On my umpteenth re-reading of Robert Monroe's amazing book Far Journeys, I found that his terminology was no longer hard to understand--this was before he had introduced his vaguely rendered 'Focus Levels'--but I also somehow came to the disillusioning realization that the term 'ROTE' did not refer to some sort of infallible higher truth that I had to believe or else I was stupid. In order for my philosophy to grow, the first thing that had to go was the assumption that the Monroes, the LaBerges, the Radugas, the Buhlmans, etc. are infallible superheros of philosophy.
Be that as it may, the light at the end of my Tunnel has just informed me by ROTE that everything is a dream and all dream is lucid. In order for this ROTE to be workable, lucidity starts with a first seed of lucidity and grows from there. What we in the so-called unworlding community have been calling 'lucidity' is really a feat of relative lucidity like flying--to realize you're dreaming and/or know who you are in physical life--while lucidity is in fact an evaluation of awareness as a level on a scale. This separates the notion of pure awareness or oneness from lucidity which is an evaluation of how aware you are in any dream or other unworlding, even though by definition, pure awareness cannot be isolated, limited, or measured.
Besides the heighth levels of lucidity listed below, we have to realize that lucidity is a function of the memory and memory is 3ness. Threeness is dimensionality so there should be an identifiable heighth, length, and depth of lucidity. Once I realized this, identifying what these three measures of lucidity actually represent in terms of actual experience was ridiculously easy. Indisputable. Infallible.
Well my ROTEs are special.
Each of the three dimensions of lucidity can be scored separately. Each dream can be scored separately and you can total everything for a nightly score. Give yourself two points for each level up each scale except "comatose" which is a score of zero.
Please do not number these categories because it will prevent new categories from being inserted. That's why Monroe left space between his categories, jumping from Focus 3 to 10, then to 12, 15, 21 etc. So people would find their own descriptions and insert them. Nobody took the hint. They just adopted his categories as their religion.
Lucidity can be measured as...
...LENGTH by the duration of the experience in time.
...HEIGHTH by the amplitude or intensity of your focus of Attention
...DEPTH by how relevant and meaningful the content of the experience is to you personally.
These three measurements or dimensions of lucidity are absolutely independent of each other. Most importantly in these uncertain times when the dogmatic frameworks of Monroe and LaBerge are receding and people are looking for the next thing, all three measurements of true lucidity (see dictionary under "lucidity") are independent of whether or not you knew who you were or knew you were dreaming; that's just Official Lucidity. Evaluating a dream by only one criteria would be like evaluating all superheroes by whether or not they have x-ray vision. Only Superman has x-ray vision, so is he the only superhero?
In regards to what Official Lucidity really is, in order to get unworlded to begin with (go to sleep), the identity knob has to get turned down. So getting it turned back up just the right amount, to the point where you remember who you are and know that you're dreaming, is just a singular feat. Well worth learning how to do, this feat tends to trigger euphoria, making unworlding a highly-sought-after form of entertainment in these jaded days of overstimulation for no effort. Official Lucidity--knowing you're dreaming or unworlded, and/or knowing that another more physical version of you waits sleeping in a bed in the Dayly Dreame--is like learning to fly in the Unworld or riding a unicycle in the physical. At first it seems impossible, and then one day you look back and you can't remember what it was like to not know how. You can even get bored with it and say, "Is that all there is? What's next?" I say that what's next is a three-dimensional way of measuring lucidity, which gives us more to care about, strive for, and appreciate about learning how to unworld. Otherwise you risk pulling out the wrong gun and shooting yourself in the foot.
In 1980 during a month-long breathing session which also generated my first classic OBE exit--which was a relatively mundane experience--as well as my first semi-accurate ESP premonition, I experienced the Big Dream of a lifetime, which I'm still hoping to outdo, without appearing too ungrateful. But this experience, my most ecstatic and revealing Big Dream still, was not Officially Lucid. It scored way above average in all three dimensions of lucidity which goes to show that Official Lucidity only measures one thing: whether or not you knew you were dreaming. This is certainly a horrifying way to treat our dream lives where we spend 1/3 of our life whether we know or care anything about unworlding or not. All around this festering globe, as we speak, well-intentioned practitioners visit the Unworld nightly and come back complaining and disappointed because they didn't get Officially Lucid, so they lose interest in writing down their dreams and never get anywhere, blaming themselves for any number of pseudo-omissions such as not doing enough reality checks, etc. when in fact the Unworld is what the Unworld has always been: dreamland. And you ignore dreamland at your peril, if you intend to call yourself an unworlder someday. Every drop of lucidity is precious and that starts with the very seed of lucidity, any ability to remember anything at all about a non-physical experience or experience in an altered state of consciousness.
