Hello aphorist..I studied the Fourth Way, the teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, many years ago in Australia and was associated with the ( as it was then considered to be) movement for over 3 years.
At the time, it had a formality and discipline I found hard to take when in my 20's. I also found the intellectual side of the teachings baffling and struggled to come to grips with the concepts contained within.
In very broad terms as I understood it, the overall purpose of the teachings is the evolutionary elevation of the human species. Being asleep is like being unaware, "un-conscious".
According to my understanding, man is a sleeping automaton governed by his impulses, habits (as you suggested).
Until we are able to exert understanding of the machine (us -man) through purposeful work on ourselves to wake us from this evolutionary slumber, we are doomed as a species to be degraded and thus engage in species-destructive behaviour.
The "work" to awaken is achieved through a number of methods, physical ( including Sufi meditative dances), intellectual ( readings of the texts) and emotional, using the self-remembering to which you referred.
Self-remembering is another way of expressing the idea of "being in the moment", meditation of a sort. In trying to self-remember, it was important not to "identify" with the insights, rather consider oneself as an observer of oneself - if that makes any sense ?
I think the Fourth Way is just another way of trying to achieve what we joined this site for - conscious awareness, mastery etc etc but with highly prescribed, very disciplined methods.
On a lighter note, I remember one of the exercises was drinking large quantities of arak - a kind of anise-based spirit, like Ouzo and applying self-remembering then !
While I haven't been interested to follow the movement recently, I know that several groups exist in London and probably also in Europe and the US.
Hope that helps...
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