Technically this is a backlog. But I wrote most of this down yesterday, but when I went to fill in the post my Internet was down. Really need to set it up so I can do the setup locally and just push the published posts. Especially since the writing isn't in chronological order lately.

Dream

Intention (2215 the night before)

Another 15 minutes! Nice. I will recite my intentions and I will execute them when the time comes.

Something About Squashing a Bug

That's all I remember.

Wake-Back-to-Sleep (logged at 0315 this morning)

Had a dream, but lingered in bed too long and mind wandered away from it. Still got a sentence, though.

Let's incubate Daysha dream and try WILD.

Getting Some Food

I am at some sort of full-themed location. There's a counter to order food at. There's a rotund and slightly sassy bearded man behind the counter.

He's making me a sandwich, he puts some turkey on it. "Oh, I'm vegan." He looks confused. "No meat." He takes the meat off. I look at the men and see seitan as an option.

"Oh, I'd like seitan on the sandwich." He looks at me real weird. Maybe he thinks I mean "satan"?

He gets me mac and cheese, as a side, and I wonder if he'll be annoyed when I tell him I don't eat dairy either.

That's all I remember.

Hotel with Workmates

I am staying at a hotel. Some sort of work event. There's a presentation area. I sit down and am surrounded by people. "This doesn't seem safe," I think to myself.

I go back to my hotel room. Avoiding elevators, I go up a flight of stairs.

I'm back outside. People are swimming. I wonder if it's a good idea. Go back to hotel room. Forget to go up stairs, realize trying to get in wrong room, go upstairs to get to room.

That's all I remember.

Wake (logged at 0720 this morning)

Dreams remembered. Did a bad and didn't write down, but did keep repeating what I wanted to write while laying down.

There's another hotel dream, but all I remember is a giant screen, and scrambling to the airport. So I won't give it its own section.

Lots of food one dream, if I had the food trigger reality-check habit, could've been a lucid dream.

Just gotta keep trying.

Pre-nap (1410)

Skipped napping a couple of times now, and it's a very needed reset for my mind. Allows for proper energy and control the rest of the day. Not going to focus on any specific thing here. Will recite intents for practice and otherwise pick a thing to think about as I settle into my nap.

Post-nap (1435)

Recite my intentions. I do a reality check whilst going through my reality-check triggers. My mind wanders for a bit. I think about visualizing writing a dream down in the journal whilst laying still. I consider trying this in the future.

My mind drifts to work. A lot of high-level thinking on the mind. I sift through them. Nothing worth capturing right now. Going to let subconscious keep processing.

I think of upcoming meetings, I may write some thoughts of that down.

....

Ended up writing a lot.

Then I visualize Daysha, and find that I'm playing with her in the house where we lived when she became part of our family. I end up exploring the house, and various memories from the past greet me in the various nooks and crannies.

Meditation (Day 112)

Intentions for the day:

• Stay in posture part of prep until you're prepared to set the intention to stay still
• 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
• Learn the various different ways I 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)
• Before adjusting posture, mirror-check
• Mirror-check only when agitated due to worry and after counting to 8 in breaths
• During planned attention away from breath, keep breath in awareness

Post-Meditation

A new best day?

A new best day!

I might even go so far as to say no gross distractions? More specifically, though the breath did lose vividness because of distractions, it never left attention. I'd say if this were the regular experience, I think I'd check off "stage 4" as mastered.

There may also have been a new skill gained today. Basically, any powerful distraction, when noticed in awareness, instead of just the alarm of "focus on the breath" starting, an introspective check-in was triggered. From there, I set an intention to keep introspective awareness on the presence of the dangerous distraction. This is why maybe I'm not sure about no gross distractions. Hard to tell the difference sometimes between looking at something and highlighting something important in the periphery.

However, this meant that instead of a back-and-forth of a distraction becoming gross, me noticing and bringing myself back to breath, and then it coming right back, which sometimes led to a cascade of tangential distractions all doing the same thing, the distraction was contained, acknowledged, and could safely fade. Also, any distractions it wanted to bring along with it got contained very early in awareness.

This also had the side-effect of remembering way more distractions once I got off the cushion. Especially the ones that wanted to jump in off other ones. It also meant I knew when it was safe to really focus on the breath. Which itself is helping me notice when I'm slacking on awareness to boost attention (which invites both distraction and dullness).

What a neat day. I'm pretty pumped and excited. Let's see if this is a "beginner's luck" thing that I reached in a lucky way and there's a lot of work to get back to, or if I can consistently get here.