Lucid Living Topic

Can you describe it a bit? I wonder if it is helpful for me, too.

I’ve noticed that i can keep my awareness for a longer time when i was outside for a walk, had more attention for my environment and imagined that i am dreaming.

Generally i’m of the opinion that your ideas are right and i’ll try it in a similar way.

cu,
Amoebe

Hi JNoise and Amoebe,

You do realize that you are talking about my favorite subject?

One of the first things I did when I started thinking about Lucid Living is to define
being Lucid. I have done this several times now, and each time I find another small
piece of understanding of what it means. I strongly recommend that you examine the
concept of lucidity and what it means to you, and please post any insights you have.

At the risk of repeating myself, here are some basics I’ve discovered:

First, the mechanics of lucidity. It is definitely about control of awareness/attention.
For me the greatest part of my attention is directed outward. But I find that it is
necessary to maintain a very small amount of self-awareness. There are no personal
thoughts involved, but there is the idea that it is me who is looking at the world.
Other thoughts will come of course, but I treat them the same as looking at the world.
In other words I treat my thoughts as something outside myself. I’ll examine them
and see if they have any use in my present circumstances. Then my attention goes
back to the environment.

I also believe that you can loose lucidity by giving too much attention to the
environment. There is a mechanical explanation for this but it gets pretty confusing
pretty fast. I can try explaining it later if you’re interested.

The second thing I noticed is the feeling connected with lucidity. It is like no other
feeling I have ever had, including meditation or riding a roller coaster. (although it is
probably closer to riding a roller coaster). Since both of you have had LD’s you might
have some idea of what this feeling is like.

All the techniques that I am aware of; RC’s, WILD’s, Dream Signs, eating herbs, etc.
are designed to do one thing, shift your awareness to become lucid. But once you are
lucid you want to maintaining that state and it can’t be done by constantly doing RC’s.
That’s where I got the idea that lucidity was something to exercise like a muscle and
that Lucid Living was the way to do it. For me LL feels exactly like LD. I don’t do
RC’s. I use to give myself the command: “Get Lucid, Stay Lucid”. Now all I do is
remind myself to be lucid, and I don’t use any words. I do this as often as I can,
sometimes 2 or 3 times in one minute if my mind is really wondering. I have never
had a Lucid Dream initiated by an RC. This is my own personal experience and I do
know that RC’s have been a tremendous help to many people.

I have also stated that I believe LL is the most optimum way to live. Maintaining
lucidity is a struggle not to be overcome by your own thoughts and emotions. I don’t
believe that feelings like anger and fear are the most optimum was to live and it is
IMPOSSIBLE to be angry and lucid at the same time!

Amoebe:

I think you may be doing things backward. It sounds like you do LL and then do
RC’s. It should be the other way around. Do an RC to get lucid, then see how long
you can hold on. I am personally proud of you as you are an example of doing
nothing more than RC’s and LL, and having a few LD’s with what?, your two weeks?

JNoise:

I liked what you said about lucidity becoming part of our subconscious, becoming a
learned part of our life like learning a language. Many of my LD’s have been initiated
by Dream Signs. I see something strange and think: “This must be a dream” and off I
go. The only other way I initiate an LD is to just “wake up” in the dream. Since you
know what an LD is I don’t see that you need a “point of reference” to do LL. Just
keep integrating the feeling of lucidity into your everyday life.

I know what you both mean about the world slowing down when you are lucid. I get
the same feeling, and I like it. I feel like I am more in tune with the world and I’m
moving at a more natural pace. I also feel calmer and more tolerant of other people,
more at peace with the world rather than struggling in it.

Trying to do LL all day long IS tiring. So is running a mile, the first time. If I am
going to get exhausted doing something, I can’t think of anything better than Lucid
Living!

Of course i am.

Yes, that’s right. I always do it in this sequencing. I’ll try it the other way round. I’ve been doing this for exactly one week and had my first LD. Two days later the second one. At the moment i feel that i’m very close to having some more because i often dream of people talking about LD’s, this night i succeeded in persuading myself of not dreaming and thought at the same time about what i could do to have a better recall of this dream.

cu,
Amoebe

P.S.: I’ll answer more detailled tomorrow, cause i’m getting too tired now.

well i have been practicing my awareness a.k.a. LL and i find that by saying what it is your doing makes it very eay to me aware ex. if you were makeing a sandwich you would say as u got the meat" i am getting the meat out of the fridge" , then im now getting the chease, and so on

like when your typing a post reply u say what ur typing as u type it not just pressing the keys u know to press, this is a very effective way to get your attention on the pressent moment, and keep from day dreaming

Hello!

