Awareness Mastering Technique

My apologies about similar techniques or errors.
I created this technique in late 2006 and never shared, until now.

Edit: as pointed, it as a light version of Lucid Living, easier to achieve and less stressful.
I know the writing is not so good. I’m correcting it.

Awareness Mastering Technique
Author: Tggtt

Abstract
Lucid Living is technique where you keep your awareness all the time, however, stressful and much complicated to master. Awareness is needed to optimize recall and lucidity inside dreams. My new technique, however, is a simpler version, where you can get distracted by learning how to regain awareness correctly. This technique was also used to improve recall and lucid dreaming rate and quality.

Keywords
Awareness; Recall; Mind Levels; Dreaming; Awareness Check; Reality Check.

Application
Well, when I wrote it at first, I was more focused on recall itself. However it’s far more useful than that:

  • With awareness you get more recall;
  • With recall you get more awareness;
  • With recall you get more dreams;
  • With recall, awareness and dreams, you get lucid dreams.

Introduction:
Probably you have thought one day lasts longer that other, lost the flow of time or got shocked after looking a clock. You aren’t alone. This is a very common situation for complex brain owners.

The flow of time is constant (at least mostly, this guide is not about physics anyway) but our brains sometimes don’t show this to us. Can we change this? Just a bit of it, we don’t know neither this is good or not.
Do you have a clock? See if it’s working (your PC clock is enough), you are going to need it for training.

Some books are written to make you imagine something, others to teach you something. While this guide may not be so exciting like a story book, it will let you imagine and learn, because it’s not focused on a specific part of your mind, all of them are special, and they should know this while paying attention on this guide. So wake them up!

Memory Structures
See how you recognize and recall older memories while reading.
Our brains have very complex linking structures which make memories dependent from each other, like a dependency tree. Each extremity of each node is the most basic part, new memories related are linked to them. That is quite helpful while chatting, understanding what you are reading, writing a guide, etc. This architecture may be the responsible for our capability applying what we learn every time any time we need far better than any machine ever made.
But this doesn’t mean we have access to every memory we have.

Our memories are reordered when they change from memory levels. These levels are also related to each conscious level.

Dealing with Distractions
How many times have you got distracted for the last few minutes? You are able to know how many seconds you were by looking your clock, but never being sure.

Distraction is a type of mind dissociation, change of the most operative level, which lets one taking your higher conscious lead. Mind dissociation is a natural security block, caused by your own concentration or some painful, stressful or even shocking events.

This natural security block is essential for your mind, since it defends your personal memories from conflicting; that would cause a terrible disaster driving you to madness…

Each mind level has its own memory accessibility and a link between each level.

Some higher levels can access some very low levels, for instance, your identity records, but cannot change it; it would need the same level that wrote it, in order to change it. It’s built in a way where each level has its own local memories, and even sub-levels… each level can create sub-levels that “emulate” another level, which explains how multiple personalities are made, making lower levels to believe they are being successful on it. Yes, we are talking about your brain.
Some people might get shocked while reading about their own brains because they are frightened by a trauma or something else. This time, I’m using it intentionally, we need to wake up your lower levels to do this properly, this should be a separated paragraph, but if I had separated it, you might had it read first.

SPOILER - Click to view

Remembering…
Now, you are getting back to your higher conscious mind level. Look at your clock, what are you reading now? what were you reading? get aware of your reality!

Do you remember the last text completely? You don’t need to turn back the page, your mind has recorded it, be aware and look how you can remember it:
Why would you need to know that (the last text)?

Since each level has its own memories, you may (and probably had) leave some moments forgotten with them.

Do you remember when I told you to take full breaths? Probably, at that moment you weren’t even thinking about breathing, that your heart is beating and your eyes blinking. After reading this line properly, you may understand how your levels can work.

How to avoid?
You need to keep your levels aware, and then wake your conscious mind, so they could link those memories making them accessible.[/spoiler]

The Conscience Levels
This is the most important part of my contribution, how to Awareness Check.
The conscience levels are hierarchical and sequential. However you might skip some levels in some cases.

For instance, now you are probably in either first or second level. When you get naturally distracted, you will go down until you either lose conscience, or get back up.

You can get back up by will, by external factors or due to your brain activity state being too high to get to the bottom levels.


