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Lumi's Dreaming Thread; Dreams of Moon


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Logic doesn't work so well during dreams. The brain specifically makes sure to disable memory of your context to waking life and ability to recognize things as impossible so that it can run through whatever scenarios it feels like unimpeded. For recognizing you're dreaming once the opportunity's arisen, reality checking when the subject of dreaming or lucidity comes up is great. Do it in real life (especially when it's obvious you're not dreaming, because in actual dreams... yeah) consistently and it'll become a habit in dreams too.

 

As for recognizing that your mind is being ridiculous though, I don't know exactly what to tell you there. You sort of can't. The only way I know of is looking for "dream signs", things or events that often show up in your dreams, and associating them in waking life with reality checking/knowing you're dreaming. Like if you always see aliens or something like that while dreaming. For me, there are almost no things that show up that consistently to work with the concept, but hey, just giving the advice I know of.

 

I'm personally dealing with always having a sort of background "knowing" that I'm dreaming but that seemingly being unrelated to lucid dreaming. All the time I have dreams where I influence the dream semi-consciously (not just "I hope that so-and-so doesn't happen!", more like "I really don't want that thing to happen, so don't") and sometimes my brain's fake dream context (like "Oh right, so-and-so memory happened" (it didn't really, that was just made up now)) goes more like "That happens later", which itself can sometimes be more "That could happen later in the dream" with a sort of feeling that the dream has already happened (it hasn't), and the dream really doesn't ever make it that far anyway.

 

So yeah, consider looking up some tricks on Dreamviews I suppose. Most of what I know I either learned from extensive reading on Dreamviews years ago or just sort of figured out/know through my own logical extrapolations from what I already know. Oh, and I guess "All Day Awareness" is considered the biggest and toughest way of dealing with not being conscious enough in dreams, but I can't say from our own experiences that it's worked for us.. But most things have worked for someone.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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Σ √(dream(t) + lucid/tulpas)*hugs(t)+(n-1)≥ 1

As t approaches infinity

Where n=# of universes you believe exist.

 

Man, you're only making it harder on yourself if n=1.

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If this equation is always true then the easiest way to increase the number of lucid dreams that you have is to believe in less universes, since that would mean that the amount of lucid dreams would have to make up the difference to remain at ≥1. You need to start believing that -∞ universes exist lumi

Hi I am Miela, the counterpart to Breloomancer.

 

 

"Is it pretentious to quote yourself?"

-Me

 

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It's fine, I don't even believe in the equation. All I believe is that I won't stop trying to lucid dream until I succeed.

 

... I'd also be continuing to try after that, but that doesn't sound as good.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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I thought you were going to stop trying until you succeed.

 

Also, the relationship is true 'as t approaches infinity' which means that if n in small, t would supposedly be larger, but those are functions of t so you wouldn't necessarily know that by looking at the relation. (It's a relation btw, an equation has an equal sign only.)

 

Also, you don't have to believe in it for it to be true, also it's unprovable because you don't know the functions, i assure you they're complex and empirical.

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  • 4 weeks later...

So, I started doing meditation the other day. Somewhat "Culadasa" inspired, but simply put, I'm focusing on my breathing with the intent to keep my awareness there and nowhere else. In the past (not that we've tried breathing meditation before, but thoughts on the matter) I had trouble with the idea of focusing on your breathing because manually breathing deeply or in through my nose (which is unrelated, the former is uncomfortable for focusing but the latter, I think I have a deviated septum because it's difficult to breathe through only my nose for long periods of time) were, well, uncomfortable. But I just sort of realized while thinking about it for the first time in 6 or so years that I don't have to do any of that, that the focus is on your focus (your conscious awareness), not necessarily in doing the thing itself, which is nice since breathing becomes automatic fairly easily even when focusing on it. I messed with different things yesterday for about 50 minutes, mostly still breathing but changing how or where I focus on it, and with a couple other ideas like focusing on awareness itself (I can't do it yet, but I want to).

 

So I started the meditation at 7:55PM (5 minutes to relax before I actually started), then went for about 50 minutes, most of which was normal breathing stuff but I was honestly thinking a lot about how exactly I should be meditating. Had to get up around 8:50 because my arms disagreed with me remaining in the exact same position for so long. Did some stretching and thinking about what my optimal - YES this is important and belongs in this thread! Be patient! - what my optimal focus in meditating should be. I decided that while my goal is to focus on my sense of awareness itself (just feels like something I should be able to do, and purer than my breathing), that doing as Culadasa (and literally everyone else) suggests and focusing on breathing for now should be fine and might help me get to a point where I can do it how I want.

