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Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Mar 2005
Last Visit: 01 Apr 2007
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 Posted: Thu 07 Apr, 2005 |
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| mystic wrote: |
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...but I've already noticed a very subtle shift of perspective from the "I" to the "me" perspective. |
I do not understand this fully. Are you talking about witnessing yourself?
Serious practice! Wow...cool!! I wish i could do that!  Besides the ideas in Tolle's book and meditation do you have some other practices you do? If it's not too personal, could you share some of them?
Thanks!
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Posts: 2918
Joined: 24 Dec 2002
Last Visit: 16 Jan 2006
Location: Near the branch's tip
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| Posted: Fri 08 Apr, 2005 |
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| Onyricon wrote: |
| mystic wrote: |
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...but I've already noticed a very subtle shift of perspective from the "I" to the "me" perspective. |
I do not understand this fully. Are you talking about witnessing yourself? |
Yes, but it's still very very subtle.. And it's not like an OBE where you can also witness yourself. Instead, it's more like a change of perspective coming from within you. For instance, I always try to practice LL as intensely as possible whenever I'm brushing my teeth. Instead of feeling the sensations created by the toothbrush against my teeth, I try not to identify myself with them, meaning I try not to experience it as in "I am feeling those sensations". Instead, I try to see it from the perspective of a witness seeing myself feeling those sensations. What's the essence of such a sensation? On the surface, one notices only the physiological effects of the action. But what about the action itself? Where lies the boundary between the action and the resulting sensations? Can we actually experience what's it like to stand on that boundary, where there is no difference anymore between the action and its resulting sensations? What does it say about me, my Self? The same with the visual reflection I see in the mirror, the noises I hear and the flavour I taste on my tongue. Paying attention to all of these makes the action go very slowly ofcourse.. But it's a way to detach yourself from your identification with the world. Usually our identification of the world as seen through the carnal senses is also our identification with reality. But LL tries to cut through that illusionary veil that the reality as perceived through the physical senses is really what Reality is about. Compare consciousness with an endlessly deep ocean. The reality as seen through the five senses consists of only the first few turbulent inches of the ocean. Because of the turbulence, ego tends to identify itself only with those few upper inches of the ocean. That becomes its false reality. That becomes its I- experience. LLing concentrates on the Now, which is the only true portal through which one can dive deeper into the ocean, towards more quiet waters. There are many many ways towards the portal of the Now, but there's only one true portal and that is the Now. From that deeper perspective one can then look towards the turbulent surface waters, seeing that false reality as it is, without judgement because it's just there, there's nothing anymore to judge about. From that deeper perspective you can look at it without getting attached to it anymore; the identification falls off and you witness everything just as it is. Nothing more. But it frees you from the ego-bound reality of physical senses, home to a turbulent mind filled with fears, complexes, unfulfilled wishes and an evergoing rambling train of meaningless thoughts. LL teaches you to go deeper, through that surface veil and to become the witness of your own surface mind.
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| Serious practice! Wow...cool!! I wish i could do that! |
You don't have to go to special places, you don't need special training courses, you don't need special equipment. You can practice at any time, no matter what you're doing. Just pay close attention to whatever you're perceiving. You say you wish you could do that.. You might for instance concentrate on that wish feeling. Look at it, observe it, but don't identify yourself with it. Ask yourself, what does it mean to feel it? Where does it come from? Go to the heart of the feeling, again just by observing it. No judgment, no attachment. Does that feeling really represent me? LL thus becomes a thorough self-exploration towards deeper and deeper levels of the Now, evermore taking you away from the troubled surface mind of mechanic identification with an utterly monochrome and flat reality we learned to accept without questioning because it has become such a monstruous habit to most of us to live in it. LL is a wonderful way to bridge the gap between that what appears to be and that what is.