Note: if you stay in seventh level for too long, you will get into trance levels automatically.

Your brain activity in each level is opposite to their memory capacity. That is obvious, because the most active level works in the present moment, while others retain older information.

Every time a memory registry gets old enough to change level, it will be moved, and information might be lost; My proposal cannot deal with this, however;

When your conscience level changes, everything you have been doing or thinking during that moment might be lost if you don’t get back to a higher level in the correct order.

There are sample test questions on the table. These questions can be used to identify which level you are at the moment. If asked to yourself, will help you to get into a higher level in a smooth way, keeping memories of what happened.

This means the correct order to get back to highest level is the last to first question:
What are you thinking about?
Where are you now?
What are you doing?
Are you aware of your surroundings?
What are you supposed to do next?
What have you done earlier?
Are you aware of yourself?

These are the seven awareness questions for Awareness Checking. You need to remember them correctly for optimal results. If you achieve full awareness in the right way frequently, you will improve your recall. I will repeat: you do not need to keep awareness at all times.

The Training
You cannot attain consciousness/lucidness by itself. It needs training.

You can use an alarm clock or some sign to remind you, in a way you can smoothly raise your awareness levels when needed.

You don’t need to keep your awareness all the time it is not LL (Lucid Living). But you need to raise to higher levels periodically and in the right fashion to keep your memories.

It might take a week to keep yourself trained with awareness technique, however, if you stop working on it, you will slowly lose the habit.

The Link Among these Questions
The questions seem to be difficult to recall at first, however, recalling one of them is completely natural during your real life.

Every moment you need to know about the answers for questions like “what to do” and “where you going”, you may recall questions about your current state and then remind yourself about the whole technique.

These questions are linked, as are your memories. This makes the technique easier to master than complete Lucid Living, since there are much more subjects linking to the awareness check.

Dream Recall Improvement
The seven questions can be used to attain awareness just after waking up.

That order helps getting faster to fully awaken state and keeping memories from earlier dreams.

You may also do this inside false awakenings, this is discussed in the next section.

Getting Lucid Dreams by being Always Aware
According to Lucid Living, the way to get Lucid dreams is to keep lucidity at most times, even while awake.

By getting used to keep your awareness during all times, you can even get a high rate LDs without specific inducements. However, keeping yourself at highest level at all times is stressful.

However, Awareness Mastering was not originally intended to achieve lucid dreaming, it was created to improve focus and recall.Being an alternative to lucid living, it is also effective for lucid dream inducement.The solution is to frequently go up to higher level, do RC’s and free yourself to lower levels; you do not need to keep further awareness.

By improving your awareness, the technique is similar to DILD with some bits of MILD. The WILD version, is available as well: “The Trance Levels with Awareness”.

Also you can simulate lucid dreams in real life to keep yourself trained in how to react: by smoothly getting in the highest conscious level, you can attain maximum lucidity with less risk of waking up.

Hint: Doing this just after waking is recommended as well; this way, it is possible to achieve better dream recall, also detect false awakenings while they are happening to get another lucid dream.

The idea of doing reality checks just after getting into highest conscious level is very important because Reality Checks done while in lower levels of consciousness are not effective. You must be aware to analyze your reality correctly. This explains why doing RCs after getting aware.

Further Reading:
See “The Trance Levels with Awareness” topic by Tggtt
“How to use awareness while going to sleep? A WILD Technique”

See “Simulating Lucid Dreams in Real Life” topic by Tggtt
“If you are lucid in real life, you can also train yourself and use it for LD planning”

Acknowledgments:
I would like to thank friends at #LD4all and #dreamtime who encouraged me to release this guide. As well to improve it.
In Special (Alphabetic Order)
Ashiren
Fadem
Jettins
OmkAR
rathez
ZRVera
and others (PM me if you feel your nick should be here as well).
(and I would like to thank another friend who encouraged me to start writing it, I will write the nick once she agrees with it).

Historic
It’s not just about LDs, it’s about recall as well. This technique is actually older than that. I have ADD, so I need something to keep my focus, but not as tiring as Lucid Living. I tried to start writing it during work, using an old PC which no one else wanted to use, I was also saving it in a floppy disk.

The floppy disk format crashed, It took some days to rescue the data.

