Here’s a meditation exercise I occasionally use to help increase my moment-to-moment awareness. It’s also been remarkably helpful in developing my memory and my ability to visualize. It’s easy to describe — before I go to sleep I just review visually all the activities from my day. That’s it. Sounds simple but it’s actually hard to do.

I didn’t craft the technique myself. But I’ve read about it in meditation books and I’ve been practicing it and refining it for years. Sometimes I do the technique sitting in a chair or lying down in bed. But just like other meditation techniques, it’s not necessarily relaxing. It takes some work. And I realized that right away when I first tried it. It was obvious my body and my mind really fought the process so I had to learn to fight back. It took a bit of time but I finally won.

So, here it is. I close my eyes and picture my day from start to finish in my mind’s eye. Sometimes I scroll through the day pretty quickly or plod along slowly. I go forward or backward or skip around and focus on specific chunks of time. I play with it to see what works on any given attempt. I make it clear to my mind that I’m in control and I’m doing it my way. I try to see the day as a video with sound but also I add anything I’ve touched or smelled or tasted along the way. I try to get all of my senses involved and to spot any emotions I felt during each point of the day. I try to not get involved with the images I’m seeing, though. I just keep going without questioning anything. I found out that the insights and patterns come over time from repeatedly observing without judging. And, very important, I don’t worry that the images may not be very clear initially. This takes practice. The movie becomes visually sharper over time. But this is critical — even the slightest intention with a few cloudy images is good enough for me to get going because sometimes that’s all I get. It took me forever to understand that part.

That’s it. That’s the exercise. It can take just a few minutes or I can drag it out as long as I want. I don’t take notes afterwards. I just observe the scenes and let them go. And I fight my body’s desire to make me quit by dismissing the pain from sitting or the constant thoughts trying to tease me away into sleep. Not yet. I have some work to do first. Sleep can wait.

Now, here’s the catch. When I first started this exercise I couldn’t think of very much. I knew I did lots of things during the day, but during my nightly reviews all the details were gone. However, what I discovered was that if I could not remember much at night that meant I was not especially present during the day. So, to overcome this, during the day I tried to just focus on my activities without thinking very much. And by that I mean I tried to cut the extraneous thinking, the things not directly related to whatever activity I was doing. Basically, I just tried to kill the random thoughts. This helped me stay more involved with whatever present moment I was experiencing. And that made the difference. I was surprised at how much more detail I could effortlessly remember at night by just doing that one technique during the day. It’s clear that the day and the night are directly tied to each other. But I also found out that remaining present during the day is harder than it seems. Thinking is highly addictive.

This little exercise can get pretty amusing too. Many times during a review I remember in great detail a walk home, for instance. Turning right here, passing this building, hearing a conversation between two girls in front of me, feeling a motorcycle idling and vibrating to my left, seeing an interesting car drive by on the right, noticing the expressions of various people walking by, etc. Massive detail. And then a moment later the entire scene would just stop cold. Nothing. It’s like I couldn’t move forward in the scene because there was just no data. There was nothing to recall. Now, intellectually, I knew I kept walking in reality because I got to the train station — but I could not remember a single detail at that point. The movie pictures running through my mind just stopped. Initially, I thought I was getting tired and perhaps I was falling asleep. But over time I came to realize that when the movie review stops abruptly at night then that’s the exact point I lost my awareness during the day. At that point I let my mind wander to some crap thought about work or some meaningless experience in the past I’ve thought a million times before. I lost my awareness of the present moment. My body was obviously still walking (thanks to my hindbrain), but my awareness was stupidly roaming around somewhere else (thanks to my prefrontal cortex). And that’s what was blocking my daily reviews.

When I practiced this technique every night I started seeing holes like these during my day — blocks of time where all the details were lost. And those breaks became blatantly clear. But here’s what’s really cool — not only does this phenomenon become clear at night when I reviewed my day, but over time it started to become clear during the day as well. I literally could see in real time the exact point I lost my awareness of the present moment. Sometimes, I’d be walking and then start daydreaming and when I realized it I’d stop and ask myself, “Ok, how the hell did I get here?” Then I’d turn and look behind me to see what I missed and to see if I had a clue how long I was thinking. Sometimes, just to drag the point out, I’d actually walk back to where I was present, look around at the scene, and then start again. It’s really weird how I could always find the exact point where I lost my awareness. “Oh, ok, right here at this street corner next to this grey house I started thinking about my Maine vacation 35 years ago. Got it. Ok, start on my walk again.” That observation was critical. And it was shocking to realize how much I was missing in each moment. Some people, like me, cruise along all day like this without having any experience of being aware of anything in the present moment. Most people live their lives in their imagination. They day dream. So, we get used to rapidly switching between reality and virtual reality. And that’s what passes for normal. It’s not.

So, why am I doing this? Well, over time this technique is helping me remain present during activity and that’s always helpful for getting through my day more efficiently. I can see my progress on real life tasks more clearly when I’m fully present, which helps reduce the feeling of panic when things pile up. It also helps me become aware of the low-value, nonproductive things I do repeatedly every day — and especially the inane thoughts I think day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. I now know why I can recall something from 40 years ago in such detail. It’s because I’ve been thinking about it all day, every day for 40 years! It’s insane how much time and energy I’ve been wasting thinking about things decades ago or things years into some mythical future. That’s why I do this exercise. To become aware of this phenomenon and to become skilled at staying present. It’s just one step to my ultimate goal — to be fully aware during all phases of waking and sleeping. More on sleep later. But that’s where I’m going.