When you think back to a core memory of yours, do you remember your vision being oddly good? As if you were recording with better equipment, at a higher FPS, higher dynamic range and color capture, more clearly than most memories? It's as if, for those couple of moments, you became more alive, or leveled up some stats you didn't know about. I don't know for certain that anyone else recalls core memories like this, but I would be slightly surprised if they didn't.
On a similar note, have you ever had the realization that you're going to remember the moment you're in? A gut feeling, as everything around you becomes clearer, where you feel like you were shaken awake and have burst into life?[1]
Welcome to my definition of Lucidity, and while we're at it, Osmosis. I have found it useful to give these states of mind names, and so I have.
Defining Lucidity (and Osmosis)
Lucidity is a state of presentfulness, wherein a person is actively/manually/consciously processing information, as opposed to passively processing it.[2] In my case, I've experienced things like the apparent improvement of my senses,[3] the feeling that things happening will be more easy to remember in the future, and an increase in focus.[4]
This is in contrast to the other two states of presentfulness, Osmotic and Dissociative. They are all different enough to warrant their own terms, but they are not not connected. The (badly made) graph below shows how I see the three states, where you can be more or less lucid, osmotic, or dissociative.
Lucidity is the most presentful state; and you usually[5] have to push yourself into a lucid state[6] or you won't enter one.
Osmosis
An osmotic state is where (I think) people are normally at. You're present enough to engage in conversation, but you're not wasting energy paying attention to everything going on around you. The key difference here is that, while information is entering the front of your consciousness, you're not trying to pull that information there. You might notice a strange colored bag, or a weird sound in the distance, but you're not noticing them because you're trying to notice sounds.
You could describe lucidity and osmosis as manual and automatic, if that makes things clearer.
Dissociation is the opposite of Lucidity, in that you use the least energy, and 'fall into it' as opposed to pushing yourself into it. If you start thinking about something too hard, it can be easy to "tune out" the world around you, and move to only subconsciously processing information.
No information from the outside is entering the front of your conscious. Your subconscious is doing a good job of keeping the car on the road, but you aren't manually thinking about how you're turning on your blinker.
When I experience lucidity, there are a few things that stand out. Movement within my field of view sticks out more. (As in, a person crossing the street in my peripherals sticks out as much as a flashing light in my peripherals would if I wasn't lucid.) I feel an "FPS boost", (as in I see things moving more clearly and perceive each continuous state of movement as a continuum of the moment before,) and I'll hear noises from farther away (such as birds or kids playing outside). I'm not literally more perceptive, I'm just paying more attention to what I'm perceiving, which ends up feeling like the same thing.
In my freshman year of high school, I went on a trip with the school band to Universal Studios. We were split into groups of five, and my group really wanted to ride "grown-up" roller coasters instead of the not very scary baby coasters. So we looked for the first large roller coaster that we could find.
It happened to be The Hulk, a ride where hit marvel character the Hulk would come and throw you out of a cannon. I remember very clearly the sensation of being yanked into reality, being more in-the-moment than my normal excited self was. It felt like being shaken awake, or being pulled back into a conversation you weren't paying attention to, but far more intense. I remember every sensation I had; the wind rushing past my face, the tears that welled up in my (no longer protected by glasses) eyes, the force at which my back was shoved into the seat, the feeling that I couldn't breathe properly at first. That was one of my most intense (and first) experiences with lucidity. It would be fair to say that I "felt really really alive", but I think lucidity applies here too.
This feels, to me, like the exact opposite of dissociating. When I'm dissociating, which is rare since I don't really let myself do that (see footnote 5), it feels like movement and audio is just gone from around me. Instead of feeling present and grounded in the place and time that I'm in, seeing and hearing everything around me, I feel distant and removed.
That's what it felt like when I was forced into lucidity. But now, after around a year or two of practice, I'm able to enter lucidity intentionally. At first, it took effort. I would pay attention to movement in my field of view, trying to notice each continuous state of the objects. I would listen to the sounds around me, focus on the sensation of wind on my arms, etcetera.