At that time I wasn’t much around here to post it. Now I am.

ps: I have also improved it in the last years.

[edit 2021]Thanks for the PMs, I moved images to imgur. My apologies!

[spoiler]I found a draft dated January 23, 2007. It must be my first ODT file ever.
I cannot believe I was literate back then, please forgive me for the bad writing.

I’m confused.

I interpreted it like this am i right
The different levels in your mind are like a tree, with your bodies core memories (breathing, swallowing) then stuff like names, then important memories, then the present and what you are doing now, these memories spread out like a tree however there are invisible branches conecting memories that are related.

Awareness effects these, if you are aware you don’t think about your breathing as much and are more into the current memories however the less aware you are the deeper you can delve into these memories.

(this bit I’m less sure on)
To lucid dream as such you need to think about lucid dreaming deeply and at that point in higher (less aware) levels of awareness question your reality.

Do you use this in conjucntion with WILD or as a kind of MILD.

I know I have probably got most of this wrong is it possible if you could correct me since this seems like a very intriguing subject however I don’t completely understand it.

Thanks
Luke

Thanks for reading. But you probably got the most of it correctly.

I might be missing some things, but for me,
awareness is related to something, and it is mostly sequential when regarding that single thing.

In the technique, that “thing” is yourself.

I’m not saying you must be aware of breathing, or aware of blinking your eyes.
You can at the same time have half consciousness of breathing but have high consciousness about yourself “being alive”.

About the tree/graph structure, I’ve said that memory is stored in that way, maybe it is not well explained…

Ok, your awareness levels can access different memories, if you are in a deep level, to rise up, you need to do it slowly and in order. This will reduce lost memories, and you will have more access to what you were thinking about.

Please keep criticizing, I accept suggestions to improve it as well.

To achieve LDs, it is a mix of DILD with MILD, there is also an WILD version, as seen on the further reading.

I am lucid dreamer for over 10 years…i had the impression
that i was completely crazy!!the last days I found this community and
I feel not alone!!There are many things i learned…such as ways to teletransfer…i couldn’t transfer
myself all this years…to the point now…
I can lucid dreaming almost every night…i plan what i will dream when i am awake…
sometimes i “live” again in my dreams…this means that if i saw a movie that
i liked very much i can see the movie again in a dream(with some changes)
and even me be the actor!!i can even rarely study lessons for tomorrow
(i mean that i make a repetion of the lessons i know)
but i found a better way…i give “space” to my brain to build a dream as he wants and then
i completely get the control of my dream…this is more exciting for me after
all this years…let me explain to you how i do this…
I have regulate my mobile to sound once but loud every hour(calendar)
there’s a word in the screen…everytime i see this word
i make something like Tggtt describes(awareness check)
Tggtt’s method it’s better so keep this method…make to you this questions
my method may confuse you…
when i am lying to bed and sleeping the alarm sounds every half hour
only to remind me to make the test…not to wake me up…this method gives me lds
almost every night…i have never heard the sound twice on a dream…and as i can see
my dreams are not more than 15minutes…i am not sure but i have this feeling…
i dont plan my dreams as i used to because when i “wake up” on a dream
i ask everyone i see or my fantasy-friend FIX(that’s his name since i was 5!!)
what is happening…i had a dream about an old man in a dark room and when i asked
him who was he told me the butcher!!and i realize that i was afraid when my mother
send me to buy meat but i couldn’t understand it!!i have found many abilities of our brain…
but when i plan a dream everything is directed by my conscious and i cant make a
journey in the unconsious…
see u arround…

Gold Star for you tggtt!

I got some problems lately about RC’s , wasn’t able to to those correctly and frequently, but with your help, it will be great.

Thanks guys, I hope my technique is helpful.

Please inform me of further successes…

And still, I need to improve it a bit.

Probably the awareness check before RCs, is the most useful part of it regarding lucid dreaming.

That is called DEILD Timer technique.

Try my Dreamtimer software (on signature) if you have an j2me compatible cell phone, newer phones probably can run the Flash version available on lucidology.

/me adds this topic to his signature. Let’s try to grow a community around this technique, shall we? We need people with ideas, people with experience and people with different perspectives to perfect this technique.

