Thread: Trying Gravity RC for several weeks

Originally Posted by Azul

the nose plug isn't an actual RC per se more like a confirmation that you're dreaming.

Have to disagree here, that's precisely what a RC (reality check) is: a quick state test to determine if you're awake or dreaming.

To use it in its full description: ADA/RC-gravity is *more* than just an RC using gravity. It is a continuous awareness-boosting practice meant to produce lucidity, focused on the personal experience of gravity in waking vs. gravity in dreams. A "gravity RC" is basically like a "nose plug RC": something you do once you already suspect that you're dreaming. But that doesn't mean "nose plug" isn't an RC. It means "nose plug" is not a continuous awareness-boosting practice (although some days I do nose plug so often it feels like it practically becomes one ).

Although that may be true, from my experiences I personally wouldn't recommend the nose rc simply because it CAN screw you over not saying it will though. I had not one doubt in my mind that the nose rc would fail me but it actually did a few times and that's when I decided it was time for me to just strengthen my overall awareness. I don't really like relying on one particular RC for the fact that it can misdirect you if you're not seasoned with it, then again even if you are misdirection still could happen.

An RC is only what you make of it, we're all different when it comes to lucid dreaming. Since we all think differently our thoughts and actions will obviously vary.

Awareness is clearly the key. Over time, I RC less and less in dreams, I just know I'm dreaming. But for those times where that little confirmation is needed, I find nose pinch nearly perfect. It's good to have several in mind in case one is ambiguous, though.

That's exactly it! That's what we should be striving for, to simply automatically know that we're already dreaming. Lately that's how most of my lucids have been occurring, we should be building our awareness to a state where we don't even have to "RC."

Of course it will take time and practice but the results are well worth it.

Well I may be the weird person here but the RC itself is what makes me lucid and not so the awareness; as having awareness but normal gravity makes me as lucid as a rock <.<

Originally Posted by Hukif

Well I may be the weird person here but the RC itself is what makes me lucid and not so the awareness; as having awareness but normal gravity makes me as lucid as a rock <.<

Wishing I could be your brand of weird!!!

Seriously, there's a chicken/egg thing at work here that's tricky (if not impossible, since it may originate far, far below our conscious thoughts) to discern precisely what comes first. It very well could be the awareness that kicks in without you "feeling" it that gives you that tiny little push to notice the gravity.....or not, like I said, it's tricksy.

Well my point of reference comes from when I am aware of gravity in dreams but don't become lucid? Always happens when its normal gravity, so despite all my awareness will just accept it all as reality.

Sorry for the double post, but I'm interested in how things are going here?

I am currently not practicing the Gravity RC anymore but it isn't because I don't think it works. I fully believe that it works really well, but I've decided that the Gravity RC isn't for me. I find that it takes a lot more effort for me than self awareness. Self awareness feels more natural to me and it comes easier, and I've heard people say to do what feels natural to you so I decided to stick with Self Awareness (I guess it's kind of like mindfulness too). I've been working on Self Awareness with random RC's (and RC's when something weird happens) throughout the day.

I periodically think that if I would've stuck with the Gravity RC I'd be LDing frequently already but I don't know if I would because it didn't feel natural to me. I'm super happy with my success and I'm proud of myself for sticking with LDing, even though I'm still not seeing many results. I usually would give up on something like this but this time, I decided that I wouldn't let myself give up. Anyways, sorry for rambling on, just updating you on what I've been doing

(sorry for the double post but I thought this thread should be bumped back up...I want to revive it maybe.)

Over the past two months, I have been working on mindfulness in my daily life. (Or self-awareness whatever you call it) It hasn't been working for me very well and I've noticed now my practices seemed to be all jumbled and disorganized and I really don't know what I'm doing anymore for practice. I've lost a ton of motivation to practice, though I still want to lucid dream really bad. I think the reason is that mindfulness isn't for me, I've found it very hard to constantly try and keep it up.

I've been thinking of alternative awareness practices to do, and my mind always comes back to the Gravity RC no matter what. So maybe this is the technique for me? I'm mad that I stopped using this technique, but this time I think that I am more dedicated and more prepared to start using it. I know now that it will take a while to train but I know the benefits are worth it in the end.

