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).

Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

I will write in journal upon any real—reality check—ization of sleeping. Even if I don't remember anything. I will remember my dreams. I will write them down. I will WBTS at 0400. I will reality check and DILD. I will WILD after WBTS.

I will continue to enjoy the training I am doing.

Sleep time.

Working Meditation

Much realer than usual. About work. I'm trying to set up a more effective meeting, and basically my idea is a meditation circle. The meeting is Zoom, but as people dial in my office gets bigger and everyone is sitting in a circle.

Things get a bit awkward as I try to make the circle more than a status update about work.

Wake-Back-to-Sleep (logged at 0430 this morning)

Alarm not working. Turning it off. Intent will have to do. Reality check. Those are coming sooner and sooner as I start writing in journal. A good sign, I think.

Setting base intentions seemed to work very well. Though maybe still too many. I should make sure I can recite them all and maybe try drifting off doing that (may increase chance of WILD).

Write in journal. Remember dreams. Write them down. Conflict is a dream sign. Reality check. Am I dreaming? Look at hands. Plug nose and try breathing through nose. Repeat until dreaming.

(0442 BTS)

Cat Enjoys Bathing

We're slowly trying to get Yoda (our cat) used to bathing. We haven't prioritized this much. But we have a tiny tub (which is a kitty litter container that we never put litter into) that we have her go in for treats.

In the dream, Yoda wants a bath. She's meowing for our attention on a table, pawing at her empty tub. I fill it with warm water, and am in awe watching her step in, and lay down in the water. She loves it.

I pet her to spread the water over the few dry patches that remain.

Ben Shapiro is my Pharmacist

Ben Shapiro is a terrible YouTube conservative that I do not recommend looking up. In this dream, I am waiting in line at the pharmacy. Ben is arguing with everyone in line "If you gave people the means to survive without working, they wouldn't work," I heard him say to someone.

Eventually, I decide to lay down, because the line is taking so long to move. I fall asleep. Ben Shapiro wakes me up, "You know what'll be nice about tomorrow? I won't see you," is how he wakes me up.

He processes my prescription and is surprised by the doctor I go to. Seems my doctor is close to a shady part of town or something.

Quakecon: Old Friends and New

I'm at Quakecon. It's a different hotel than either of the previous ones. At least the BYOC setup is different. My friend Kevin came, and he hasn't come since our first years ago. "I should get a laptop stand like that," he says, pointing to a device.

I look carefully at it. "This is a Switch dock." But I knew what he meant. I had a laptop stand that I used when plugging my laptop into my desk setup.

The person sitting to the right of me looks like she's playing a neat game. She asks me if I want to play, but not in English. I think it's Korean, though I don't know Korean so it definitely wasn't. We have a conversation about something but I can't remember its content. At the end, I say 「楽しかった」(tanoshikatta, which is "this was fun" in Japanese). I don't know why I thought to say it. She didn't seem to understand, and I didn't expect her to.

Wake (logged at 0730 this morning)

So, WILD attempts once again led to a lot of hypnagogic "dreams" (much like naps). But I think I got much closer to just dreaming this time. Several times I observed myself starting to snore, for instance. Also several times I started seeing with eyes instead of visualizing. And I definitely still did some dreaming but I feel like it was a bunch of short ones.

Yoda was once again in the dreams. I also think I managed to go to my aunt's. Perhaps both of these should be DILD triggers.

I think at least once I watched myself fall into a dream and still did not manage to be lucid. Progress, though!

Pre-nap (1250)

Play with directing hypnagogy. Try not to "wake up" when hearing myself snore.

Post-nap (1300)

Did some work thinking. Slightly hypnagogic. Very short nap.

Meditation (Day 91)

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

Post-Meditation

Leg of the day often falls asleep again. Bad posture? Back also complained a bit today. Shoulder in a good place, though.

I focused on staying still at the end and some interesting movements happened automatically, without any realization that they were coming consciously. One movement basically readjusted everything, but I noticed that circulation to my leg returned and that overall it felt like a solid and stable posture.... Will Have to try to replicate. Staying still and waiting for automatic motion may be the answer? It suggests to me that there's parts of myself I have trouble hearing, and that stillness is the answer to learning to hear them, and I anticipate eventually I'll notice the trigger causing the automatic movement and just "hear" my body (and my various parts of my subconscious mind) better.