This is an excellent article; half of it had me nodding in an “I know what you’re talking about” manner, whereas the other half had me thinking “ooh I see what you did there!” There are, as usual, a couple caveats. So I’ll put down some of the things we discussed in chat, as well as some other thoughts that occurred to me while writing this reply to your article.

So this is it, in a nutshell. Lucid living is hard to grasp, hard to master, occasionally stressing, and from its very conception many people have disputed that its point is to induce lucid dreaming (indeed it servers a bunch of other mostly purposes and is arguably a great tool in applied and experimental philosophy).

But it hits the right note: along with a hundred other things, lucid living indeed comprises the three basic elements of any LD-inducing technique. So you’re proposing a new technique, a stripped down version of lucid living so to speak, which aims at keeping specifically these basic three elements. To wit:

We discussed this in chat. I’ll expand on my thoughts.

[title]The Fire Tetrahedron of Lucid Dreaming[/title]

If I were to write a “fire tetrahedron” for lucid dreaming, recall would be the oxygen: the invisible element whose lack makes it impossible for a lucid dreaming to happen even if you have the fuel, the heat and indeed a chain reaction in place. If you can’t recall your lucid dreaming, it sort of doesn’t count.

Then there’s awareness, the heat of lucid dreaming. You can sense it and it makes all the difference; only through it can a lucid dreaming begin and only in its presence it can continue. Our first intuition, in fact, is that merely with heat one can start a fire, and so with awareness and lucid dreaming.

Finally there’s the fuel, which you referred to as “dreaming,” but you meant something specific by this: the trance level in which your perception bears little to no connection with your physical reality. Lucid dreaming is variously called “conscious dreaming” and that’s precisely the point here: you’ve got to be in a dreaming state and you’ve got to be aware of that. Thus, dreaming is the fuel: it’s the base, that which is going to be transformed once the reaction sets off.

The fire tetrahedron model has a fourth element which is worth notice just for the sake of completeness: oxygen, heat and fuel have to produce a chain reaction, or else they’ll simply coexist, maybe producing the occasional spark. So with stability in lucid dreaming: a lucid dreaming has got to be stable or else it will merely be (possibly false) awareness, dreaming and recall coexisting, maybe producing the occasional spark.

Every widely-embraced lucid dreaming technique covers the first three elements, whereas stability is variously treated as a topic in its own right or simply not mentioned at all. I think it plays a moderate role in your technique and this could well be expanded upon.

[center]~ * ~[/center]
[title]Review, FIXMEs and TODOs[/title]

The following is one part review, one part notes-to-self, as I plan to expand upon some of the issues I raised, and to pen a few of the exercises and paragraphs which I’m telling you to write. Like I said in chat, I’m fully embracing your technique and the way you explained things, and I’m hoping for an active community expanding on it, criticising it, testing it, rethinking it. I want to be part of that.

Your thoughts on “memory and distraction” are a bit confusing until you get further in the text. We could definitely work on that section a bit, it’s more relevant than it currently looks. In particular, I wasn’t completely sure the terms you were using matched the associations I made with them.

What I mean is, “low level memories” and stuff like that need to get out of the text or made very explicit before you use it in as part of your reasoning. Maybe a rewrite pointing out how memory works through association (and associative barriers) in a more “hands on” manner (let’s come up with some exercises!) could be beneficial to readers in understanding dissociation, and therefore in grasping awareness and recall.

The cream of your technique is covered in the Consciousness Levels section. Your table of consciousness levels is very thorough and useful. Though it’s important to point out that it’s just a framework, it gives you a list symptoms to look out for when diagnosing your own level of consciousness.

I think this section, even more so than the last one, should be made damn practical. Don’t just tell readers, show them what you mean. Make them assess their own awareness along the way. Produce different awareness situations through exercises here, set up a dreamer’s workout routine.

Show the reader how low consciousness and high trance are strongly correlated. This is the key to understanding that in order to succeed in lucid dreaming you’ve got to essentially bring about a dreaming while staying aware (WILD) or bring about awareness while in dreaming state (DILD). Even if someone doesn’t embrace your technique, let them take home this priceless piece of teaching.

Only after you pointed this out I realised it myself. Of course there are exceptions, but you’re right, that is the rule, and with waking life (such as when people interrupt you with a “penny for your thought” kind of question) as well as in dreaming, this is a terribly important lesson. This should be illustrated and expanded upon a little.

