Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

WBTS at 0400 (if feel well). Rehearse dream on wake-up. Plan what to write. Reality check. Grab journal. Write. Lucid dream. WILD.

Bus Mansion

I am in charge of coordinating the drop-off of students at a school. This may be a dream I've had before.

There is this map I keep bringing up, like a pause-menu map in a video game. With a fog of war, and zoom functionality.

I'm drawing three drop-off points, one for each year of students. I trace the road back to its source, and notice the buses will come from a cave that's wide enough to have a pullover waiting area.

A group of us get in a bus to see how many people will fit. The bus has center seating and wall seating. There are tables and movable chairs.

"How many people can fit in this bus?" I ask the bus driver.

"Quite a bit," we start counting seats.

I count by threes and fours, depending on the available seats in a group. While counting, I note a corner table area tucked away. There are a lot of distinct and different places to sit. Like the lobby of a building. 54 is the number I reach. Someone disagrees.

"You missed that area," they point.

There's a hall. I go exploring. There are people just hanging out in this area. The hallway leads to distinct rooms separated by doors. There's a woman in one room, talking on the phone.

I apologize for intruding.

That's all I remember.

Wake (logged at 0730 this morning)

Rehearsing dream in bed worked! Did the reality check as I was getting out of bed and everything.

Woke up around 0430, but decided against WBTS. Don't remember why. Also, may have had a dream to write down, but I didn't. Either that or I searched for a dream, didn't find one, considered WBTS, but didn't get up, and fell back asleep very quickly.

Pre-nap (1250)

This is a practicing of falling into dullness with intentions in mind, and a practicing of waking up and reciting hypnagogic mind moments.

Also, during hypnagogy, practice reality checks and dream intentions.

Post-nap (1320)

I focus on getting comfortable, but try to do so quickly. The goal is to get to a no-motion state ASAP. I flew my core to find a good starting posture.

There are various thoughts hovering about, including "A Girl Worth Fighting For" (1998 Mulan song). I decide to guide my thoughts. I hop between work, Melee, and last night's bus mansion dream.

Hypnagogy starts while lingering on work. There's both the tasks I want to do and a visualization of me using the product.

I decide there isn't enough stored in brain for me to play with this further. I transition to last night's dream.

First, I am interacting with the map. I zoom in and zoom out. I note that I am using my fingers to do this. This seems to be an abstract dream area, not a solid place. I move to the bus.

I look at the tables and seats, but I find the silence alarming. All I hear are the fans buzzing in waking world. This triggers some sort of anxiety, and I leave the dream. My heartbeat becomes noticeable and I think I observe it beating slightly faster and harder.

Thinking about Melee now. Think about practicing execution knowing my opponent's moves. Purely about control over my own actions. Thinking about noted muscle-memory actions and purposely suppressing them.

Vision starts activating like it did yesterday. I notice that the colors are dim and abstract. They were dim last time, too, but I didn't notice. Try to see things. See an eye. See a palm tree. Move my eyes around, and vision moves around a bit as well.

I open my eyes to see if light is causing this. There is some light under the pillow covering my eyes, but not much, and not such as to cause what I see.

This triggers a move away from dullness. Vision fades back to a murky blackish brown. I rehearse my experience. I plan what to write. I open my eyes. I close them again, noting what fully-awake closed-eye vision is like. Basically black. I move my eyes around. Still basically black. No movement.

I get up, do a reality check, and start writing this down.

Meditation (Day 95)

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

So, the last few days I'd been feeling... not great in the morning, and meditation cleared that right up. I had planned, if I felt like that this morning, to meditate in the morning. But I don't feel that way today (though meditation could probably bring me to a better place), and there's a meditation session at 1600 I want to go to. So I'll do that.

Tomorrow, the session is at 0930, so I will do it in the morning and I can contrast if applicable, and maybe decide to move meditation back to every morning.

Post-Meditation

Today was a hard day. Nothing particularly notable. I did forget the breath, but it was during the conversation after the work session ended, but before everyone left and I finished my session. I remembered I wanted to keep it in awareness shortly after forgetting it. Otherwise, still not forgetting, though today was a bit of a "regression" in gross distractions, I find that to be well within normalcy. I also had a lot of practice going back to the breath, and though it didn't seem so vivid today, it seemed I was much better able to keep returning to the breath (and also notice and address increasing subtle dullness).

I also pushed my flexibility again, but it didn't cause any significant issues beyond a dead-asleep left foot and calf, and also some sensitivity in a part that wasn't used to stretching like that for so long.

Meditation still worthwhile.

Experimental

I will try again at SkillShare.

(I was successful.)