Various points of stillness today felt very powerful. Looking forward to more progress there.

Experimental

Timeblock-checking habit is growing. I do still manipulate the day, but it seems like there's better rigor to it now.

Been bad about music stuff now that it's more explicitly about me practicing some tools. Will maybe make that next week's experimental focus.

Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

Reality check. Alarm set for 0400. Let's take a step back and focus on remembering my dreams again. Incubation of specifics can come later. So, I will remember my dreams, and I will do a reality check in my dreams.

Wake (logged at 0600 this morning)

Apparently slept through WBTS alarm. Reality check. I woke up a couple times with dreams in my head, but didn't write them down. Guess I'm pretty tired.

Anyways, I have some dreams I remember that I should write down before they're completely gone.

Dancing in a Gym

I'm at some sort of dance class. The group is supposed to dance along a wavy line, and stop and do a twirl in place. The person in front stops too soon and the person behind stops too late, and we don't have room to twirl without getting in each other's way.

Road Trip with Family

My family is on some sort of road trip. I think it's me and my family and not a dream replacement avatar, anyways.

We stop at a mall and I have a huge argument with my dad. He threatens to leave without me and I tell him that's fine.

There was a lot more i this dream, but it has faded.

Dexter

I am Dexter (from the show about the serial killer). Someone has frustrated my careful planning and I shoot them with their own rifle and scramble to clean up the evidence. They have a dog/hamster thing that I adopt.

There's a time-skip and I'm at a party. A detective comes to talk to me. Talks about how the murder weapon can't be found, but how it could've been slowly dissolved in the urine of the criminal's dog/hamster.

While he's talking there's a flashback of me doing this. "Now, the logical thing would be to pour it down the drain, but a sadistic person would maybe do something with it. Like, make it an ingredient in vanilla ice cream."

There's vanilla ice cream at this party. I panic. I grab all of it, eating some of it, but there's too much and I start disposing of it.

The detective has a "gotcha" look on his face but I know he has no evidence.

That's all I remember.

Parallel Dimension

I'm a curly haired boy who has travelled to a parallel dimension. It just happened while drriving, and I almost crashed my car several times. My friend also crossed over with me. We go and meet our dopplegangers. We look slightly different from each other.

The doppleganger of someone else shows up, but she looks completely different. We think it is due to having a different mom.

This one was mostly forgotten.

Reflection (logged at 2200)

After writing those dreams down around 0630, I went back to sleep and had another dream. This one was not written down (I think I need to set the intention to write down my dreams a bit harder), and by now is basically completely gone.

It had something to do with a MMORPG about thieves. And there was an office party in the MMO.... Yeah, I thought I remembered more than I did, but when I realized I didn't write it down and went to write it down digitally... I realized it was pretty gone.

So, yeah, will go for the intention to write in my journal whenever I realize I'm awake again. That led to remembering the abstract breath dream, which I'm pretty sure led to me improving in meditation.

No nap today, though maybe I could've used one.

Also, now I have yet another dad dream wherein I'm in conflict with him. That's 4 for 4 in the dreams I have written down (and properly tagged with "Dad", maybe I missed one or two).

Meditation (Day 90)

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

Post-Meditation

Today was hectic, and I had to fit meditation in there somewhere, and I did. And it was good.

Boredom is a new challenge, which is interesting. Whereas my mind would wander before I could become bored before, now that I can keep my mind on point, there's this strong urge to "decide" to do something else. It, like the timer distraction, is fun to interact with (I think interact is the best word here, as undescriptive as it is).

Today, meditation was just 35 minutes, due to time constraints, though I still ended up struggling with boredom and noticed the itch to stop and do something else with about 10 minutes to go (a sound-cue tipped me off to the time remaining).

Anyways, I still have the occasional gross distraction, though maybe soon I won't. Further, I have not forgotten the breath in a good long while (unless of course there's some distractions that trick me into thinking I haven't forgotten, which I feel is quite possible).

I still try to remember the distractions after meditation, and now I save:

• the distraction label
• whether it was subtle or gross
• whether it was internal or external
• where my breath was when I labeled the distraction (vivid, attention, awareness, forgotten)

It's all feeling pretty solid.

I skipped walking meditation today.

