At the conclusion of every interview you are asked to look back over the interview and list the specific recommendations that were made.
1) Make a list of the recommendations in the interview.
2) Choose the ones that you want to work on.
3) Make a weekly chart to track your application daily, before you go to sleep.
4) Operationalize them; that is, write them in a way that change is measurable so that you can test the method. What will be done differently? When?
Are you reacting more or less in your lucid dreams? Are you interviewing characters you meet in your dreams? Are you eating more of this, less of that? Are you thinking different thoughts? Are you feeling different things? Are you talking/acting in different ways to certain people? When? How? What is different?)
5) There will be some items you can check off if you’ve done them before you go to sleep.
Other items need to be rated on a zero to ten scale. How did you do? Rate yourself without criticism. For example:
In one interview, Air told one student to become it when she did not want to not be hungry, since it doesn’t eat. It also recommended that she become it when she is taking things personally, because it does not.
“Become air to become less mindless or thoughtless.”
“When having self-doubt, become Air.”
Here is an example of how such recommendations can be charted daily:
Became Air when: M T W Th F S S
(“v” = less; ^ = more)
hungry 3x 5x – 3x 4x 6x –
result (more or less hunger) v v ^ v v v ^
personalizing 1x – – 1x 2x – –
result (more or less defensiveness) v v v
mindlesness: 3x 1x 3x – – 1x 3x
result (more or less mindful) ^ ^ ^ ^ ^
self-doubt – – 3x 4x – 3x –
result (more or less confidence) ^ ^ ^
This example is to meant to provoke your own creativity; design an approach to self-monitoring that works for you!
7) Share your results weekly with someone to create accountability. We really aren’t serious if we don’t have some form of accountability. This is why so many people drop out of home study courses. Most of us require the structure of showing up in a physical classroom at a particular time. IDL uses your dreams, your lucid dreams and your waking life issues as your classroom! Find a partner or a support person, someone you exchange interviews with or an IDL Coach or Practitioner. Exchange emails. Send a report each week on how you have done on applying your recommendations. Don’t worry about perfection; just focus on making a game out of doing better!
If you only do a bit of this, no problem. You can come back to this format with successive interviews and over time, you will improve your ability to monitor your application of your recommendations.
Every night before you go to sleep read over the recommendations you choose to work on. Score yourself 0-10 on how you did on each. Read the interview over several nights a week to incubate a non-drama alternative reality in your dreams. This will speed your process of waking up out of your current life delusions.
