Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

I will wake up at 0430 and do WBTS. I will write in my journal. Reality check. I will remember my dreams. I will write them down, even when groggy and incoherent. Yoda/Aunt may mean dream. Do a reality check. Am I dreaming? Feel the weight of the question. Look at hands. Plug nose and try to breath thru nose. Repeat.

Wake (logged at 0700 this morning)

I woke up at 0130, did not have a dream, but thought to write at least that down, but I didn't. Again, woke up at 0530, thought, "Too late for WBTS," but I had a dream that I also neglected to write down.

I've been really tired the last couple nights. Pushing myeself too hard? Need to listen to my body.

In any case, the dream I had is gone. I thought the process of writing may revive it. All writing is doing is waking me up (which is good in of itself).

When I first woke up I still had bits of it, but it's definitely gone now. First day since started that I don't have a dream to record. That's okay. Try, try again. I'll keep working on writing in here whenever I wake up.

Also, last night was interesting in that I had trouble recanting my intent while falling asleep. Immediately my mind wandered to other things. I wonder if this is at all related to being more tired. I have found when my mind is clearer, I just have more energy. Though perhaps I'm putting the cart before the horse. When I sit down to meditate, however, and it clears my mind, my energy does revive.

Going to want to do a morning meditation today for sure.

Meditation (Day 92)

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
• Note where the breath was when you label a distraction (attention, awareness, or forgotten)
• Body-scan in the beginning and latter half of meditation
• During planned attention away from breath, keep breath in awareness

I think I want to "focus" on posture today, but yesteday makes me think the way to do that is to stay still and wait for those automatic movements. So... I think I'll do that? I'll also be more ready to do a "count to 8 and adjust posture" action, as well. Though if I keep adjusting and nothing improves, I'll fall back to staying still and seeing what my body does automatically.

Basically, want to practice listening to my body, but still focus on the breath. Perhaps you could call it a practice in awareness.

Post-Meditation

Decided against body-scan today. Wanted to focus on posture. Maybe let it take up too much of the meditation. Also, "You've Got a Friend in Me" is super stuck in my head right now.

Also just ended up being very distraction-heavy. I feel a good tell of that is when I don't get bored during a meditation. I only managed vivid attention on the breath for a short bit today. Though, still never forgot the breath, which is neat. Distraction-heavy now typically means there's a fight for attention between breath and the distraction.

Today I really tried to think about how to get back to the breath. Also, how to quiet the never-ending loop of "You've Got a Friend in Me". Found a few things that seemed to work, but it needs refinement. Basically, it's employing connecting and following along every sense I can employ.

Moreso, I'm going to look up some back-posture tips and see if they can help.

....

Okay, I'm overthinking it. My natural inclination is correct, and thinking on it is where the automatic bit happens. I think when I adjust mindlessly (different from automatic in this sense) it leads to a poor posture from muscle-memory.

I may play with more meditation sessions (do one of the special meditations maybe) today to play with it.

I think working on stillness and only moving when the distraction fully invades attention is the way to go here. Also, it's important to note that once I've already aggravated a body part, even if I fix the posture, there will be this lingering sensation that can not be "fixed". Gots to observe, let it come, let it be, and let it go.

It is very much like dealing with an itch, like so many things are, surprisingly.

Experimental

Adhering to timeblock was pretty successful, I think, though I wonder if it contributed to my being much more tired when I wake up.... Meditation still consistently gets me to fresh, however. Hmmmm.... I've also noticed that I can just observe my exhaustion and that remedies it quite a bit. Something about acknowledging it... heals it?

I'm doing it right now and it feels quite nice. Also, adjusting my standing posture.

Anyways, I think I'll start a SkillShare free trial today. Going to take some Adobe classes. Though, after that I may take some drawing classes. Been thinking drawing would be useful for dream journal purposes. Some parts of dreams I really want to capture but words are limited. For example, there was this purple-haired anime woman who popped into vision during a nap once. A drawing could capture it perfectly, but there isn't enough words, really, to capture it. Or rather, I lack the knowledge to capture it properly with words, as well (and if I'm going to learn one, I'd like to learn to draw).