I forgot to note that yesterday was a prime-number day. Oops.

Experimental

Had to revise my timeblock plenty, but it worked out. I think today still counts.

Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

Did a reality check before starting. Hopefully that's a strong sign (future note: forgot on waking up to do a reality check before writing, but hopefully next time!). Thanks for the dreams I'm about to write down! 0400 alarm is set. Let's visit my aunt!

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

Woke up at 0340, but didn't get out of bed until 0400. I think I had a dream? Tried to lay in bed and hold onto it, but that was a mistake (at least to do it for 20 whole minutes). It must've had something to do with Madoka Magica? Or maybe just magic in general.

4-Leaf Clover as Magical Conduit

We are trying to grow four-leaf clovers (on a tree somehow) for the purposes of having a conduit for magical power. The person instructing me is impatient and easily frustrated.

Wake (logged at 0700 this morning)

Hard night, dream-wise. Oh, well, try and try again and all that. Also, still better than pre-dream training. I'm pretty happy with my progress thus far, and feel confident that further dream capability will come with time. Only been like 10 days, afterall.

Pre-nap (logged at 1230)

Feeling like hypnago—-wait! gotta do reality check! Not dreaming.

....

Feeling like hypnagogic thoughts are possible today. Been working on work task enough that I can try "dreaming" about work.

Nap intentions: settle into hypnagogy, move mind to work task.

Post-nap (logged at 1300)

Plenty of hypnagogic thoughts about work. Realize don't grok enough of Library Report to pseudo-dream deeply on it. Should think of how to fix that.

Meditation (Day 89)

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

Post-Meditation

Today was hard. Breath wasn't as vivid and distractions were plentiful. Of note, though, is I never forgot the breath. And there weren't even too many instances of the breath falling to awareness. Just that my attention on it had a loss in vividness. Perhaps I was struggling with dullness.

I also was pushing my leg flexibility, and so my left leg was complaining a lot near the end. So much so, that I gave up and looked at the time with 2 minutes remaining, and still decided to stop the meditation there.

Overall, though, it's like I hit a milestone recently that's hard to fall back from, and so today was still better than any day before the 29th. Which is super cool. I'm dealing with new problems and challenges, and I'm excited to see how I adapt and improve against them.

Also, a cool thing I noticed is how I switch my focus on the breath based on the distractions that are coming at me. For instance, if I hear my wife's YouTube videos playing, I switch to visualizing and feeling of the breath and away from hearing it (and any narration that I may have been using). This helps immensely.

Experimental

Timeblock focus continues. Going well, I think. Not expecting perfection, just regularly checking it and seeing if that's what I should be doing.

Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

I will notice conflict and realize I'm dreaming. I will see the mansion and know I'm dreaming. Delicious food will trigger a reality check. Upon waking, I will do a reality check and put pen to paper, writing dreams or the lack thereof.

I will wake at 0400 (alarm set) and do a WBTS.

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

I may have had a dream related to Lovecraft Country, but I can't remember it.

Perhaps the mansion is too vague to incubate. It is a place from a dream a long, long time ago. It's also basically me trying to incubate my dream literally telling me I'm dreaming. I don't think this is impossible, but perhaps a bit too big for my current dreaming capability.

What else, then? An old home, maybe? An old family member?

Perhaps I should revisit a recent dream?

I've gone to my aunt's various times in dreams. That could be fun. Let's try that for incubation.

Sleep time. 0420.

Wake (logged at 0700 this morning)

Still no incubated dream or lucidity (save the super short-lived one). But lots of interesting stuff, though!

I'll just keep trying, and reflect and learn when I can.

(Also, I just wrote everything in journal BEFORE a reality check. Good thing I'm not dreaming.)

Entertainment on a Train

I am travelling on a train. Though often it's a lot like an airplane. So much of the train is a never-that-clean white.

At first, I believe I am not myself and I am traveling with my boyfriend (a dream native). Some of the entertainment on the train is exclusive to the train. I notice my boyfriend is watching some medieval magic fantasy show.

Fire bursts from the screen. Everyone, including me, acts as if this is normal. I explain to someone near me that although he's a great boyfriend, he's a bit boring.

My perspective switches. I'm the boyfriend, and I heard everything. The fire had glitched my audio. I'm pretty upset.