First off, this discussion is wonderful, thank you so much for your insights so far!

Dust Mote:

I think you are right about not needing to worry about the “point of reference”. I have been working on LDs for close to a year now and my practice has changed dramatically. It is definitely a learning experience and I find myself constantly redefining what it means to be lucid. I really became interested in the LL topic once I took an extended break from RCs, Dream Journals, etc., as a sort of test. I’m constantly trying new ideas and concepts. Through my constant redefining of the state of lucidity, I’ve come to the very conclusion that we are discussing. I’ve found that I recently get the same (or very similar) feeling when I notice something odd and critically wonder if I am dreaming. My mind actually goes to the point of wondering if I’m dreaming or not. That’s wonderful to have the happen more and more often in real life. You’re right, the feeling is amazing and it (like meditation), gives you a way better perspective on life and leads to so many awesome things that it’s a whole other topic. These moments of “Lucid Living” in my waking life are increasing on a stretched out basis, so I believe that all my searching is coming to a breaking point. I just really feel it happening, albeit very slowly.

Amoebe:

Well, meditation is a very different subject for a lot of people, so I won’t go into the right way or wrong way to do it. I’ll say there is a lot of great texts out there to guide you if you are interested in pursuing it on a solely personal basis. Meditation is natural. It’s just a natural state of being, just like you are “being” right now. In a few words: Meditation is the discipline of attention. If you are more interested, I can recommend some texts and links. I think meditation should be taught to and practiced by everyone. Self-discipline is sorely needed in this modern society and it gives you so many benefits that it’s ridiculous for me to list. I believe it’s more of a personal search and discovery. I can point you to some references, and if you find the pull to pursue it, you will learn as you go. That’s the best way, IMO.

I find that when I redefine lucidity based upon the techinques that are already listed, I see a lot of parellels, like we’ve discussed. One interesting one is the basic RC. A lot of literature says that when you do an RC, really take in your environment. Stop. Take a look around, critically test your environment and focus all your current attention to prove that you are not dreaming. I don’t think that the frequency of this practice is necessary, that, in my opinion, might confuse your brain as to WHEN to actually do it if you do it randomly. Instead, use dreamsigns, or “oddities”. After a while, you will find yourself more attune to your environment and these Lucid Living Moments that we’ve been talking about will happen spontaneously, just like they should! That’s your subconscious talking. Just like pointing out danger, it points out oddities to you and “loads up” the reality check section of your brain. It all related back to learning to live lucidly!

Thanks so much for all the wonderful discussions so far! I will keep posting with ideas and updates.

i have been practicing LL alot lately and given it allot of though (allthough i am a begener) it seems that it makes sence to just alwayes be allert 4 oddities and dream signs/themes, then do a RC when your mind, in a sence gets confused weather u r dreaming or not, the RC then conferms weather u r, i ur brain should ato ask for a RC to conferm itself

and id like to say this is a great topic, and i would like to see it go BIG

also… in the book EWLD is sais to do a take in your enviorment and do a RC no less than 50 times a day

but if you always took in your enviorment, by keeping your eye out 4 oddities it seems you might only need to focus on what u see every day and “look” for odd thing and dream signs (unless your dream sign is a sound or smell) then make shur u observer atleast 50 odd things or dream signs and a do the RC then u could still do them frequently,as S.LaB. staten in his book
and by having a set # goal u will have to REALY look for those oddities/DS
wich will highten awareness dayly

just my other 2 cents…1 cents ahh whose counten nowdays…

Because Amoebe asked:

The answer has a lot to do with the nature of reality. Is the reality of you thoughts
different from your dreams, different from waking life. They certainly “feel”
different. It is easy to see how thoughts can be overwhemling and you become your
thoughts, lose awareness of your surroundings. And of course normal dreams are the
same way. It is harder to see how being aware of you enviornment can be
overwhelming, but it can. There is a school of thought that says that “enviornment
out there” is also created by our thoughts, and we can be just as carried away by it.