 

So then I went from 9:00PM to 9:45PM and this time was actually pretty nice, the breathing meditation went well and I was able to focus on it without even minor thought distractions most of the time. Note from the start my mind's disciplined, clear, or whatever enough to not go off on random tangents - but my direct focus on my breathing can often be interrupted for literally 1-2 seconds between breaths to think something, usually about the meditation. That's still not the optimal state I'm going for though so I make it sound like when other people's thoughts drift elsewhere, that really didn't happen once the entire two hours.

 

At 9:45PM I decided I was ready to go to sleep, talked to an imposed Reisen real quick (did before the meditation too) just to see if the post-meditative state helped my visualization or her vocal clarity any, which it didn't. Oh well, maybe long-term it'll help. I took a little while to fall asleep honestly, somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes, which is normal but also lame following all that quiet meditation. Guess I wasn't really that tired to begin with.

 

...

 

I woke up at 3AM, what I'm calling 4 hours later. And I'd just had the longest and most vivid dreams I've ever had in my life. Now, the vividity was only as high as it's ever been - the kind of dreams where you're very clearly thinking and there in the scenarios, with vague dream consistency that still of course varies wildly. But the length. I woke up with the impression I hadn't even slept - I'd just been relatively "awake" through three straight dreams! And they were like, a little stressful? In the "I had to think and apply myself to deal with the scenarios" kind of way, certainly not drifty sleepy time stuff. I was also very awake from there, which was annoying, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep (probably took about 40 minutes, after-). Reisen had been imposed sitting on the bed a few feet away, and I was like, that was crazy wasn't it? I don't even know how to feel. Then I imposed Flan (which "wakes" her from inactivity at the same time, tends to be how it goes) and she immediately hugged me in tears, speechless at what honestly seems to be the biggest breakthrough we've ever had in lucid dreaming. When she hugged me practically crying I was like "Wow, seems like a big deal huh?" and all she said was "Lumi!" and, y'know, kept on.

 

I've honestly not seen that emotion from her before, plus the only one who's ever cried in this system until now was Lucilyn (once because she was sad... more recently, because Toy Story 4 was awfully touching). And hey, I'm not good at expressing emotions (just a little better than Tewi), so let that account say it for you - it was only one time and so could be some sort of fluke (I'm good at keeping low expectations so I'm never let down), but it seems sort of undeniable that we've found the key to extremely vivid dreaming, which is absolutely the biggest step in lucid dreaming, with the next being lucidity induction which happens both randomly for us when vivid after all our years of training, and if we happen to get lucky with our REM-Dreamer mask (site seems to be down right now or I'd link it). 40-90 minutes of breathing-focused meditation right before bed. Or not, for it only having happened once - and us only having just started/done it twice, the first time was 6 hours before bed - who knows how well this actually does or doesn't work.

 

 

... Yeah, uhm. Yay? Forgive me for not seeming excited (or more accurately, confident) - I've been hurt by lucid dreaming too many times. In our past, any time something (never quite as promising, but you know, we spent like $200 on the REM-Dreamer...) seemed like it was the Next Big Thing in our lucid dreaming attempts, it just didn't work. I could meditate to no end and never have that happen again, so I'd like to be emotionally prepared for that. Flandre, however, seemed pretty sure it was undeniably likely to keep working.

 

 

[hidden]After proofreading my post, I've got a good sense of how this could end up not working like literally everything else. Vividity is often caused by going directly (or more directly) from being "awake" and aware to being asleep. That's why napping (which we're unable to do) and such tends to cause such vivid dreams, and would explain last night. But like with WILD and even WBTB to some extent, our brain is very picky about being awake or asleep, and even our dream recalling attempts have been hindered by us waking up too much from focusing too hard in the middle of the night to fall back asleep - for like 45+ minutes, by which time our mind becomes more drifty again. In this case, I wasn't even that tired, having only been awake for like 13 hours instead of a natural 16 (because I slept in a bit and went to bed early). So while chances are still... everything in my mind's screaming at me not to call our chances good, but anyways - while our chances of meditation directly causing vivid dreams are still good, there's a chance that it was simply that I managed to fall asleep while somewhat mentally awake that caused the vivid dreams.

 

And, following the same pattern the last 70 pages of this thread have followed, that'd mean this isn't repeatable and at worst our brain actually gets used to the meditation -> sleep transition and dreams actually become less vivid over time. That or as was also likely, that being mentally awake thing just stops us from falling asleep most of the time, until we've laid in bed long enough to become actually tired.