My perspective switches again to a different group of train people on the same cart. They are completely unrelated. "It's weird, I wasn't allowed to bring my favorite brand of cigarette on the train, but you are allowed this crappy brand." I remember them being specific words for the brands at the time, but they were arbitrary nonsense that I can't remember now.

The other guy is more preoccupied with finding a consenting adult to have an affair on the train with. Seems like it's a habit for him? There was quite a bit of content at this part, but lots of it has faded.

....

Now I'm still on a train, but it's different. I am myself and I'm travelling with my friend Andrew (who was also in a dream a couple days ago). He notices I'm awake. "The rain helps you sleep, eh?" he points to the rain falling on this huge window. Would be quite the view if not for all the splatter.

I disagree that it affects me, telling him it's this book I'm reading. I lift up a thick, aged-to-yellow book.

"Ah, did you want to watch that one show exclusive to this train? By the makers of League of Legends, a comedy."

I am confused by train-exclusive content. He seems to hear my confusion.

"Ah, yeah, various transportation services getting exclusive content now. There was even this one movie that a plane company got. Instead of making first class nicer, first class got access to this movie. They were all cramped in there, but the hype for the movie was huge."

What a strange manifestation of dystopia, I think.

Pre-nap (1257)

Play with building hypnagogic habits.

Post-nap (1327)

Tried to picture myself in settings and use those settings as reality check reminders.

Meditation (Day 88)

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)
• Body-scan in the latter half of meditation
• During a planned deviation from breath, keep breath in awareness

Today's meditation will start at 1600. Now that I'm not worried about skipping meditation if I don't do it at the designated time, I'm going to the work meditation meetings to meditate with workmates. I will also take a break in the middle to chat with others about the session. This is a "planned deviation from the breath" and yesterday when this happened, I "forgot" the breath. This time, will try to keep it in awareness.

Post-Meditation

So, I'm hitting problems that I've "gotten over" before, but I think that's a good sign. Specifically, I'm having trouble with the timer again. But that means that 45 minutes is seeming longer. Which I take to mean that more of my moments of consciousness are devoted to the breath and are not lost to dullness or mindless distraction.

This is also my experience, mind you, whereas vivid sensation at the nose before happened often, it wasn't really constant, but now it pretty much is.

And so I'm surprised that 45 minutes haven't passed. I have various backup alarms, so I don't "need" to look at my timer, but the urge exists all the same.

What's also interesting is how... playful this urge is? Meditation is very rarely frustrating, and even when it is, the nature of meditation means I'm given ample opportunity to look at that frustration and understand it. Though, no frustration occurred today, so we can talk about that some other time.

Anyways, there were two interesting "fights" on the cushion today:

• the timer (my old, familiar foe)
• boredom (but not how I usually think of it)

So, really, the timer and boredom are connected, but the timer is also triggered by a history with my fitbit restarting (and thus silently ending the countdown timer I have going), and also by how asleep one of my legs clearly is (and a paranoia that I'm doing nerve damage even though there's no way I am). However, the struggle (don't like this word any more than fight...) aginst both is very similar so I'll speak only of the timer, but assume something similar is in play with boredom.

The fear-triggered timer distraction is a familiar dance at this point. It goes on entirely in the background. Will knowing the time change anything? No. Does the timer dying matter? No, again, I have backups. So, it's fine, don't look at the timer. Meditative joy formula: relax and look for joy; let it come, let it be, and let it go.

What's interesting, though, is that this distraction still shows up and still wins sometimes. Via sheer tenacity. And then even further, it's fun to dodge it (dodge also isn't good, I'll find a fun word eventually). The distraction typically becomes tenacious past the halfway mark, I'm guessing around 30 minutes in, but I don't know, because I don't give in for a while after it starts being frequently insistent.

Every time the distraction comes into awareness and I don't look at the timer, it is immensely satisfying. But when it sometimes wins, there's this feeling of, "good game mind, let's play again tomorrow". Today, with 10 seconds remaining on the timer, I broke down and looked at it. In so many circumstances, that's the worst kind of loss. But it was just a super strong "good game" feeling.

Experimental

The experimental thing of focus now is still adhering to the timeblock. I'm thinking this adherence will also only be a "workday" thing, though maybe I'll have a smaller block of adherence on the weekend.