It felt like pushing myself into a state of lucidity, but (curtesy of my sibling) I now have a better description. It's like opening a gate, and then maintaining focus and putting in active effort to keep the gate from closing. After getting used to opening the gate, it becomes both easier to open and easier to keep from closing. For a very vulgar (and sadly accurate) description, check this[8] footnote.
Applications of Lucidity
Memory
I feel like this is a very natural extrapolation from how lucidity seems to behave. Being lucid means that you are manually/actively processing information, and it's a lot easier to remember things you pay attention to than things you don't.
I have personally tried to improve my memory in a couple of different ways. The ironic thing is that I consistently forget to do the things I'm meaning to do, so I haven't tried as many memory-enhancement techniques as I would like to have. But when I recognize that something is important and that I should remember it, and am then lucky enough to remember to try to remember it, I will enter lucidity, and then be far more likely to remember the thing that I am trying to remember.[9][10]
This being said, I doubt that being lucid actually improves your likelihood to remember something any more than just trying to remember something would do. But the fancy name, and calling it a technique, gets me all excited and makes me more likely to try to try to remember.
Focus
Lucidity is, in a way, just locking in. It feels significantly easier (to me) to focus when I'm lucid, as opposed to not. It's like I have more attention to give, so that even if there are distractions, I can just pour more attention onto the thing that I'm focusing on.
I find it unlikely that my attention or focus is actually improving/expanding when I become lucid- I believe what's actually happening is just that I'm using my focus and attention directly, instead of letting my ADHD toss it around like a ragdoll. Neurotypical people might find no improvement in focus during lucidity, assuming that I'm correct, but I've never been neurotypical and have no neurotypical friends to interrogate about this either.
Fun
It's pretty common advice that 'you should be present', and 'make the moment count'. This advice is correct, and I have more fun when I am more engaged. Earlier I gave a little anecdote about my trip to Universal, and I had a lot of fun there. I think that if I were less lucid during that trip, I would have remembered less, picked up on less, and had less fun.
Beware! This is how I would describe my own experience, which is both a qualia and a Sazen! It is completely possible that I experience lucidity very differently to how most people would, these are just what I suspect to be the more common symptoms of Lucidity.
My sibling mentioned that it's possible that the idea of lucidity could just entirely not exist within the neurotypical community, as we, (the AuDHD community,) have a permanent attention debuff compared to them, and neurotypicals might always be more present than us. I think it's quite likely that neurotypicals are naturally more present, but I don't think that they are constantly outputting more effort to digest information more directly, as is the case with lucidity.
You could describe it as some combination of 'being in the moment,' 'feeling alive,' and 'locking in', but none of those individually describe the whole experience of being lucid. For short hand explanations, I've found these descriptions to work decently well.
After recognizing that lucidity was a state that could be entered, I started trying to enter it on command. It took me a week or two of actively trying to be able to do it consistently. I can now enter it at will with no lag.
Dissociation has much more documentation than Osmosis and Lucidity, so I don't go into very much detail here. To read more about it, go here or here or really wherever.
I'm sorry to put this description anywhere on the internet, but it's a very accurate description of what it feels like that I think more people could understand than the vague gate metaphor.
This paragraph is only to make sure that no PC users accidentally read what lies ahead.
It's like trying to relax your butthole; you have to put in conscious effort to keep it open, and when you lose focus it closes back up. The metaphor keeps up in how, when you expand your butthole repeatedly, it eventually becomes easier to open and keep open.
I don't think that lucidity actually improves your chance of remembering the thing that you want to remember much more than genuine effort put towards trying to remember the thing would do, but I think it has moderate effects in that direction, and giving techniques fancy names makes (me) more likely to try the technique. I find enough utility there that it's worth mentioning.
Most of my core memories are times I was lucid. I've heard about people referring to times that they just randomly gained consciousness as a small child (3 to 8 years old), and that those memories of randomly locking in became core memories. I believe these are times that they were lucid, but since I cannot literally experience their memory for them I can't say for sure.
I have a very strong habit where, whenever I start to fall into dissociation, I instinctually snap myself back into my body and ground myself. This leads me to believe that the same could be done between a lucid and resting state.