The more I think about it the more important this idea of self-awareness becomes.
When lost in thoughts/dreams/reality I also lose my sense of self. I become my
thoughts and get carried along by them, like a passenger in a car. I think a key part of
lucidity is the sense of separation from whatever is going on. I become aware that it
is “I” who is looking at the sunset, etc. It is a very subtle awareness, but without that
sense of separation, that small awareness of being the observer, the feeling of lucidity
is lost and I become a passenger.

These are strictly my own beliefs that I have worked out by thinking about what
lucidity means. These thoughts will naturally reflect my own way of viewing things.
Thats why I encourage everyone to figure it out for themselves. And please post your
findings as they may help guide someone else.

Dust Mote,

I agree with you 100%. In all the times I have gone lucid I have always had a great awareness of my self. Also what I did to get lucidity to start kicking in really well was a MILD technique I guess you can say. I would set my alarm clock to go off 4 to 5 hours after sleep. After I woke up I would get up and freshen up. I would than reset the alarm clock to 1 or two more hours later. I would do this up to 4 times a night. After a while my mind/body adapted to waking up a lot during the night. I could than really get my conscious part of my mind working really well so I would have the thought of lucid dreaming more often during the night. I know this has been done by a lot of people probably and that it will not work for everyone because a lot of people are too deep of sleepers or cant go back to sleep after they awaken, but I thought I would just share it again. I think if you combined that with the self awareness thing lucid dreaming would come really easy to a lot more people. These are just my opinions though.

Greetings again -

I love the way this topic is going and all the opinions and information everyone has given is outstanding. Thanks again.

Still no success for me. It’s hard to find time to consciously start the LL paradigm, but I’m still having Lucid Moments. Had one last night, in fact. Unfortunately, I was awake.

I still recommend that everyone not give up. The few glimpses I’ve had of lucidity have been wonderful and the possibilites are endless. It really is the next step in human existance. Dreams are both tool and toy. It can be used to fufill our innermost desires of exploration, whether it be spiritual or physical, or whatever.

But I’m sure you’re all well aware of that!

I will keep posting me ideas and progress in hopes that it will help myself and others in this, as the board is most aptly named, “Quest for Lucidity”.

Do me a favor, take some time today (right now if you can), to just examine your environment. All of it. Include all your senses and really try to get a grip on what’s going on around you just using all the senses but without letting your thoughts wander. Notice when your thoughts DO wander and try and understand why they wandered and when they wandered even though you explicitly set out to do this task. We must increase our conscious and sub-conscious attentions. They must listen to us when we tell them we want focus. It’s all about focus. If you can start to practice your focus in everyday life, it should start helping you to become more aware in all your moments. We want to increase that ‘awareness’ to be something like a program running in the background, something that is a part of you that will be a constant ‘reality check’ so that we may seamlessly live our lives within and outside our ‘dreams’.

Thanks for listening and hope you can share as well!

JNoise and others - thank you so much for starting this topic and all the replies.

Lucid Living (LL) is my favorite topic too, IMHO it’s one of the most beautiful expressions of lucidity one can give. Only those who cannot avoid being caught by labeling and artificial distinctions will not see that what is strived for at one particular moment of the day - ie consciousness during REM-sleep - can also be a useful tool at other moments, like ordinary waking life.

To be continuously aware of the present moment seems to be difficult for many people, and that is absolutely normal. Actually, what we call Lucid Living is the essential part of a lot of traditional religious practices in east and west. Sufis, buddhist monks, hindu yogi, gnostics, all of them share this practice and their religions have developed tools that helps them to realize LL as far as possible. Those meditation techniques vary but they all share the essential component of paying attention - always returning to the present moment, again and again - with some kind of sitting.

My point is, those people practice for years and years and even then they still have so much difficulties to keep their awareness constantly in the present. I personally practice for some years (with ups and downs) and it’s still a daily challenge. So don’t be too hard for yourself by judging your progress, just keep practicing patiently and eventually you WILL enjoy the fruits of mindfulness. And those fruits include much more than just a lucid dream! It’s especially important to be patient during the first months of practice, because you are confronted with the hard part of practice (constantly being confronted with a monkey-mind that always drifts away and still keep the discipline alive) without enjoying the fruits.