There is something oddly satisfying about not revising the timeblock at the end of the day.

Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

Continue trying to dream of mansion. Try to have a dream-initiated-lucid dream (DILD) if a wake-initiated (WILD) doesn't happen.

I will:

• reality check before writing in journal
• play out pseudo-dreams during WILD attempt
• write in journal upon any wake-from-sleep

Group Chat with College Friends

Yesterday, I had a group chat with college friends (over Zoom). A friend is moving from Seattle to San Diego.

I believe I had a dream about this as well, but don't remember much of it. I think it was in-person in the dream.

Getting a Raise

I am in a conference room. An old work acquaintance is now my boss. I interacted with her infrequently, and only knew her more through other work friends. For example, she's very into Star Trek and says "Come" when knocking on her door consistently.

I anticipate being disappointed in the offer, and being prepared to put in notice of my resignation. She tells me that I'll be getting a 50% raise.

This is properly registered as incredibly generous. I try to do the math in my head, but I make it really complicated by increasing some 10 different numbers by 50%. She notices that I look troubled.

"Is it Yoda?" she asks. And I notice my cat is zooming around the room, running back and forth, claws catching on the carpet as she zips around.

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

Too tired for WBTS today (is what I wrote in my journal at 0400).

Died in a Plane Crash

I am working out on a gym that's on some sort of flying vehicle. I believe it registers as a plane. It seems that a previous high school teacher of mine swears by this gym, as gravity can seem to lessen on it for some workouts.

Suddenly, I find that I'm being thrown to the back of the plane. An intense dread feels my body. "Oh, I'm dead." There's this texture of a crash, and then I'm awake, tingling all over.

SF Confusion

I am in a building in SF. I'm trying to do something, but I can't remember what. My friend Ian is there. I'm glad he's okay, he hasn't responded to my texts.

Really vague, hard to remember, didn't write enough down when it was fresh (I was very tired).

My Aunt is Killing Viruses

I am at my aunt's house. Except as far as I know it's unlike any house my aunt has ever lived in. But I know it to be hers. My cat Yoda is there, zooming around the house like crazy.

I notice a strange splatch of... something on the ground. It is in the shape of a skull and crossbones. "Oh, that," my aunt says, "that's just the dead virus." She'd put down poison all over the house, apparently, that only kills "the virus", and when the virus dies, that's what it looks like.

That's all I remember.

Wake (logged at 0700 this morning)

All I did was note the dreams I forgot to note so I could write them down as best I could later.

Pre-nap (1315)

Play with pseudo dreams.

Post-nap (1330)

No body-movement today. Tried to see if I could explore memories of last night's dreams in addition to a bit of Melee practice. Maybe helped with further recall? Unsure.

Reflection (written at 2130 this night)

I was really tired last night, and it led to some strange dreams, it seems. That same tiredness made it hard to remember them properly as well. Upon waking up I noted more if I could, but did not make a proper "Wake" bit of writing reflecting on it all while the dream state fades.

Ideally, I think, I'd write the wake document and one of these reflections later. But in any case, 1/2 isn't bad for our purposes.

Yoda was very present in my dreams tonight, but I'm pretty sure it was because I woke up several times to her running all over the bed room (and even attacking my feet, which she hasn't done in a good while).

Meditation (Day 87)

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)
• Body-scan later in the session.

Post-Meditation

Today continues the no-forgetting streak. Again, maybe not quite as good as two days ago, but with its own good things and its own bad things. You may have noticed that planning a body-scan is a part of the pre-meditation intention-setting.

The "bad" here was that I actually did forget the breath. Twice. But they were planned interruptions to my meditation. Basically, I forgot intentionally. It makes sense in context, but I don't want to make it a habit. Merely a bit of flexibility on my end.

Also, I'm starting a post-sitting walking meditation habit, which is also going well.

What's very exciting to note is that I use the dream version of the graph when visualizing the breath. I quite like it. Looks more like I'm painting the breath. And it makes me really decide on the transition points. It's satisfying. The breath is becoming quite vivid and I have lots of ways to play with looking at it.

Experimental

Renaming this section. I realize what I really want to think about here is what do I want to do that I'm not and what mutations do I want to make to my habits to start making progress towards that.

And there's a lot of things here. So many. So much so that I have to choose to not do most of them. Many of them I'll choose not to do for years, for decades, and many more will just never happen.

