Dream
Intention (2140 the night before)
Starting intent early today (2140). Timeblocking adherence had some transitional costs, but it seems maybe it's helping energy now? Maybe the return of consistent napping is helping. Today's nap felt insightful, even. I also forgot to mention the bit about have's and have not's, where I am, and how I can be a have helping have not's become have's.
In any case, feeling good again today. Meaning another set of strong intentions may be in order. I may even try a WBTS alarm again.
Bu why? Why am I doing this? My main project right now is basically developing practice towards a mastery of self. I often call it foundational work.
This serves 2 purposes: know myself, and make progress on the goals I have according to this knowledge. Which is to say, I will abandon goals that stop making sense as I know myself better, and so I will properly change the direction and speed of the velocity of my self-improvement.
Dreams appear to be a hyperspace where my minds can project much more onto my consciousness. And thus integrate even further. Additional purposeful interaction with this space seems like it could only be beneficial.
So, intents. I will thank myself for the dreams I remember (thanks, me!). I will fall asleep reciting intent. I will fall asleep reciting intent. I will fall asleep reciting reality check triggers. I will WBTS. I will WILD after.
Is there a dream I want to incubate? Perhaps visiting those who're gone? I should find some pictures of them. So, no incubation tonight. Let's memorize my intent for reciting purposes.
The Undead Want New Members
I am playing Ocarina of Time, or I am Link from Ocarina of Time. I am using speedrun tactics to move really fast, though I note that without hover boots it isn't quite fast enough.
I am in a dungeon with the undead. There's something I can do to turn them into coins, kind of like in Mario 64. I am about to finish off the last zombie when they start spawning in, swarming me.
I move to the end of the dungeon, where a narrator (like a game show host) says I need to tell the right joke. There's a sealed door blocking my path.
I am watching from 3rd person now. The person who has to tell the joke is JonTron. He tells some jokes that I only remember as racist. They do not open the door. He eventually tells a joke about dying.
"That's close enough," the narrator says, "though we were looking for something like, 'I hope there's a rope to hang from in the next room.'" The door opens, and there is a rope holding a light swinging back and forth in the room.
The camera whirls around to show JonTron's face. "Nope!" he exclaims, going the other way. But there's no way out. The pressure mounts. I am seeing from his eyes again. I give in, and go back to the room with the rope.
At first, there is a light hanging that I remove. I then put the noose around my neck, saying something sassy that I don't remember. The rope is too long, and I'm staning on the ground. But I expect the evil magic to fix this and the rope gets shorter. The noose tightens. Two lucid undead intervene and stop me. They put me on a gurney to take me somewhere safe. I wake up.
Flying Away on Appa
I am playing Ocarina of Time, or I am Link from Ocarina of Time. I am using speedrun tactics to move really fast, though I note that without hover boots it isn't quite fast enough.
I am in a dungeon with the undead. There's something I can do to turn them into coins, kind of like in Mario 64. I am about to finish off the last zombie when they start spawning in, swarming me.
I move to the end of the dungeon, where a narrator (like a game show host) says I need to tell the right joke. There's a sealed door blocking my path.
I am watching from 3rd person now. The person who has to tell the joke is JonTron. He tells some jokes that I only remember as racist. They do not open the door. He eventually tells a joke about dying.
"That's close enough," the narrator says, "though we were looking for something like, 'I hope there's a rope to hang from in the next room.'" The door opens, and there is a rope holding a light swinging back and forth in the room.
The camera whirls around to show JonTron's face. "Nope!" he exclaims, going the other way. But there's no way out. The pressure mounts. I am seeing from his eyes again. I give in, and go back to the room with the rope.
At first, there is a light hanging that I remove. I then put the noose around my neck, saying something sassy that I don't remember. The rope is too long, and I'm staning on the ground. But I expect the evil magic to fix this and the rope gets shorter. The noose tightens. Two lucid undead intervene and stop me. They put me on a gurney to take me somewhere safe. I wake up.
Strange Geometry
I am wandering through very strange geometry. Looks like a Sonic level, but in 3D.
That's all I remember (chose to remember dungeon and Avatar dream before this one).
Wake-Back-to-Sleep (logged at 0610 this morning)
I did wake up at 0400, but just fell back asleep trying to find dreams to rehearse. A good sign, I think. Now, it's 0610, which is a bit late, but I had dreams I remembered that I wrote down.
Let's try one more dream. Going for a WILD.
Train Trips with Family
This dream is either a sequel to a previous dream, or came in various time-skip chunks. I can not tell which. It is a familiar dream either way.
I am on a train ride with my brother and sister. I talk about how I have saved $100K in the last year, despite the volatile stock market and how apocalyptic COVID19 has been for the world. My brother seems very surprised. My sister doesn't really react.
A person I don't like on the train picks a fight with me. Maybe ends with being covered in food stuffs.
On a train trip again. I cross paths with the person I fought with the previous time. He says there's an open seat in his car. I refuse. He seems confused. "We fight every time," I remind him. He nods, appreciating the truth in my comment. I go and find a different car to sit in.
There's a wave from my daughter in one car. "Saved a seat for you," she says.
Now, I'm at a pottery lesson with my daughter. She's making amazing life-like, to-scale sculptures of human heads.
That's all I remember.
Reflection (1045)
Woke up at 0830 and so I jotted down some anchoring for the dream I had (train trip with family) and then started the day.
So, the extra time for intent with dream seems to have worked wonders.... But also I slept in. Though, it may be the smokey, hot weather. In any case, I think it's good to reward feeling good with trying harder with dreams, and focus on recovery when not feeling so strong.
Pre-nap (1300)
Running behind. Might rehearse nap experience in key highlights. Starting nap now.
Post-nap (1315)
Nothing to note, really. Very short nap.
Meditation (Day 96)
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
Woke up late today, skipping work meditation session, and am probably going to
meditate around 1600.
Post-Meditation
There was a lot of resistance to getting on the cushion today. Well, relative to most days. I think it's the most resistance I've had since getting on the cushion. Though still wasn't even close to stopping me.
Boredom struck a few times, and tried to get me to stop early. The first time I dismissed it, it was like I passed some sort of power-up test and I felt energy surge through my body and really felt the vividness of the breath.
Timer distractions were numerous. And eventually won with 5 minutes remaining. I decided to finish the sit, though those last five minutes had a lot of fidgeting. But I felt pretty okay with that? I may decide to do some variant of that on purpose, though maybe only when the session properly ends.
Another thing I may add on purpose, probably tied somehow with the body-scan, is a mirror-check. I'll visualize what I think I look like, look in the mirror, and see what's different. Further, I'll fix anything that seems out of balance. This should help my posture further. I ended up doing this quite a bit today, but I'd like to add some proper control to it.
So, like body-scanning, I'll limit it to twice, one near the beginning and one near the end.
Overall, I'm pretty happy with today's session, even though by many aspects it wasn't a "good" one. Seems I've internalized that when things are difficult, there's a special opportunity for growth and refinement.
It's a pretty refreshing attitude to have, and I feel like I got it without striving for it.
It helps that meditation just feels great. When I overcome challenges it feels great, and when I succumb to them there's still a "good game" ness to it. And also there's lots of tiny victories throughout a session.
Experimental
More
SkillShare
today. Doing Adobe Premiere for beginners class.
(I didn't end up making time for SkillShare.)