Also, I’ve no idea what this image is supposed to illustrate:

Using these questions to emerge from dreaming to waking state is something I’ve yet to test and it already sounds reasonable. Fortunately enough, your seven questions are tie in very neatly with me “fishing for recall” routine, and they’ll probably work together very well.

This little paragraph is your technique in a nutshell: oxygen, fuel, heat and a spark.

These should be brought together. That post is a very fine theory of WILD and it can be helpful in DILD too: a lower trance level can be bad for the stability of your dreaming.

That post of yours is really nice. It should definitely be included in this guide, maybe in a separate post, but as part of the whole AC thing.

[center]~ * ~[/center]
What I like about your technique that I haven’t seen in any other guide is that your three articles together lay out a framework for understanding, diagnosing and exercising BOTH awareness and trance levels, which makes it possibly the most complete guide to lucid dreaming from a practical perspective.

I don’t know whether or not this is useful for the LaBerges out there, but for people who want to get there (and get better at getting there), this is quite possibly the ultimate Theory of Lucid Dreaming guide. Like I said, it needs to be expanded: it can span more than a post and it should definitely include exercises all along the way.

Other guides I’ve read (and the way I teach lucid dreaming myself) are either trial-and-error or “keep bashing your head against the wall until you break it.” This guide explains how the whole thing works, it has potential to make people understand what they’re setting out for before getting there, and it might as well be a great tool to help beginners and intermediate dreamers become proficient.

This idea has got to spread. Good work.

I just wanted to say that after reading the whole thread, including Bruno’s comments, I’m very interested in seeing this more developed.

I found some of the ideas presented in the first post (with regards to memory levels) a little bit confusing because of the way it was written. So I think some things might need some editing for clarity.

But I definitely think we’re on to something really good here, but I feel like I only understand for about 80% what’s meant, and I can’t really explain what that 20% that I don’t understand is. That may say more about me than about the theory, though.

Thanks reviewer, I will ensure to take revisions accordingly.

At some moment I thought about putting more effort on it and compile as a book, however I’ve run out of time, later I decided to just place most of the writing here, instead to hide it until it gets finished…

Anyway, I’m very surprised with your approval. After improving the article, we could conduct experiments on the lab regarding the technique as well.

Thanks

{EDIT}
I believe “pressure” would fit better than “spark”.
The pressure makes the combustion happen, because the other items need to be together, as do “recall”,“trance level” and “awareness”.

[size=75]And, engines that use sparks, need them to ensure the explosion happens at the right moment. But they aren’t needed to ignite the fuel. i.g. diesel engines.

But I’m getting off topic.[/size]

I guess the fourth is not an element, they just need to stay together.

wow, i’m definitely going to test this. i have a good memory for things that are learned or read, but when it comes to everyday things… like someone asking me to do something, i turn around and forget them in a second. hope this is going to help.

It looks like a nice method, but I feel like I’m not seeing the complete picture at this moment on how I should start practicing this.

Also maybe the presented layered memory model could use some examples I feel. For instance, when I’m driving my car and my mind is drifting, then suddenly I realize I can’t recall the last few kilometers…even no recall of crossing complex crossroads. Is that an example of going up to many levels of consciousness at once? Causing me to forget what I just did?

BTW, like Bruno said, I don’t get this picture either.

I haven’t read the linked topics in the opening post yet, maybe that will clear things up.

Thanks for your attention, but these topics won’t help with further understanding about the basics of the AC/AMT.

I admit I need to write more about it. I’ll do it as soon as possible.

Ok, I have been practicing LL for the last 10 days.Yes it is very very stressful.I have programmed My mind to keep ‘MY MIND’ aware throughout the day.I have been practicing LL so diligently that I have forgotten to study. I even had My 2nd LD after just 2 days of practicing it and I was very excited “yes LL is working” I pushed My efforts up and started putting even more effort in it, and it has become a habit.

Now, How I practice LL is like this
https://community.ld4all.com/t/the-secret-of-frequent-lucid-dreamers/33764
and this
dreamviews.com/f49/sat-spora … C-dild-var iation-puffin-100798/

The frequency at which I do LL is about once in 10 minutes I haven’t calculated I have just made an assumption sometimes My mind keeps buzzing and asks me to be aware every sec!!! It quite stressful.Its as if there’s a alarm in my mind that randomly keeps buzzing every now and then.