I have found that right now all effort focused on an understanding of self will, in the long run, mean doing more of the things I want to do. This is something I knew intellectually for a long time, but it wasn't until ADHD medication that I could start putting that into motion.

And now I just keep getting reinforcement that it is correct. Meditation has proven very valuable. I believe dream journaling will prove itself (though the abstract meditation dream maybe was already such evidence).

Anyways, my focus this week, I said, was "work more". But really, it's to do something I never got very good at, which is try to adhere to my timeblock (at least during "working hours"). Again, this is something I've seen the power of, but pre-ADHD medication, things didn't really seem to stick. Today was very powerful, perhaps I can expect stickiness this time.

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.

It happens all the time
Lost sight of the present
In the moment

The feeling is fleeting
Flowing freely through my fingers

Wait

Can it stay
Can it linger
More than just a few minutes of the year

Can I remember this time
Not that it happened
But what it felt like

Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

Let's go to the dilapidated mansion! Alarm set for 0400 for WBTS. Will practice watching myself fall asleep. Hope it will lead to proper WILD in WBTS.

Thanks for the dreams I'm about to encounter, however they may occur.

Oh! Also, I will grab this notebook and start writing the moment I wake up!

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

Actually skipped this (more in Wake below).

Wake (logged at 0700 this morning)

I woke up to a 0400 alarm in a groggy state. I think I wrote the haze of the abstract dream in that state and went back to bed, completely forgetting WBTS.

Around 0530, I woke up again, but decided that it was too late to wake up and do a proper WBTS. I'd probably not be able to fall back asleep. I did a kind of quick mental one wherein I thought "I want to go to the delipidated mansion" and also "I want to watch myself fall asleep." Around the time my limbs relaxed, I lost focus and thus didn't manage a WILD. Think it was close, though.

Abstract Lines

My breath dreamed as sketches.

Something I've been doing during meditation when connecting the stages of the breath, is imagining my breath as a continually updating graph. The graph is basically time on the x-axis, and how full of air my lungs are on the y-axis. I imagine an quick acceleration of intake of breath, followed by it slowing down as my lungs fill up, until no air is entering and I'm shifting to the pause between inhale and exhale. And then a similar setup occurs on the exhale. I use this visualization to try and contrast the speed and amount of air flowing into and out of my lungs between breaths, and also try to see how much of a mirror my exhale is to my inhale (I feel like the pressure in my lungs makes the acceleration of the exhale faster than the inhale one).

Anyways, I think this dream started out as that, but then the lines shifted into a kind of calligraphy. Further, when I visualize in meditation, it's a skyblue line on a white background. But in the dream it was white lines on a black background. And though the separation between inhale, pause, exhale, pause isn't explicit in meditation, in the dream the lines were broken around the places where the shift in stages occur.

I feel there was more to this dream but all I remember is the graph I'm more or less familiar with in meditation transforming into that calligraphy.

Visiting Friends

At friend's parent's house. Might've started as call to friend's parents. But now I'm at the house. I'm talking about all the books that helped me that I read. "Did the friends that recommended these books, did them seem different after they read them themselves?" I found this question difficult to answer. I'm pacing all over their house. Talking on the phone with them now.

I find a pair of tiger striped exercise pants. It reminds me of something, but I continue talking. I'm stuttering and really having trouble with the question. I give up and change the subject.

"You guys temporarily moved out so David or Pat could live here alone, yeah?" (Names changed even though it's their dream versions.) They seem as if they don't understand the question. In real life, this did not happen, potentially related to that?

I eventually talk about how hard the question was to answer and how I found those exercise pants. We all have a laugh.

Suddenly, it's night and Pat is visiting his parents. The sliding door leading to their backyard has become an entrance to an arcade/bar. There's a wait to get in even though there's no line and no one seems to be inside save one or two employees.

Pat and I talk a bit. About what I don't remember. While waiting to get inside, we order some sourdough bread. It's delicious. Finally, we can pay to get inside. I wonder if since we're paying to get in, all the arcade games that I see are free-to-play. I never find out.

As Pat goes to pay, an employee comes and picks a fight.e Pat avoids the conflict and deescalates. As we entre, he tells me he needs to make sure things are alright and made right and goes to talk with the employee some more.

