all of my dreaming experiences!"

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## FryingMan

Eek almost 2 months with no updates?!  Well I was on vacation for 3 weeks (had a few LDs on vacation but not a ton).

Dedication: still strong.
Seated meditation: just not happening.  It's still on my "I need to do this" list.
Breath focus: not really focusing on breath, other than as an additional sort of anchor once I'm having a raised awareness moment.

I'm focusing a lot now on feelings of movement: particularly the feeling of using my legs to walk.   If I'm moving without noticing my legs I'm probably dreaming.  I had one brief LD a while ago where I felt light on my feet (I was running fast with ease, a dream sign) and felt the rub of the jeans on my legs and I got lucid shortly after that.

More recently I'm focusing on creating memory anchors throughout the day, and thinking back periodically to my previous memory anchor.  I try to remember all of these at bedtime during a day review of memories.  The ultimate goal here is realizing in a dream that my last memory anchor was going to bed and getting lucid.   We'll see how this goes!   Memory is, after all, the "forgotten fundamental!"

And of course, just being fully present in the moment.  Somewhat slacking from this but still forms a lot of my day.

I'm skimming through "The Lucid Dreamer's Manual: From Basics to Beyond" by Marc VanDeKeere (google will find the ebook).  
I really like a lot of what he says.   He focuses on awareness, and in particular, "awareness of awareness."    Awareness of sense experience is just observation IMO, which is the failing of pure ADA.   It's fine to notice the senses, but for lucidity you must notice yourself noticing, and more importantly, realize *why* you're noticing this (goal: to recognize the dream state).   I like to term this awareness with a goal as "vigilance."  I don't like his recommendation of particular RCs and he discusses the "lack of logic" in dreams as opposed to the (more accurate IMO) impaired access to memory, but I forgive him for his extensive emphasis on awareness.  

Results: I had about 11 LDs from 8/31 through 10/1.  A pretty good month for me.   4 nights of double LDs.    None particularly long though.   In discussions with Sensei and PercyLucid I think I should probably start to emphasize getting lucid more at night than recalling a lot of fragments and non-lucids.    Focus on catching those night-time wakings and turning them into LD opportunities.  Focus on stabilization or trying PercyLucid's L-DEILD approach to "give up" a bad LD in order to re-enter into a better one.

In general my non-lucid recall is in an extended downturn.   Not a lot of semi-lucids (some but not tons).   Epics recently rare (although I had one just a week or so ago).    Yet LD frequency up quite a bit (almost double my long-term average LD rate).    Evidence perhaps for conserving day work energy for the night?

Onwards!

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## FryingMan

Jet lag from the last business trip was really bad.  About 3 weeks to recover after the return trip.   It's dark in my home location, so not a lot of light to help the body adjust.   Dreaming is just now really picking up again.   Not lucid yet, but close in many cases, definitely semi-lucid, and most importantly, a slew of non-lucid epics.   Long, present, vivid, amazing dreams.   Really fun.

I have been away from mantra reciting for a while.   Need to return to it: It is now: "Remember -- I'm dreaming!"

I posted my grand "Unified Theory of Lucid Dreaming" a little while back.    I think this describes all one needs to know: basically, *be* a lucid person 24x7, reflect upon your experiences, and recall them.   The night should not be any different from the day: a time to be present in your experiences, and to reflect upon them (in particular, to be on the lookout for the dream state).

Today on a lucid walk I decided to try categorizing different kinds of experiences: 

+ highly dynamic experience (I'm moving, I'm moving and people around me are moving, or I'm involved in a conversation).  These experiences   require full power observation and reflection.

+ medium dynamic experience (I'm stationary, perhaps in a moving vehicle, or people around me are moving, like at a subway stop where I'm not getting off, or I'm listening to a conversation which I'm not participating in, or something in particular grabs my attention).

+ low dynamic experience.  I'm stationary, people around me are stationary, I'm alone.    I allow myself to get a bit more lost in thoughts for longer.   Good time to recall dreams, goals, etc.

Combinations of multiple mediums can result in a high level of dynamism.

This "awareness of dynamism" is something I'm hoping to get myself to notice in dreams.   In dreams I'm frequently moving, much more than in waking life.    To really notice static vs. dynamic scenarios would be great.

I'm now reading "Mindfulness in Plain English."  I like it a lot so far.    LD practice is close to, but not exactly the same sort of mindfulness.   "Pure" mindfulness is non-judgmental.   But in LD practice, we must reflect and discriminate: to notice the dream-like.   But I feel these two  disciplines are "joined at the hip," and are more similar than they are different.