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| Besides the ideas in Tolle's book and meditation do you have some other practices you do? If it's not too personal, could you share some of them? |
All I can say is: be aware of what you're doing, seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, thinking. In the beginning it's hard to pay attention to all of them at once, because it remarkably slows down the pace of your actions at that moment. Never try to judge whatever you're perceiving, because that would only keep you in the troubled surface mind. Just let it be. If you feel tensions in your body or feel the need to scratch yourself, first bring your awareness to the core of those tensions or nerve tics, and keep asking the same questions: what lies at the core of this feeling? Does it really represent a part of me? Observe it without attachment, and leave it that way.
Another thing I've noticed:
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| During the day, I had more difficulties of paying full attention to whatever I experienced and perceived during every moment. During the second course, I listened to the silence between the words the teacher was saying. I didn’t notice anything really, except that it’s a silence which presumably is very hard to catch. Modern life is always so full of noises. If it’s not outside, then it’s inside your own mind where random thoughts race against each other like unstoppable trains. Either way, it’s always noisy. Can you even remember when you witnessed a COMPLETE silence, both outside as well as inside? Well except for perhaps those one or two extremely short moments, I can’t.. While listening to that silence between the teacher’s words, a peculiar thought crossed my mind: perhaps life inherently is truly pure silence, like the completely flat water surface of a cold mountain lake, totally at peace within itself; whenever an action occurs, like a perception or experience, this results in a noise, or water droplets falling into the water, creating ripples of sounds and noises. Modern life is like that, though it sometimes seems more a whole waterfall of noises falling into that mountain lake, creating evermore interfering ripples and even waves.. |
The next day I tried this:
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| Later on I looked upon the mighty oak tree in our garden. It was very at peace with itself, but what most stroke me most was its silence. I was quite amazed how serene and silent the tree appeared while listening to it, although I didn’t really grasp the silence itself.. The silence stood in big contrast with the monotone noises coming from the motorway in the distance, which now seemed more than ever a symbol of the almost addictive way in which modern society is hooked on generating noises. |
Something else I always do:
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| Another habit I've included is asking myself thoroughly who is actually watching me whenever I stand in front of a mirror. Is it my-self or could there be a deeper layer of watching? What defines me? If I look at my-self standing there, is that really Me with the capital M? What does it actually mean to look upon one-self? Can one truly grasp this by looking in the mirror? |
I hope this helps a bit 
Good luck! 
Last edited by mystic on Fri 08 Apr, 2005; edited 1 time in total
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Posts: 1617
Joined: 05 Jun 2003
Last Visit: 05 Jan 2011
Location: Nonexist
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| Posted: Fri 08 Apr, 2005 |
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Very good post Mystic. Additionally to asking yourself quesitons about your actions, your senses etc, what you could try to do during LL is to develop a kind of awareness in the "back of your head" that keeps you stuck in realizing that you live now. In this sence it doesnt need to be on the top of your consciousness the whole time, although from time to time you might think and wonder about it. It is more like a feeling realy.
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Posts: 17
Joined: 05 Mar 2005
Last Visit: 01 Apr 2007
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| Posted: Sat 09 Apr, 2005 |
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Mystic, thank you for sharing that!!
I'll put your ideas into practice...and maybe i'll come to a deeper understanding to what this is all about.
Btw, do you keep a LL journal?
Once again, a thousand thanks!!
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Posts: 2918
Joined: 24 Dec 2002
Last Visit: 16 Jan 2006
Location: Near the branch's tip
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| Posted: Sat 09 Apr, 2005 |
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I wrote my thoughts down for a while when I first started practicing. I had the intention of posting a LL journal, but once you're in your regular practice, there's nothing much to tell because the process is going so slow.
Remember though.. although the implications are far more deeper than LDing, it takes a lot more practice for a much longer time in order to change radically. So it's extremely important to keep practicing, day by day, and to have a lot of patience!
I wish you the best of luck!!
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Posts: 159
Joined: 22 May 2002
Last Visit: 02 Apr 2006
Location: Outside the Box
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| Posted: Sat 09 Apr, 2005 |
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Nicely done Mystic, and I like the ocean analogy.
