On a lack of presence in one's own life

In lucid dreaming we turn on the lights. We check the time, look at our hands, or try to change the color of the floor. While awake, we repeat; we wish to establish a control. Am I awake? or asleep? If I re-enter my last exit, will memory save me this moment so I won't need to start again?

Am I awake or asleep? In life, I am meant to be present--fully rooted in myself and wholly aware. Instead, it seems I have evacuated in response to an unknown emergency, and I am not myself. Like my voice sits between my tongue and my teeth; it answers for me. Days come in and go out like the endless ocean and my body lumbers along like a full sail with no captain. I remember no dates. I walk into rooms without knowing why. Dreams are scarce.

If the difficulties I've had in ending sleep while dreaming have carried over into my waking life, then how do I rise and return to myself? What are the tricks for remaining present in one's life?

Consider first that you are not present. Check all your buckles and be sure you really exist.

Breathe. Drink water. Breathe more. Close your eyes and hold yourself still. Resist the urge to wander at all pauses.

Press your feet to the ground and nail them in; lay your back along the hard spine of the earth.

Speak to yourself in one voice only. Make that the voice of one moment only.

You do not walk on air. Your head is not on fire. The inert ecstasies and frenzied melancholies are constructs designed to keep you from yourself--and to keep you re-writing sentences long after you should have been asleep, until the blog post you started writing looks nothing like what you have on the screen.

Consider that you are not yourself, and learn on the thesaurus website that ecstasy is to stand outside the ordinary self, while enstasy is to stand inside the self (and that, yes, isn't that what we're talking about?) Look for a further definition on the same website and be told no, sorry. no results found.

So if that isn't dream-like, I don't know what this is. See you when the sun rises.