Every moment a choice is made: to be drift away or to be here, aware of the present moment. It never stops, and it’s difficult because we like to be drift away and dislike the negative sides of the present reality we are confronted with. We are extremely conditioned, all of us, to get away from here and trying to get somewhere else where we think everything will be perfect (a place that is never reached, unfortunately, as long as we strive to get somewhere else). So it’s just NOT NORMAL for us to be here, and we even don’t realize how much we concern ourselves with useless mind chatter. That’s why LL is so difficult.

A crucial advice is to practice LL without keeping a far-away purpose in mind. The point of Lucid Living is Lucid Living. You are here, in the present, or you are there, in daydreams and only one place is the home of LL. Of course, combined with other LD-techniques LL will definitely help you to have more lucid dreams, if you have a lot of patience it will turn out to be the most effective technique for LDing. While I am absolutely not a natural, I have had some beautiful LD’s at moments when I didn’t practice any other LD-technique but LL. But it is very important not to spoil the present moment with presumpions, theories, judgments, big expectations about the future (“I will maybe have LD’s tonight!”), and if they come just watch them without pushing.

In the beginning, practicing LL will oblige you to do things more slowly because you are paying attention to what you are doing, with full awareness, instead of letting the automatic pilot do those things while the mind is concerning itself with zillions of thoughts. However, nothing to worry about, after a lot of practice you will be able to stay aware within the flow of your actions even in moments of stress when things have to be done really fast. It’s difficult to explain, it’s like the automatic pilot returns but it has become a fully aware pilot. What was subconscious becomes conscious. For example, you will become aware of anger long before the anger reaches the surface and will be able to let the anger go before doing any harm to others. And you didn’t have to supress anything (which is rather counterproductive), it just disappeared because you recognized it for what it is. That’s just one of the examples of what I mean with “more fruits than just a lucid dream”. To become truely aware of oneself and relations with others can only have positive effects for everyone.

Regular practice is crucial so never, never give up, even if it all seems so though and pointless. Once you get a glimpse of what being in the present moment really means, it will definitely encourage you to continue practice. Good-luck !

Great topic.

I found out about lucid living through this forum and manage some lucid minutes here and there. I know this is just the tip of the iceberg.

One thing I have found which helps is to write about everything I can sense around me at a particular moment. This really makes me concentrate purely on my surroundings with no outside thoughts.

Hmmm…Lucid living sounds cool, but im kinda confused. Does lucid living mean to concentrate on what you’re doing at that moment and pay attention to everything that’s going on that has to deal with what you’re doing, or does it mean to pay attention to everything around you, people, environment, situation, or does it mean something else.

I suppose everyone has their own way of “lucid Living”…

For me, its just a case of standing still or sitting down, usually in a busy place, and focusing on all of the senses. My friend and I have occasionally sat, waiting for a bus, but focusing our energies on paying attention to everything around us. Trying to take in all the sights, sounds and smells of the immediate world.

In that state of mind, it really makes me think… “this is my perception of reality, I wonder if everyone elses is the same…?”

I hope this at least partly answers your question.

I’d like to hear everyone elses techniques for LL, because I like to hear fresh new ideas!

thank you in advance

This is a great topic, and certainly one which you wont find anywhere near most other LD resources (Unfortunately).

Something you must realize though, is that this ‘state of living’ does exist under many other names. It seems appropriate to me to call it ‘Lucid Living’, and it makes sense to do so, but the technique is by no means new. Simply doing a little research on ‘Meditation’ will usually return some very similar techniques.

But enough of that. Those of us who are here are luckly enough to be able to read about this magnificent ability.

I started out using LL (Under a different name) as a style of meditation. Although it wasn’t called ‘Lucicd Living’, I have always believed there was a strong companionship between Meditation and Lucid Dreaming. Well, to be honest I like to think there’s a direct link between just about any mental excerise and LDs.

My idea of LL is to remove all thoughts from the mind, and try to REALLY comprehend your position not only in the world, but in your own life. I like to take notice of everything around me (Which is quite a lot when I’m in the office), get into the most relaxing position possible, and just observe what’s happening everywhere.

Each movement I make is slow and careful, and constantly monitored for any sense of touch I might encounter. I guess when your mind is focused fully on what you are currently doing, not what you did yesterday or will be doing tomorrow, you are more absorbed in the present.

Does anyone use this technique differently?