In talking about LL there is usually a great deal of attention and explanation put on what it is not. This could be summed up nicely as swimming in the shallow turbulent waters of our personal “insanity”. Worries, fears, anger, going thru the motions without any awareness, etc. Most often the issue becomes: “How do I stop? What exercises can I do? etc”. There is definitely a need to find some way to bread the pattern, but don’t let the exercise become the focus of LL. If you engage in self-examination, looking to see if some thought is really you or not, don’t make a career out of it. If you are disappointed in the weather, don’t spin yourself into some great introspective conundrum. That’s still swimming in the shallow waters.
When I notice that I am not in the moment, I simply go “Woops” and return my attention to the here and now. I believe that the most benefit will be gained by staying in the moment. But this is personal opinion, and what’s most important is to find something you are comfortable with and keeping at it. LL is just one way of expressing the concept of being in the moment. Meditation, long walks in the woods, etc. are other means of arriving at the same thing. The difference I see with LL is the focus it places on what if feels like to be in a Lucid Dream, and trying to maintain that state of awareness in waking life.
I came up with LL because I was trying to explain what Lucid Dreaming was like, and I thought a lot about what the actual feelings/mechanisms were at play in my awareness in an LD. One key element that I always come back to is the sense of self in this type of awareness. Though I have 95% of my attention on my surroundings there is always this subtle awareness that it is ME that is doing the looking. It’s like Xetrov said: something that is always there in the back of your mind. This is simply an awareness of self. I’m not aware of being hungry, or tired, because the essential ME doesn’t feel these things, any more than the essential ME feels angry or afraid.
For me this sense of self is fundamental to this state of awareness. If I become too engrossed in what I am looking at I loose being in the here and now just the same as if I had become afraid. I’d say this was an element of self-control, a self-discipline that has to be maintained.
The practice of LL is something that can and should be done through out the day. I can loose the LL feeling in a second and have to bring myself back many many times. I’d say don’t look for a special time or place to practice this. After all it is Lucid Living, do it any time you are alive.
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Posts: 125
Joined: 23 May 2002
Last Visit: 18 Sep 2006
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed 27 Jul, 2005 |
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This is a really interesting topic. I've read the Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche book as well, and tried to practice his technique for certain periods of time. What I find difficult is that it's easy to be reflective when I'm walking along or just relaxing, but when I'm in some kind of more intense situation like social interaction or a stressful activity, I forget all about reflecting on myself and I'm completely involved in the activity (or completely uninvolved, to look at it another way, since I am not really conscious at this time), exactly as I am completely involved in non-lucid dreams. My dreams almost always seem to involve some kind of emotionally intense scenario. Maybe these experiences are the ones that generate the strongest unconscious traces (karmic traces as Rinpoche calls it, or sangkaras in Vipassana meditation) and so these kinds of emotions are more likely to be relived in dreams. Maybe I am just a stressed-out person. I have been aiming to use stress as a trigger for reflection for a long time, but it is so difficult. I always get caught up in some pointless ego roleplay ("Yes, I know all about that reflection stuff, but THIS TIME it's REALLY IMPORTANT!!! Oh, yeah, it's all very well to be reflective when the washing-up water gets cold or something, but what about when your girlfriend chucks you out of the flat and then you forget to take your boots and then miss the bus and get stuck in London all day?!! Stuff the Lucidity, I'm sulking!!!"). If EVERYTHING is like a dream, that means EVERYTHING. This is a really fundamental change in our way of life, and according to the Tibetan Buddhist theory, this should be the aim, with lucid dreaming just as a useful technique to make the mind flexible.
By the way, I have been wanting to say how amazing this site is. What we are doing is practical research into the frontiers of human consciousness, in the middle of a repressive society that scorns most manifestations of serenity, through a non-hierarchical group without any dogma (religious or scientistic), money or power. This could be the turning point for the human species. I don't know of any other group that is doing this in such a healthy way. Wonderful how the fundamental urge to transcendent experience re-emerges from the most debased culture.