I explore a bit and see a drink mixing station. Pat shows up and tells me an apology will be accepted after he makes the employee a drink. He asks me if I want one, but I don't. I grab some ice and water before the dream ends.

Distraut and Superheroes

I'm hanging out with my friend Andrew and a dream-native significant other of his. We are walking around admiring the BLM protest art. We find ourselves back at the beginning, but looking around all the protest art has been painted over or otherwise erased.

We're all a bit distraught by this. "It shouldn't be erased at all, but especially not before the problem is solved." I try to draw a comparison to WWII but I can't really find the words.

We end up talking about alternate reality fiction. A specific piece of fiction where the Allies became facist after winning WWII comes up.

"Isn't that a Marvel comic?" I ask.

"You haven't seen the movie?"

So, I find this movie and start watching it. The dream merges into the movie. In the same area where we were admiring art, there are now refugees waiting for a bus to safety. A fair amount of them appear to be anthropomorphic beings, of animal and inanimate object varieties.

A group of people come to attack the refugees and I intervene. At first, I'm a normal human with some sort of transparent bo staff. Looking back I feel like it was magical, but I don't remember it doing anything magical. After some time, my perspective switches to being a floating, anthropomorphic piece of construction equipment (looking it up now, basically an excavator, but there's two shove bits that form a mouth).

As the excavator, I'm constantly being thrown into some sort of trash compactor, but regularly freeing myself. Eventually, bo-staff hero who is no longer "me" helps me.

I don't remember anything else, continuously. But there was also a scene at some sort of "mad science" facility. A cat-woman is being experimented on. I, a woman scientist, am told to interact with the subject. As I interact, she transforms a bit, but so do I. This seems to have been the intention of the people giving me commands, but took me by surprise. Maybe a different dream entirely? Feels related.

Meditation (Day 85)

Intentions for the day:

• Label the distractions, do it over and over so that it becomes automatic
• Anything I have control over, try to do anticipate it mindfully
  • E.g. swallowing, introspective check-ins, even
• 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
• Try to note where the breath was when you label a distraction (attention, awareness, or forgotten)
• Only adjust posture mindfully, microadjustments due to relaxation too (though just "relax" as a mindful cue is good)

Post-Meditation

So, I've kinda been jumping into meditation again without going through my prep process. I think I like this? Or, rather, I think there'll be value in alternating between a prep that's before meditation and a prep that's on the cushion at the beginning of meditation (aka the timer has already started). I did the 6 points at the very beginning of my meditation today, like I used to when I first started.

And it was excellent. However, it wouldn't have been so good without formalizing it in a document and using that document as a guide several times. Perhaps I could repeat the process and get the best of both worlds? Though, I have kinda tried that before, but then I end up "rushing" through it on the cushion. So, alternating may be better.

In any case, today, for sure, I never forgot the breath. And a gross distraction didn't occur until well over halfway through, I'm pretty sure. Gross distractions themselves were not too numerous, either, though they do still like to cascade when they managed to happen.

The process was just solid today. There was this kind of echo of focus on the breath that really let me connect the stages. It was like on exhale I was replaying the inhale. I tried to layer the previous breath in after a bit, but that was hard. I also tried to replay the pauses, but that proved very difficult, especially since the pauses aren't the same length as the breath. I think it may be doable, though. I'll play with it.

When I can repeat this experience regularly, I know I'll be ready for regular body scans (stage 5 practice). Though, I think it may be time to make some sort of trigger rule I can follow to do a body scan during an appropriate meditation.

In any case, today was another best meditation day! Woo! Always fun.

Also, reflecting on my dreams today... could the abstract dream have helped here? Hmmm....

Extracurricular Stuff

Lots of errands today, no extracurriculars. Tomorrow is weekly review, as well. Further, I think I could be doing more work on workdays, so I'm going to make that the "new project" priority next week.

Though, I say all that, I don't count:

• music stuff with wife
• dream journal (now a part of daily habits)
• meditation (really ingrained into daily life)
• studying Japaenese (though I want to level up this habit soon)
• Anki in general (same)

So, like, I do plenty. Just want to tighten things up a bit and make sure things are getting the right priority.

Dream

Dream stuff all in physical notebook. Will be digitized tonight.