If a dream has variable lucidity, you could even score each scene independently and average them. But more realistically and to keep the game fun, just do this as a quick guesstimation, don't get too analytical or it's a burn-out.
I don't recommend competing with anyone but yourself, but suit yourself. Personally, I just don't go for team sports except ping-pong, badminton, volleyball and Aikido. In these sports you don't play against a team so much as you play against the mirror. Instead of humiliating an opposing brute force, you try to dance with the mirror in such a way that it enjoys losing to you. Another thing these sports have in common with each other is that you're trying to keep the ball (your Attention) in the air instead of possessing it. Volley games are so much more civilized than the capitalist religions basketball, football, hockey and soccer, and you're less likely to be castrated or beheaded while innocently attempting to play them.
Height of Lucidity Designations
Sub-comatose: No knowledge of existing, no knowledge of being aware of anything, no memory of the above, i.e. no nothing at all. This is the only correct way to describe zero lucidity. Score 0
Seed of lucidity: Being vaguely aware of having experienced something but no knowledge of what you experienced. Because it's so vague, it comes as a memory and you don't know what you experienced while you were experiencing it because you can't remember. Score 2
Groping in the tunnel: Being able to describe the experience but having little or no visual or auditory or other sensory recall of it, as if the experience took place as a mental event only. Score 4
Dumping the daily trash: The experience can be recalled in detail and described in terms of sensory experience but there was nothing remarkable about it. Score 6
Burning the trash: The experience is intense and possibly emotional but the content is mostly detritus from daily life ejecting itself from your being so it doesn't start a mood infection. Score 8
Pre-whimsy: parts of the experience become highly focused and it's obvious in retrospect when recalling the experience later that your dream bodies were trying to get your Attention. Lots of detail such as exact words remembered, writing songs or doing art, colorful scenery, lots of personal lucidity objects, interesting plots, etc. Formerly known as Prelucid. Score 10
False dawn: you become aware that the experience is real but you don't realize you're dreaming. When you wake up you'll go Aw Shucks and feel that you mistook the dream for reality, but this is incorrect. This is a step in the right direction because you did in fact realize that dreams are real; you just didn't go on to realize who you are by connecting to your file or your lifestream of memories. Score 12
Rewhimsy: stands for 'remember who I am since youth'. You know you're dreaming. Also known as Official Lucidity. Most teachers and students of unworlding mistake this for where lucidity starts. Wrong. For that, see 'Seed of Lucidity' above. Score 14
More categories will be added beyond Rewhimsy as I gain personal experience with them. 'OBE' is not a category above lucidity; so-called OBE experiences can lack all kinds of lucidity. I won't even engage in a discussion of whether OBE and lucid dreams are the same thing since they're both unworlding, so my goal is either one, and most discrete experiences bear traits spuriously ascribed to either OBE or lucid dreaming but not both. If driving a Ford and driving a Chevy are learned and practiced the same way and get the same results, somewhere along the line we have to admit that they're both cars. Both terms 'Chevy' and 'Ford' will eventually be abandoned for causing more trouble than they're worth, while cars will continue to exist. But once it's defined correctly, as a scale of important traits, the term 'lucidity' is here to stay. It's been in the dictionary for centuries.
Depth of Lucidity Designations
Boring Dream: No such thing should exist. You need to change your attitude if you want more lucidity. The method for doing this is to force yourself out of your bed when you're awake after a dream, and write down every detail of the dream you remember in loving detail. This will change your attitude. Score 1
Mundane Dream: No such thing should exist. See above. Score 3
Interesting Dream: You're getting there. Keep it up. Score 5
Euphoric or Ecstatic Dream: You're doing something right. Keep doing it. Score 7
Big Dream: This dream is potentially life-changing, revolutionary in scope and in personal relevance. Ten out of ten. Congratulations. Tomorrow you might crash, so enjoy it. Score 9
Length of Lucidity Designations
Estimate the minutes you felt like you were in the experience during the experience. That's your score for this dimension. The length of time you were 'out' in clock time is irrelevant.
If the experience was timeless, give yourself a million. That used to be considered a nearly infinite number when I was a kid.
If you lived the whole life of another person from start to finish, score appropriately; there are 5,241,600 minutes in a decade, so estimate how much of the person's life you actually experienced during the experience and multiply accordingly.
If you had the choice of not coming back at all, give yourself an infinite score and then divide infinity by two, because apparently you did come back, you idiot.
After you emotionlessly look up the term 'idiot' in my Glossary, just know that the purpose of this chapter is not to have you wasting time making charts. The purpose is to get you to write your dreams down in detail because that will make an unworlder out of you. And knowing what the three dimensions of lucidity really are can't hurt.