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## Patjunfa

Will you do a summary of the year? Where you were at to begin, what were highlights and what contributed too, significant dry spells, how far towards your aims you got, What you think is needed to bring you further if you aim too? Fair play to you, you kept up a fairly good log of your efforts in 2015

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## FryingMan

Yes I realize I've been away for a little while.        A whole year!    Generally good for mindfulness, good for things like walking meditation, good for formulating my ultimate summing up of all dreaming practice, but just didn't get myself to do more than a handful of official seated (I actually do lying down) meditation.    

I don't detect an extremely drastic change in LD frequency.   A slight uptick from 2014.   I had bigger bursts of LDs,  but I still hit hot and cold spells, the cold spells lasting generally 1-3 weeks.





> 2015: Year of the Breath, meditation, WBTB, confidence and dedication



Some things went better than others.

Breath: didn't pan out, entirely.   I had a few breath-awareness moments in dreams earlier on, but I let this slip.   However, with my focus shifting to general "paying attention," the breath is always the way I begin a "engage the present experience" moment.    So intense focus on breath as a continuous awareness didn't work out, but noticing it more and more and using it as a trigger saw some progress.

Meditation: as I mentioned, seated meditation didn't pan out.   But walking meditation did, and I look forwards to more of this in 2016, including (hopefully) more official seated meditation sesisons.   In particular, 

WBTB: well, I did this for a while, intensely (2 weeks?).   Got me tired.     I just *do not like* getting up out of bed and losing my drowsiness.      I moved towards micro-WBTBs and beginning to optimize the night for lucidity rather than recall.    Some mixed success with this.

Confidence: not bad.  I generally trust my ability to LD if I can manage to get the conditions right, like getting to bed on time.     But I hit long periods of time where I just didn't get to bed on time.

Dedication: very good!   Kept practice up pretty much all year.

But there was one standout improvement: I've noticed I'm much closer to my dreams now.   As long as I'm reasonably well rested, the majority of the dreams towards the 2nd part of the night are very vivid and present, most of the time.    Dreams feel now to me like waking memories.  Sometimes I'm amazed that "oh, you mean *that* was a *dream*!?".

This is a wonderful thing, but can be tricky for lucidity.   My dreams are not absolutely filled with extremely bizarre things.   In a lot of my "vivid/present" dreams, I feel totally awake.  In fact I'll often have a thought like, "I wonder if I can fly....maybe, even though I'm awake, I can....oh, look, I can fly!" haha.

Probably the big event of my year was my finally codifying my "unified theory of lucid dreaming."   It all boils down to attention, reflection, and recall.   These are the primary factors, the ones that take years to develop.   There are many secondary, more immediate but still important factors: sleep hygiene, intention, and so forth.

So, the big thing in 2015 was the development that I really feel "it's me here" in the dream, very strongly, much, much more.    

I will probably choose a major attention target in 2016 to focus on developing on a continuous basis throughout the day.  Either location or objects, both of which I tend to notice (objects in particular) and find myself thinking about in almost every dream, perhaps a combination of both.

What to do to get further?   Keep going with attention, reflection, and recall.   And focus on paying attention to the night much more.  Notice wakings again, with micro-WBTBs.

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## AstralMango

> Breath: didn't pan out, entirely.   I had a few breath-awareness moments in dreams earlier on, but I let this slip.   However, with my focus shifting to general "paying attention," the breath is always the way I begin a "engage the present experience" moment.    So intense focus on breath as a continuous awareness didn't work out, but noticing it more and more and using it as a trigger saw some progress.



Interesting that you used your breath to engage yourself in the present moment! I do almost the same thing, except instead of noticing my breathing I notice myself blinking.

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## Patjunfa

Well done. Its an impressive number of updates anyway. Sounds like theres been a greater depth and satisfaction to your dreaming life and general awareness. Interesting that you didn't notice a big change in LD frequency. I've been a lot more committed this year, and have had good spells of good Lucid dreaming, but at the same time have not made as significant progress towards the regularity and stability I thought I might. Perhaps it takes longer to make such shifts. At the same time I know some committed lucid dreamers and meditation practitioners who seem to have a somewhat steady amount of lucid dreams. The shifts dont seem as seismic as one can at times hope for, in that "I'm goina crack it" mindset. I'd love to know how many people do in fact plod along and then crack it, apart from naturals, or if people plod along and slowly increase in ability if they stay committed ), or if  people get to a certain level depending on unknown factors and then mostly stay at this level...(uninspiring thought). Either way best wishes for 2016

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