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Posts: 246
Joined: 07 Dec 2004
Last Visit: 26 Sep 2007
LD count: 1 maybe 2 LDs
Location: Hyrule
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| Posted: Fri 16 Dec, 2005 |
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| Space Wrangler wrote: |
To me, Lucid Living (I sure like that term ), is the process of knowing that you are in a dream, RIGHT NOW and at every moment. To me, an LD is a dream within the dream. Being aware that all that you see and feel and say and do is one giant dream in waking life, would sure do well to make you aware in a "sleeping" dream.
So I say feed your imagination and so-called, "waking" consciousness with that possibility. Who knows, if enough of us do it, we might just all wake ourselves up.  |
I was just wondering that today...if instead of asking myself if I'm dreaming when I'm awake, would it be helpful to just tell myself that everything is a dream when I'm awake, thus helping me to realize it when I'm asleep? That's what it sounds like you're saying, but has anyone done this successfully?
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Posts: 106
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Last Visit: 15 Jan 2011
Location: Athens, Greece
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| Posted: Sun 25 Dec, 2005 |
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This is an excellent post, and in my opinion, the essence of lucid dreaming. Lucid living has been my "method" (if I can express it in that way) for achieving lucidity in dreams during the last 6 months. Trust me, it is not a quickie, but the efforts are rewarded both in waking life and in dreams.
Thanks to LL my life seems more real, and to some extent, my bad feelings and reactions have dropped numericaly. For instance, bad behaviours of people as well as bursts of anger dont influence me at all. I live in peace constantly.
And whatever else remains, is being transformed to poetry.
Alex C - White Spectral Wind
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Posts: 136
Joined: 02 Nov 2003
Last Visit: 04 Apr 2008
Location: Calgary, Alberta
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| Posted: Fri 21 Apr, 2006 |
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Good influence...
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Last Visit: 21 Apr 2011
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| Posted: Mon 10 Jul, 2006 |
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Well I havnt been able to find a place which describes in detail how to "lucid live". It's summer and I am wanting to try it out because I think it would help. Could someone give me a link which explains the steps to take to lucid live?
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Posts: 536
Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Last Visit: 27 Oct 2010
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Wed 12 Jul, 2006 |
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I don't think you need any steps or directions to follow. All I can say is, be aware of you surroundings. You don't have to know what is going on everywhere all the time, but just be aware of your direct surroundings. Ex. If you are watching a hockey game, you don't have to keep looking out of the window to be aware of what is going on outside, just take in everything that is goin on in the game. When the game is over, and you move somewhere else, take that consciousness and awareness that you had during the game with you to wherever you go. Like Xetrov said back in '05, it's "a kind of awareness in the 'back of your head.'"
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Posts: 5272
Joined: 15 Jun 2004
Last Visit: 01 May 2012
LD count: 181
Location: At the foot of the Pyrenees
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| Posted: Wed 12 Jul, 2006 |
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Here is a tip. From time to time, you question yourself: "What am I doing?" But don't have indeed to answer mentally this question, it's just in order to make you more aware of yourself and your environment and create this "kind of awareness in the 'back of your head' ", as if you were observing from behind yourself.
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Posts: 62
Joined: 15 Oct 2004
Last Visit: 13 May 2007
Location: Scotland (I miss California!)
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| Posted: Mon 21 Aug, 2006 |
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I always thought lucid living was spending as much of my awake time as possible thinking about the world around me and performing RC's. I thought the aim was to live life while doubting the world around you so you will do it in your dreams. Just an obsessed reality checker really. After careful reading I see there is a lot more to it and that I had not really grasped the meaning of LL correctly (although there isn't a true meaning yet I don't think...)
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Posts: 536
Joined: 01 Sep 2005
Last Visit: 27 Oct 2010
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Tue 22 Aug, 2006 |
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Indeed. I think a lot of people just believe it is just a bunch of reality checks. Holding your nose and trying to breathe 10000 times a day is just physical reality checking. But I believe Lucid Living is in your head, not your nose 
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