Intention (2200 the night before)

Two new concepts to play with: incubation and WILD (wake-initiated-lucid-dream). I realize that I already did a WILD (my last lucid dream). I'll try again on purpose after WBTS tonight.

Incubation also I was aware of, but I have more pointers to work with now.

But what do I want to incubate? Back in 2007 I had "the never-ending lucid dream" (my writing on this is lost to entropy, but I may recreate it as best I can and put it in this dream journal). At one point there was this dilapidated mansion full of others who also seemed to be dreamers (meeting "other dreamers" seems to be a common experience with lucid dreamers according to the book). "He's back," they said of me. As though I were an old friend.

How different is that place now? I want to know. When was the last time I was there? Do I visit regularly and forget?

Let's go back. Even if it's just to eat their delicious food again.

Ready? 0400 alarm set. Changing Toggl to "Sleep".

Wake-Back-to-Sleep (logged at 0330 this morning)

It's 0325. Not sure if this is an acceptable WBTS time. I do not remember any dreams. I did, however, repeat the wild process and watch my body fall asleep. Didn't expect to fall asleep into a dream, though. Other stages of sleep and all that.

Going to try again now, though. This time I won't be too quick to start the dream. I think that was maybe one thing I did wrong last time.

As backup I will also try to incubate mansion dream again.

It's 0340. Time to go back to sleep.

Wake (logged at 0700 this morning)

A couple of dreams that I should've wrote down sooner. Kept almost falling asleep with WILD but getting too excited and waking up more when I felt my body start to vibrate (and also when the blackness of my vision started to maybe seem to get some light). Eventually I gave up, rolled over, and fell right asleep.

Though, saying that, the first dream I remember may have been before rolling over, but it ended up not being lucid even so.

(Wrote down my two dreams here.)

Seems incubation and WILD didn't "work", but both felt pretty great to try. Will try again tonight. I will also try to build the habit of writing the dream as soon I wake up from one (after doing a reality check). I'll write down this intention as well before sleep, and during WBTS.

Perfect Dark

I am the protagonist in Perfect Dark. In an enemy facility. It has thick, square pillars down a massive concrete tunnel. I'm on an elevated side-path, a full story above, but with no guard rail. The path is made of sheet metal. Ahead of me there's a guard about to turn around. He spots me, and I shoot him. Another guard on the bottom level spots me. I go to shoot him, but I'm out of bullets. I throw my gun and miss completely. I jump down and steal his weapon.

I get too excited and wake up I think.

Forgotten

Except for stuff I shouldn't share here, can't really remember anything about this dream. Just know that it existed and it was shortly in my brain. Writing this down to help cement the intention to dream journal as soon as it occurs to me to do so.

Meditation (Day 84)

Intentions for the day:

• Label the distractions, do it over and over so that it becomes automatic
• Anything I have control over, try to do anticipate it mindfully
  • E.g. swallowing, introspective check-ins, even
• Trace distractions to source, see how much wandering happened
• Try to note where the breath was when you label a distraction (attention, awareness, or forgotten)
• Only adjust posture mindfully, microadjustments due to relaxation too (though just "relax" as a mindful cue is good)

Post-Meditation

I moved exactly once, and I did it mindfully. The cat was digging to get under the mat, and so I moved slowlyd and deliberately so that there was a little tube for the cat to shuffle into.

I'm fairly certain I never forgot the breath, though it did fall into awareness plenty.

Again, less narration today. Distractions setup in Notion still solid. Distractions I remembered are:

• Library Report (work task)
• Data Classification (work task)
• Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (entertainment)
• (Song not feeling) Suicide is Painless (Song)
• Posture (Meditation)
• Planning (Meditation)
• Fantasy (Projects)

And while reviewing here I remembered and added some, which is fun. Some of these kept coming. Some of them were gross, and some were subtle. I should probably update my system to reflect these things.

Noting where the breath was when noting a distraction was fairly automatic, and helped breath stay in attention more often. And also, there's stages to the attention? I label it following and connecting, based on recommended ways to follow the breath in The Mind Illuminated, but really it's a matter of how vivid and clear the breath is. When I'm following it's less clear than when I'm connecting, and also there's a lot of stuff to connect.

Extracurricular Stuff

Did some work extracurricular today. That plus meditation and dreaming means I'm full up on it today.