So I'm going to start practicing this technique again, and I just refreshed my memory on it by reading Azul's post on the Gravity RC. Hopefully some people come back to this thread and more people try out the Gravity RC and we can motivate each other. We can maybe even do an experiment and see how successful the RC actually is to the normal person?

Anyways, when I'm doing this RC I'm just going to be focusing on my legs or feet when I'm walking, and then the weight of my body when sitting. So basically I'll be focusing on the weight of whatever body part I'm using at the time, that seems the most natural to me. I will also say the mantra "I'm dreaming" Throughout the day as I want that thought to carry over into my dreams.

I do have a question though. I have been doing the MILD technique before bed. With the Gravity RC, would you recommend that I continue doing the MILD, or is the RC good enough that I don't need to do any technique before bed and I can still get a DILD every night after practice? Also, I don't need to be doing any other RC's like the nose-plug or counting fingers right? And is what I'm practicing seem to be sufficient? All I'm doing is the gravity RC, DJ, and a mantra, and now I'm doing a WBTB most nights of the week. Will that, after plenty of practice, start getting me tons of LD's? Also, do I need to do meditation with this? I try to meditate a few times a week but lots of times it is a hassle and I really don't have the time for it usually. (I keep editing new things in..I have never ending questions ) With this RC you also don't need to find any dream signs right? I have never really heavily used dream signs in the past because you can only become lucid when you see that dream sign. I use dream signs a little, but not heavily.

Thank you, and I hope many more people join in on practicing the Gravity RC

I think I can contribute something to the discussion, as I have been trying this technique too. Well, actually my personal experience is so similar to yours, Sharpshoey, but we can probably learn from that, maybe find common mistakes, or common challenges/pitfalls and what can be done about them.
On the other hand this is a thread about a personal experiment, so I think it would be better for other people interested in this technique if we move the discussion to the "official" Gravity RC thread here: http://www.dreamviews.com/induction-...-tutorial.html

Originally Posted by Sharpshoey

(sorry for the double post but I thought this thread should be bumped back up...I want to revive it maybe.)

Over the past two months, I have been working on mindfulness in my daily life. (Or self-awareness whatever you call it) It hasn't been working for me very well and I've noticed now my practices seemed to be all jumbled and disorganized and I really don't know what I'm doing anymore for practice. I've lost a ton of motivation to practice, though I still want to lucid dream really bad. I think the reason is that mindfulness isn't for me, I've found it very hard to constantly try and keep it up.

I've been thinking of alternative awareness practices to do, and my mind always comes back to the Gravity RC no matter what. So maybe this is the technique for me? I'm mad that I stopped using this technique, but this time I think that I am more dedicated and more prepared to start using it. I know now that it will take a while to train but I know the benefits are worth it in the end.

So I'm going to start practicing this technique again, and I just refreshed my memory on it by reading Azul's post on the Gravity RC. Hopefully some people come back to this thread and more people try out the Gravity RC and we can motivate each other. We can maybe even do an experiment and see how successful the RC actually is to the normal person?

Anyways, when I'm doing this RC I'm just going to be focusing on my legs or feet when I'm walking, and then the weight of my body when sitting. So basically I'll be focusing on the weight of whatever body part I'm using at the time, that seems the most natural to me. I will also say the mantra "I'm dreaming" Throughout the day as I want that thought to carry over into my dreams.

I do have a question though. I have been doing the MILD technique before bed. With the Gravity RC, would you recommend that I continue doing the MILD, or is the RC good enough that I don't need to do any technique before bed and I can still get a DILD every night after practice? Also, I don't need to be doing any other RC's like the nose-plug or counting fingers right? And is what I'm practicing seem to be sufficient? All I'm doing is the gravity RC, DJ, and a mantra, and now I'm doing a WBTB most nights of the week. Will that, after plenty of practice, start getting me tons of LD's? Also, do I need to do meditation with this? I try to meditate a few times a week but lots of times it is a hassle and I really don't have the time for it usually.

