Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

Alarm set for 0500. Let's go to the dilapidated mansion! Going to watch myself fall asleep right now as practice, and again after WBTS in the hopes of WILD.

I will write anything as soon as I realize I have woken from sleep. The abstract dream last night was super valuable even though I wrote a mere sentence. The act of writing down that sentence burned the image in my brain, and gave me a thread to find the image in my brain again later.

I will, however, do a reality check before writing in journal.

Let's get to dreaming!

Lin Plays Hide-and-Seek with Jinora

Avatar dream. I think it had characters from Airbender and Korra but the ages are messed up. We are at an airbending temple. The one where the temples are hanging upside-down. An Earthbender that is I think Lin says something along the lines of "Tell your airbender friend I'll them when they fell like touching the ground."

My perspective changes and I feel like Aang? But perhaps it makes sense for me to be Jinora. I'm playing hide-n-seek against a blindfolded Lin (she may have just transformed into Toph, I'm not sure). I'm using airbending to avoid touching earth or otherwise making vibrations.

I grab a wall and she notices me. She's using earthbending to try to catch me. Perhaps I should learn to draw. The scene is so cool but hard to describe. She chases me all around the temple. Ikki and Meelo show up at one point but don't really do anything.

Wake-Back-to-Sleep (logged around 0400 this morning)

The Avatar dream could be a really cool fan-fiction.

Perhaps kid Lin playing with kid Tenzin. Or maybe a sweet scene with Lin and Tenzin's kids during the 3-year timeskip between book 3 and book 4. Maybe you could do both and add some themes and stuff.

Tenzin/Lin didn't get much development even though they had been in a relationship together.

Okay! Let's try a WILD and let's incubate a mansion dream!

Wake (logged at 0700 this morning)

I feel like I must have fallen asleep after WBTS. I am so rested. But... I watched quite carefully and never seemed to be "dreaming". I felt my body go numb as though I was about to fall asleep, and my mind started having hypnagogic thoughts and vivid experiences. But a tell was that I could hear the fan always playing in my ears. It was a lot like the hypnagogic experiences I feel during naps.

Also, maybe like with my lucid dream a bit ago, this was an illusion? Perhaps I was dreaming about being in that state? And the meditative way I was watching myself maintained it? In any case, I see no harm in keeping trying. Feels like maybe I'm close.

And it really does feel amazing. Perhaps I'm having that illusion where I think I'm not asleep but I am? I noticed it a lot with naps, as I said.

Maybe next time, I'll just have a "fake" dream once things get vivid or hypnagogic. I'll still write down the pretend dream, but I'll label them as such if they never become real. I'll try to make the reality check (that I forgot today) a habit.

Pre-nap (1300)

So, after WBTS last night (this morning?... yeah, this morning), I had a very nap-like experience. I don't think I possibly laid awake, mostly still for 3-ish hours, all while not sleeping/dreaming.

Which makes me wonder: did I do a WILD but trick myself into not dreaming? If so, am I doing that during the more hypnagogic naps I take?

My intent this nap is to try to dream if I notice hypnagogicness? Yeah. Learn to dream in that state! See what happens.

Specifically, I want to disengage and watch my mind and body, but if I notice strange whispers to start playing out a dream to fall into.

Playing out a dream when I'm pseudo-dreaming is something I've employed before. Before properly falling asleep, sometimes I'd start dreaming, and that dream would trigger a reflex and I'd move in real life, waking myself up.

I haven't had the experience of my body moving as I fall asleep in a while. I wonder if I was entering REM sleep earlier in my sleep cycle when I had a sleeping disorder.

In any case, let's try to make my hypnagogic thoughts a dream via starting a pseudo-dream.

Post-nap (1330)

So, something akin to dreaming is happening, for sure. It is in fact very similar to that swim thing I brought up pre-nap. Certain bits of the not-quite dream will trigger muscle reflexes on my end.

There was a flash of vision at one point. A chibi, purple-haired anime woman. Long hair, but only seeing bangs. I asked her to come back, but she did so only in my pseudo-dream, where she was rendered as a normal human (still purple hair).

There were a few things I tried. Played Melee, this caused my fingers to mimic controller motions sometimes. Decided to do reality checks regularly, as perhaps a pseudo dream is closer to a dream and thus this can build a habit to do reality checks in dreams? Who knows.

Went looking for the mansion, as well. "Found it" but it was empty... and felt fake? Pseudo-dream made it pretend? Though that was where the flash of chibi came into sight.

Meditation (Day 86)

Intentions for the day:

• Stage 4 intention (vigilance on keeping introspective awareness continuous)
• Fall back to stage 3 if necessary
• Label the distractions, do it over and over so that it becomes automatic
• Before adjusting posture, count 8 breaths
• Learn the various different ways I have to guide myself back to the breath
  • E.g. away from tempting distractions, away from posture distractions, away from pain
• Trace distractions to source, see how much wandering happened
• Note where the breath was when you label a distraction (attention, awareness, or forgotten)

Post-Meditation

Not quite as solid as yesterday, but still really good and again never forgot the breath. I successfully managede to remember to count to 8 before reposititioning (there was maybe one expection, but it was a fairly small adjustment).

Pretty excited. I think I'm more clearly past stage 3 and in a solid part of stage 4 now.

Extracurricular Stuff

Notion tasks main focus. Might add something, though. But as I said yesterday, doing more of the job I get paid to do is my project next week, I think.