When you think back to a core memory of yours, do you remember your vision being oddly good? As if you were recording with better equipment, at a higher FPS, higher dynamic range and color capture, more clearly than most memories? It's as if, for those couple of moments, you became more alive, or leveled up some stats you didn't know about. I don't know for certain that anyone else recalls core memories like this, but I would be slightly surprised if they didn't.
On a similar note, have you ever had the realization that you're going to remember the moment you're in? A gut feeling, as everything around you becomes clearer, where you feel like you were shaken awake and have burst into life?[1]
Welcome to my definition of Lucidity, and while we're at it, Osmosis. I have found it useful to give these states of mind names, and so I have.
Defining Lucidity (and Osmosis)
Lucidity is a state of presentfulness, wherein a person is actively/manually/consciously processing information, as opposed to passively processing it.[2] In my case, I've experienced things like the apparent improvement of my senses,[3] the feeling that things happening will be more easy to remember in the future, and an increase in focus.[4]
This is in contrast to the other two states of presentfulness, Osmotic and Dissociative. They are all different enough to warrant their own terms, but they are not not connected. The (badly made) graph below shows how I see the three states, where you can be more or less lucid, osmotic, or dissociative.
Lucidity is the most presentful state; and you usually[5] have to push yourself into a lucid state[6] or you won't enter one.
Osmosis
An osmotic state is where (I think) people are normally at. You're present enough to engage in conversation, but you're not wasting energy paying attention to everything going on around you. The key difference here is that, while information is entering the front of your consciousness, you're not trying to pull that information there. You might notice a strange colored bag, or a weird sound in the distance, but you're not noticing them because you're trying to notice sounds.
You could describe lucidity and osmosis as manual and automatic, if that makes things clearer.
Dissociation[7]
Dissociation is the opposite of Lucidity, in that you use the least energy, and 'fall into it' as opposed to pushing yourself into it. If you start thinking about something too hard, it can be easy to "tune out" the world around you, and move to only subconsciously processing information.
No information from the outside is entering the front of your conscious. Your subconscious is doing a good job of keeping the car on the road, but you aren't manually thinking about how you're turning on your blinker.
What it feels like (to me)
Sazens
When I experience lucidity, there are a few things that stand out. Movement within my field of view sticks out more. (As in, a person crossing the street in my peripherals sticks out as much as a flashing light in my peripherals would if I wasn't lucid.) I feel an "FPS boost", (as in I see things moving more clearly and perceive each continuous state of movement as a continuum of the moment before,) and I'll hear noises from farther away (such as birds or kids playing outside). I'm not literally more perceptive, I'm just paying more attention to what I'm perceiving, which ends up feeling like the same thing.
In my freshman year of high school, I went on a trip with the school band to Universal Studios. We were split into groups of five, and my group really wanted to ride "grown-up" roller coasters instead of the not very scary baby coasters. So we looked for the first large roller coaster that we could find.
It happened to be The Hulk, a ride where hit marvel character the Hulk would come and throw you out of a cannon. I remember very clearly the sensation of being yanked into reality, being more in-the-moment than my normal excited self was. It felt like being shaken awake, or being pulled back into a conversation you weren't paying attention to, but far more intense. I remember every sensation I had; the wind rushing past my face, the tears that welled up in my (no longer protected by glasses) eyes, the force at which my back was shoved into the seat, the feeling that I couldn't breathe properly at first. That was one of my most intense (and first) experiences with lucidity. It would be fair to say that I "felt really really alive", but I think lucidity applies here too.
This feels, to me, like the exact opposite of dissociating. When I'm dissociating, which is rare since I don't really let myself do that (see footnote 5), it feels like movement and audio is just gone from around me. Instead of feeling present and grounded in the place and time that I'm in, seeing and hearing everything around me, I feel distant and removed.
That's what it felt like when I was forced into lucidity. But now, after around a year or two of practice, I'm able to enter lucidity intentionally. At first, it took effort. I would pay attention to movement in my field of view, trying to notice each continuous state of the objects. I would listen to the sounds around me, focus on the sensation of wind on my arms, etcetera.
It felt like pushing myself into a state of lucidity, but (curtesy of my sibling) I now have a better description. It's like opening a gate, and then maintaining focus and putting in active effort to keep the gate from closing. After getting used to opening the gate, it becomes both easier to open and easier to keep from closing. For a very vulgar (and sadly accurate) description, check this[8] footnote.