Thank you, and I hope many more people join in on practicing the Gravity RC

A question for you: do you feel weight in your dreams? I'm asking because I tried this technique for over a month until I realized that it won't be very useful for me since the realistic feeling of weight is present fairly often in my dreams. At first I was looking forward to this technique too because I did not recall gravity existing in 99% of my dreams, but that was only because I was not lucid/did not care/did not notice it. When I got more LDs I noticed how present and realistic the feeling of weight/gravity is in my dreams, so after a fairly long try I realized I kind of wasted time. Everyone's dreams are different, some techniques work for some and do not for others, that's why I'm saying you should think about how your dreams are beforehand.

Originally Posted by mimihigurashi

A question for you: do you feel weight in your dreams? I'm asking because I tried this technique for over a month until I realized that it won't be very useful for me since the realistic feeling of weight is present fairly often in my dreams. At first I was looking forward to this technique too because I did not recall gravity existing in 99% of my dreams, but that was only because I was not lucid/did not care/did not notice it. When I got more LDs I noticed how present and realistic the feeling of weight/gravity is in my dreams, so after a fairly long try I realized I kind of wasted time. Everyone's dreams are different, some techniques work for some and do not for others, that's why I'm saying you should think about how your dreams are beforehand.

I haven't had very many LD's and in the ones when I tried things that focused heavily on gravity, it was different. Like when I jumped for instance, I could jump a long ways, and when I was climbing a tree, it was really easy. Also, I heard hukif say that in some dreams gravity may be perfectly normal. But I've decided that I'll never know if I don't try this technique whether it will work or not, so I'm giving it a go anyways. Even if it doesn't work, there are other things to be learned from it as the Gravity Rc Tutorial by Azul states. One thing learned is discipline and patience, and that will help me out in the long run of practicing LDing.

I think I can contribute something to the discussion, as I have been trying this technique too. Well, actually my personal experience is so similar to yours, Sharpshoey, but we can probably learn from that, maybe find common mistakes, or common challenges/pitfalls and what can be done about them.
On the other hand this is a thread about a personal experiment, so I think it would be better for other people interested in this technique if we move the discussion to the "official" Gravity RC thread here: Gravity RC Tutorial

Glad to see that you decided to join! That sounds like a good idea to move the discussion to that thread. And hopefully we can help each other out to overcome any challenged we may be having.

I think you are going to have difficulty achieving results with such a vague goal, especially with a task like this. When you have a difficult and long-term goal project, it helps to take advantage of what people have already discovered about goal-achieving behaviors, and break it down into easier chunks:

SMART acronym for goal setting:

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-related.

Specific: Target a specific area of improvement. LD isn't a pass/fail assignment, rather it's a confluence of several skills that take time to build up independently of each other. Focus on just one aspect for your goal.

Measurable: You need to be able to point out tangible indicators of progress to yourself, or you will lose motivation. This is probably the second most important thing.

Achievable/Realistic: If your goal is specific and measurable but too difficult, you are wasting your time. Small-chunk it. Start out really small so that you can actually get there.

Time-related: Set yourself a deadline. A slog with no end in sight is discouraging. If you can imagine a light at the end of the tunnel you will want to reach it.



Get scientific about this project and you will find results come much easier. For example, your goal might be something like:

- Every time I remember to do a gravity RC I will record the event (on my smartphone with a tracking app)
- I need to build up to an average of one RC an hour within two weeks.
- Every few days I will keep a log of my progress and any differences I notice.

Now you have a short term, achievable goal, and you can look at some concrete numbers and journal entries to see if this technique is useful at all. The goal isn't even to have LDs, the goal is to reach a stage of practice where it might be consistent enough to start to cause LDs further down the road.

I will add that I am using this method with a different RC and, unlike previous attempts, I am not getting discouraged because I can look at a graph of how often I'm doing the RC and it's slowly creeping up higher and higher. Before an RC works in your dream, it has to become a habit. If you think about it, the goal is not to have an LD, it's to develop a new habit. Thinking about it that way has made this much easier for me because there are all sorts of operant conditioning tools that suddenly make sense to use.