Every time I go to bed, I am so confident that I’ll be aware in My dream I don’t even try other techniques, coz I literally dissect My surroundings throughout the day and now its become involuntary.A night ago I went to bed and I couldn’t remember a single dream and I thought, How in the world LL is gonna work if there’s no dreams that I remember.That’s with reference to fuel mentioned by Bruno.

After reading this article I somewhat felt that I am not practicing the awareness in right order as mentioned by Tggtt but there are others who practice LL and are getting wonderful results.Not getting LD’s is frustrating and after reading this article I dunno what to do? Practice LL the traditional way or use this method.

I ask all the questions mentioned By Tggt but I don’t ask all of them at the same time My mind buzzes.
For e.g
When I am travelling or walking I ask where I am going or where am I?(I use My memory)
While eating I i concentrate on My taste buds.
When its sunny I observe shadows If I am near a water body I see the If the reflection is perfect.
There are sometimes
e.g I just come in My bedroom.I ask My self what I am doing here? I get a dunno reply from My sub-conscious mind coz I randomly walked in.So I ask Myself what was I doing before and then I recall My memory.So according to situation I ask the type of question and recall My memory when required.
Sometimes its sound sometimes its sense of touch
So basically I employ all the senses Vision, touch, hear, smell (not too often),taste and memory.

Before I criticize the Article Let me tell you I really liked the way you associated memory with awareness.I wholeheartedly agree that memory is a crucial ingredient in awareness coz that how mind makes decisions.
I am really interested in using your method
First I want to know, the way you described memory association with awareness and the kind of question you ask at a particular stage of awareness THE INFO you gave.Is it completely authentic and based on scientific research? What are your sources? I COMPLETELY TRUST you and this site and the info given here.But is the info you provided based on research?
The reason I am asking this is because this method is different from all the methods of LD induction and its quite complex more than it looks when you read it.
As you claim you have proposed this method to ease the stress involved in LL but I feel that asking the 7 question can be quite stress full at a particular time, more stressful than the traditional LL.
And the toughest question is the First question.The remaining six are comparatively easier.That’s What I feel. It maybe easier for others.

And the most important thing Will this really help in getting frequent LD’s?

Actually I don’t know How much time I should practice traditional LL.I got My 2nd LD just after 2 days So maybe I am expecting too much too soon.I haven’t been getting the kind of results the way I am putting My efforts.

What are your experiences with your version of LL?
How effective has it been for you?

Wow, I feel like I’m facing an examination board.

At first, Thanks for reading, however, I must repeat that I didn’t have time to put enough efforts on this.

For me it’s really efficient, however, I didn’t conduct statistically valuable experiments to validate the overal accuracy of the technique.

The intial intention was to provide a way to improve recall. I believe that these questions should be used to raise awareness step by step to avoid the risk of loosing links among memories.

Also, the idea is to raise the levels , you don’t need to ask the 3 lower level questions all the time. I usually only ask about the surroundings and the others above but the first. (5th to 2nd)

Top references:
Hypnosis & hypnotherapy; David T. Rowley (1986)
lucidology.com/blog/category/lucidology-101/
and a plenty of books about Cognitive Psychology and one about neuro psychology… Right now that doesn’t really matter… because, if I could, I would try to send it to reviewers and publish on an related event or journal.

I couldn’t do that, so I posted it here, so I could share it with fellow dreamers in order to find people to join experiments. Also to prove I created it before other one could… because I noticed I was talking too long to post it.

Just 2 days of asking the first question roughly 10 times a day and My dream Recall has been boosted. :content:

This page needs to be pinned! This is the best awareness article i have read! If not one of the best articles/posts i have read

Thanks Rhett!

And -DreamCatcher- that is awesome, I should plan an experiment about the article and I’ll consider these points, thanks!

I will most definetly try this out. I think that this has the potential to help people like you and me with ADD to improve a little. I often find myself day dreaming or simply disconected with the world and i think this might help me learn more about what i normally think when my mind wanders off. Thanks alot for sharing this with us.

Andres
PerfectSense