Applications of Lucidity
Memory
I feel like this is a very natural extrapolation from how lucidity seems to behave. Being lucid means that you are manually/actively processing information, and it's a lot easier to remember things you pay attention to than things you don't.
I have personally tried to improve my memory in a couple of different ways. The ironic thing is that I consistently forget to do the things I'm meaning to do, so I haven't tried as many memory-enhancement techniques as I would like to have. But when I recognize that something is important and that I should remember it, and am then lucky enough to remember to try to remember it, I will enter lucidity, and then be far more likely to remember the thing that I am trying to remember.[9][10]
This being said, I doubt that being lucid actually improves your likelihood to remember something any more than just trying to remember something would do. But the fancy name, and calling it a technique, gets me all excited and makes me more likely to try to try to remember.
Focus
Lucidity is, in a way, just locking in. It feels significantly easier (to me) to focus when I'm lucid, as opposed to not. It's like I have more attention to give, so that even if there are distractions, I can just pour more attention onto the thing that I'm focusing on.
I find it unlikely that my attention or focus is actually improving/expanding when I become lucid- I believe what's actually happening is just that I'm using my focus and attention directly, instead of letting my ADHD toss it around like a ragdoll. Neurotypical people might find no improvement in focus during lucidity, assuming that I'm correct, but I've never been neurotypical and have no neurotypical friends to interrogate about this either.
Fun
It's pretty common advice that 'you should be present', and 'make the moment count'. This advice is correct, and I have more fun when I am more engaged. Earlier I gave a little anecdote about my trip to Universal, and I had a lot of fun there. I think that if I were less lucid during that trip, I would have remembered less, picked up on less, and had less fun.
Beware! This is how I would describe my own experience, which is both a qualia and a Sazen! It is completely possible that I experience lucidity very differently to how most people would, these are just what I suspect to be the more common symptoms of Lucidity.
My sibling mentioned that it's possible that the idea of lucidity could just entirely not exist within the neurotypical community, as we, (the AuDHD community,) have a permanent attention debuff compared to them, and neurotypicals might always be more present than us. I think it's quite likely that neurotypicals are naturally more present, but I don't think that they are constantly outputting more effort to digest information more directly, as is the case with lucidity.
Note that my senses are not literally improving here, it just feels that way since I'm "making more" out of what I already have.
You could describe it as some combination of 'being in the moment,' 'feeling alive,' and 'locking in', but none of those individually describe the whole experience of being lucid. For short hand explanations, I've found these descriptions to work decently well.
The exception here is when you're forced into lucidity by something else. I talk about it later, but intense experiences can also push you into it.
After recognizing that lucidity was a state that could be entered, I started trying to enter it on command. It took me a week or two of actively trying to be able to do it consistently. I can now enter it at will with no lag.
Dissociation has much more documentation than Osmosis and Lucidity, so I don't go into very much detail here. To read more about it, go here or here or really wherever.
I'm sorry to put this description anywhere on the internet, but it's a very accurate description of what it feels like that I think more people could understand than the vague gate metaphor.
This paragraph is only to make sure that no PC users accidentally read what lies ahead.
It's like trying to relax your butthole; you have to put in conscious effort to keep it open, and when you lose focus it closes back up. The metaphor keeps up in how, when you expand your butthole repeatedly, it eventually becomes easier to open and keep open.
I don't think that lucidity actually improves your chance of remembering the thing that you want to remember much more than genuine effort put towards trying to remember the thing would do, but I think it has moderate effects in that direction, and giving techniques fancy names makes (me) more likely to try the technique. I find enough utility there that it's worth mentioning.
Most of my core memories are times I was lucid. I've heard about people referring to times that they just randomly gained consciousness as a small child (3 to 8 years old), and that those memories of randomly locking in became core memories. I believe these are times that they were lucid, but since I cannot literally experience their memory for them I can't say for sure.
This specifically includes sensory information. Visual, auditory, and tactile sensations are the things that stand out to me personally.
I have a very strong habit where, whenever I start to fall into dissociation, I instinctually snap myself back into my body and ground myself. This leads me to believe that the same could be done between a lucid and resting state.