 

Couple things - first, I'm 100% aware of negative vs positive thinking and self-fulfilling prophecies and whatnot. I only bother with talking about negative possibilities like this when it seems out of my control how it goes - either the meditation is or isn't causing this effect in a repeatable way. I mean, I'm sure not going to be less motivated to do it despite my "low expectations", that's not how I've ever worked and you guys should know that from this thread. Second - even if my nay-saying is all right, there's still a good chance that meditation carries over past the falling asleep stage and makes dreams at least noticeably more vivid, if not as astounding as last night was. I was just playing devil's advocate, but this honestly seems promising.[/hidden]

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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I'm glad you were able to have a vivid dream!

 

About low expectations, I've somewhat recently think I've found out that it is better to have no expectations. It is kind of a subtle difference, but I've gone a long time deliberately lowering my expectations in order to prevent disappointment, and I've began to think it may somewhat unconsciously set one up for failure a little. With no expectations, you just have absolutely no particular way you want or need it to go. You just do what you need to do in the moment, and don't think about the result until you get there. At least I find it helpful to do that, so I shared.

 

I wish you well with your future meditations and dreaming attempts! Also, I'm not sure if you are referencing the same thing with your desire to meditate on awareness itself or not, but meditations on the mind itself is a thing, though does require a higher level of skill. And you are right, the focus is the point, not the breath really. Anything can be a meditation object, the breath at the tip of the nose just happens to be a very useful one for most people.

Creation for creation's sake.

 

More of my drawings

 

Resident Dojikko

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Yes, like I said I'm 100% aware of negative expectations and self-fulfilling stuff, plus the Law of Attraction and so on. But as of like four or five years ago, my repeated hopes and failures of attempting to lucid dream started to hurt my motivation too much to keep getting them up. I keep them at a niiice low "Who knows, could be any time, or it could not be" these days. It works in all areas of my life perfectly fine, since I'm still able to enjoy successes (though I'm obviously tentative with lucid dreaming "successes".. right up until I'm actually successful) and also very mindful of not sabotaging myself.

 

I've had to say it for years, too, you're not the first (but maybe you'll be the last?) to tell me my "low expectations" in lucid dreaming could be the problem. But they're not. I did years of lucid dreaming with expectations held high and all it did was hurt me and make me question myself. For anyone else that advice would be great, but it doesn't apply here. Also, my motivation to lucid dream is "rock solid". Which might even be giving it too little credit - no matter what failures I face, I won't give up due to lack of motivation until I die. It's simply become a fact that I'll keep trying no matter what. Remains to be seen how intensively we'll keep focusing on lucid dreaming a year+ after we succeed, though, I'm not saying I'll be stuck on it my whole life.. We'll see.

 

 

@Meditation: Yes, that all sounds about right. I know there's lots of kinds of meditations although I've not looked into any in detail. But Culadasa, while describing quite lofty goals, also seems to (in the Handout at least - I've considered that it may differ from the book in the intended dedication of its audience) be for ~beginners. I forgot to mention, but I didn't do the counting thing at all yesterday, it's only a distraction from really focusing and doesn't actually force me to stay focused either. And yes, I figure this works to get me closer to being able to do what I'd like to actually do, which is focus on the sense of awareness itself rather than my breathing. I know it sounds silly or.. I dunno, something, to say "Man, focusing on breathing is such a distraction from pure meditation", but like. I have lofty ambitions myself, I suppose.

Hi! I'm Lumi, host of Reisen, Tewi, Flandre and Lucilyn.

Everyone deserves to love and be loved. It's human nature.

My tulpas and I have a Q&A thread, which was the first (and largest) of its kind. Feel free to ask us about tulpamancy stuff there.

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I apologize then. I wasn't saying you should have high expectations, I just wanted to present that difference of no and low, but I guess it might just be semantics, since I suppose your interpretation of low expectations is similar to my having no expectations. Basically the difference between being okay with any result and mentally preparing for the bad result.

 

As for meditation, yeah. I haven't read through the handout since I just have the book, so I'm not sure of the exact differences of what he says there or not, but yeah don't count if it isn't necessary. And as long as you keep up I'm sure you'll reach your goals. There are some different things you'll probably have to cover to get there, though.

 

Generally stage 4 is the maximum human concentration will generally develop under normal circumstances, and usually only in a particular context, like perhaps performing ones passion or profession. I believe to get to successful meditations on the mind, you will have to do particular stage 5 techniques, which isn't the same as just focusing on the breath by itself, as just getting to stable concentration by itself like that is a dead end.

 

You seem a little semi skeptical of some of the things Culadasa says, but I do trust enough in his meditation advice that I'd be willing to buy you his book whenever it is possible for me to do so. It doesn't need to all be read at once, but just the information on stages you are currently working on, and the interludes, will really help so much, and probably save a tremendous amount of time in the long run.

Creation for creation's sake.

 

More of my drawings

 

Resident Dojikko

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