Johnno, The watch flip is clever. And thanks to all who contributed alarm clock ideas. I've noted a few in my "Alarm Clocks Doc," and while I'm adding, I thought I might as well share some of mine.
Here is a list of ten, roughly in the order that I adopted them, with brief explanations and examples.
1) Any discomfort. For example, banging my head used to elicit automatic curses and sometimes even anger at inanimate objects. Using discomfort as an alarm clock, however, I actually started to feel thankful. Thank you, finicky cabinet door, for knocking me out of my dissociation! :D
2) Any change in breathing. Before discovering the C's, I had been doing breathing meditation regularly so I was becoming alert to changes in breathing. By making it a conscious point of focus and a cue to self remember beyond just my body, I think this alarm clock helped me dissolve some of the illusory boundaries within my experience -- that is, it helped me unite my body and breath with my impressions, thus pushing me to remember that I am a "wave-reading consciousness unit," as the C's say.
I'll note that these two early alarm clocks also helped me notice and terminate negative emotions as they arose, or at least early enough not to express them. With occasional exceptions, of course. Now I am working on more subtle influences from negative emotions -- like, for example, how unacknowledged fear about what is going to happen to people can block my intention to be objective.
3) Songs coming into my head. I noticed that self-remembering (an active and inclusive awareness) would dislodge any song stuck in my head -- for as long as I could self-remember. I figured that a song coming into my head was usually a sign of dissociation, and a good clue to come back to awareness.
4) Any difficulty. This was an expansion on the discomfort alarm clock, to which I'd grown accustomed. Three attempts to buckle my seat-belt? Obviously there is a lesson here... Pay attention! :)
5) Anything surprising – actions, thoughts, emotions. Another expansion. I noticed that my previous alarm clocks focused mostly on the negative side of experience. Though they jolted me back to awareness when something unpleasant occurred, they didn't help me resist the "sweet" sleep of, say, reacting to an unexpected compliment, or seeing someone or something beautiful.
6) Any conversation (recently expanded to any speech act). At one point, after months of steady improvement, I suddenly forgot myself for a few hours straight at a major social event. I was a host, and had spent those hours making mechanical small talk with over a hundred guests. Talk about a herd mentality! When I suddenly came back to myself, I realized that the intense social expectations were enough to put me to sleep.
On a related note, I recently found this quote:
[quote author=Luther Standing Bear, Oglala Sioux Chief]Conversation was never begun at once, nor in a hurried manner. No one was quick with a question, no matter how important, and no one was pressed for an answer. A pause giving time for thought was the truly courteous way of beginning and conducting a conversation. Silence was meaningful with the Lakota, and his granting a space of silence to the speech-maker and his own moment of silence before talking was done in the practice of true politeness and regard for the rule that "thought comes before speech." [/quote]
Of course, a pause can become mechanical as well, but as far as social customs go, I think encoding a moment of reflection into public discourse is a good start.
7) The word “I” -- First I intended to catch myself when I said the word "I" aloud, and now also when I say it in my head. For a time, this alarm clock was really too ambitious -- growing up as a predominantly verbal thinker with a tendency to "think my thoughts," I have decades of almost continuous programming to overcome here. :/ Finally though, I'm getting to the point where I catch a good number of the "I's" and remember my intention to self-remember, which keeps me asking, "Who and what am I really?" and "What is this experience?"
This alarm clock remains the most difficult because, unlike banging one's head, remembering to remember the word "I" can easily slip under the radar of consciousness, even when watching one's words or thoughts. However, in terms of consciousness, I have found it very rewarding (and sometimes quite sobering) to notice self-referencing thoughts and speech.
8) Turning pages. I spent years lost in books, and though I remember myself fairly well while reading these days, I noticed that I still sometimes read mechanically for pages at a time, so I recently started setting this new alarm.
9) Seeing mirrors. This one in particular is not only to help me self-remember, but also specifically to make me acknowledge that I spent most of my life in a narcissistic bubble and that I don't have long fix myself.
10) Eating. When by myself, I used to eat at the computer or while reading a book. As you might expect, I'd often get lost in the media and eat mechanically. I decided that if I was going to consume enfolded consciousness, I could at least show it some respect. Now I try to read when I read, and eat when I eat. A simple test to start is this: Could I consciously stop chewing mid-bite for each and every bite? Maybe some people don't have any problems combining food and media, but my predator loves multi-sensory stimulation, so it's a personal discipline at the very least.
Though I intend every day to self-remember as continuously as Approaching Infinity described upthread, I've also depended on alarm clocks and these are ten that have helped me the most. As you can see, and just as Gurdjieff described, it's been a process of refinement, expansion, and invention. Let this thread testify to the additional necessity of a network.
Many thanks to the community, and the mods especially, for keeping the signal volume up.
Ding! Ding! Ding!
:)
