After an LD dry spell of a couple of months or so, I was reminded that practicing meditation while going to sleep might be helpful, so two nights ago, I chose sounds as my object of awareness while falling asleep.

I have found that paying attention to my breath while falling asleep can wake me up so much that I can't fall asleep, but attending to sounds didn't seem to have this effect.

Maybe reverse psychology came into it: Having told myself I was going to notice sounds for as long as possible, I fell asleep in short order.

In any event, I paid attention to ambient sounds, not trying to change anything, when first falling asleep and every time I was awake during the night. Per usual, I made dream notes during the night, and in the morning, I had ten dreams for my DJ (more than usual), and had had two dreams where I thought, "Wow, that's odd," as opposed to seeing something strange and thinking nothing of it. (According to Patricia Garfield, it's a good sign when you know you're seeing something odd in a dream and don't rationalize it away.)

The next night--last night--I did the same thing but with ambient sights (with my eyes closed) and I could not believe the difference. I felt very strong physical sensations, and a claustrophobic sort of breathlessness, and actual physical pain. It didn't impede my ability to go to sleep, but it was a really pretty unpleasant experience. (I had seven dreams to write down this morning.)

I thought mindfulness would be mindfulness and not differ depending on the object, so I was really surprised by this.

Tonight I'm going to try a body sensation other than the breath.