Lucid living means being HERE, nothing less, nothing more. Allthough we are always here, our awareness is not (especially when we don’t like what we see) and this can cause a lot of troubles. You have to pay attention if you cross a road with a lot of traffic, otherwise…

Easy said, but how are we going to get this monkey-mind here and now? Use of force won’t help you (could even have reverse results, suppression is a shortcut to anger). Still, SOME effort is needed. A complete and broad awareness of everything is too difficult in the beginning, some gentle focusing is a good first step. A very good technique in my experience is counting your breath. Breath is a beautiful mindfulness tool, it is the magic link between awareness and present moment. So count your breath (1-5 or 1-10 and then repeat) and watch it (don’t count like a machine!). If you count 1-5 you will probably notice that mind easily drifts of before you even reach 5! Nothing wrong with that, on the contrary you finally become aware of monkey-mind instead of taking it for granted (see the parallel with lucid dreaming?). Just return to breath, start again, never give up. Have courage, be patient, very slowly you will reach a more stable and broader awareness. Why? Well, if you see the same movie 1000 times, again and again, the movie will get very boring .

This is one of the best topics I’ve seen come to these boards so far… even before they switched over I think! Just reading it has started me thinking about some things that are blossoming into personal insight.

The strange thing for me is that it is a timely arival for such a topic because only recently have I begun to practice LL sort of on my own direction. It seemed logical to me to try to become more aware of what I was doing all the time and what was going on around me.
My thought was this… during a dream there is no sense of self. You are just as much a part of the storyline that your brain is coming up with as any other character in the dream. You go with the flow… strange things seem logical because you are part of the story. When you become lucid what you are in fact doing is allowing your sense of self to take over your point of view in the dream.
So often in my waking life I will come to and realize that I have been going along automatically completeing tasks in my life. You can drive for two hours and not once actually focus on your driving or even your own thoughts! So… it made sense to me to try foster that sense of being in the present during waking moments to strengthen it in my dreams.

What I do is to, whenever it comes to mind, allow myself to be aware of myself first. Am I sitting? Standing? Walking? What does it feel like? What am I thinking about?
Then, keeping that in mind I extend my awareness out to other things. The textures of objects around me… their color and the way shadows sit on them. I try to take note of how things feel and smell… etc. All the while trying to maintain a clear sense of self… that it is I who am looking out on the world and experincing it (this is what I think of as being lucid… understanding the world at the moment).
Then I sort of imagine that this moment is a dream. This is how real things are in a dream and I am present and in control, free to do whatever I like.

I don’t think that you have to find time to do this. Just do it. since you are increasing the amount of attention you are paying to the world you can do it while driving, reading or even in a board meeting (ugh that kind of rhymed). It may be hard to get that all working in your head at first because you aren’t used to doing it but you will be able to handle it for longer and longer periods of time. It will also occur to you to do it more often and I think this is what will foster the awakening of your sense of self during the dream with greater frequency.

LostBoy:

I agree, and I think that’s the entire point of the excersise. I guess you could consider it a form of workout. Most people (Well, me anyway) have trouble lifting weights for extended periods of time. After time though, this of course gets easier.

It’s the same principal with LL. After a while you might be able to remain in that state for hours at a time. After that, I think the next step is to get the mind so used to it that it does it automatically.

That’s my goal anyway. LL, for me, gives me better control over what 'm doing, and I find I don’t make any small mistakes due to an absent mind.

Everybody:

Thank you all so much. My original intent on posting this in its own topic has come to frution and I have all you to thank for it. All your ideas and very interesting and wonderful.

Atheist:

I agree very much. I, too, have meditation for about a year. And with all things, you must start out slow. This parallels (like LostBoy said) with just about anything. Lifting weights, exercise, etc. The fact is, it IS an exercise. It’s well known that mental exercise is almost identical in every fashion to physical exercise…look at learning! You start out with something slow and make it a part of you, eventually, it will grow. This is especially true with mental exercises.

I believe all these RC’s and xILD’s (where x = M,D, etc. ) all boil down to this: Lucid Living. They are all very good techniques and with good practice, they will help increase your LL and thus, your LDs.

So why stop there?

That’s what this topic is for. Since LL (and LD’ing in general) is a slow process, if we start our ‘training’ using LL as well as other techniques, by the time we start having LDs, we will have a great foundation which to start our goal upon (LDs every night).

I hope that everyone can get a chance to see and understand the benefits of such things as LL. Especially for us LD’ers. It’s importance and effects are astronomically important.

“All roads lead to LL, in the LD realm”.

Thanks again!

Indeed.