Thread: When should I do reality checks?

Reality checks are different for all people. Do you live in a big city is this normal surroundings for you. For me i noticed a strange place or odd things happening is an obvious dream sign. Just try and be aware of your surrounds all the time and take time out of the day and meditate and just focus your mind more and you will be more aware in your dreams.

Thanks curios. I live in a small city where the biggest building is 13 floors high. I don't meditate because I don't know how to. How do I become awar of my surroundings?

just look around, take note of what you see, feel, hear, smell and taste...take it all in...be aware of how you feel at the time too, happy, sad, indifferent...

Are you say that I should be aware in life or in a dream or both. In a dream I've never had control their just like storys told to me by someone else. When I dream I have no memory that this ever passed. When you lucid dream is it like 'Oh i'm dreaming' then you like wake up in your dream and everything becomes vivid and it's like real life? I've had only one dream where I was complety aware. I got up and went to the washroom and went back to bed.

I'll give you an excerpt from steven Laberge's book on being aware lol...

1. Look.
Become aware of what you see: notice the richly varied and vivid impressions-shapes, colors, movement, dimensionality, the entire visible world.
2. Listen
Become aware of what you hear: register the various sounds taken in by your ears-a diverse range of intensities, pitches, and tonal qualities, perhaps including the commonplace miracle of speech or the wonder of music.
3. Feel
Becoem aware of what you touch: texture (smooth, rough, dry, sticky, or wet), weight (heavy, light, solid, or empty), pleasaure, pain, heat and cold, and the rest. Also note how your body feels irght now and compare that to the many other ways it feels at other times, tired or energetic, stiff or limber, painful or pleasant, and so on.
4. Taste
Become aware of what it is like to taste: taste a number of different foods and substances, or remember and vividly imagine their taste.
5. Smell
Become aware of what you smell: the odor of warm bodies, earth, incense, smoke, perfume, coffee, onions, alcohol, and the sea. Remember and imagine as many of them as you can.
6. Breathing
Attend to your breathing. A moment ago you probably were not consiously aware of your breathing and inhaled and exhaled fifty times while doing this excersise. Hold your breath for a few seconds. Let it out. Now take a deep breath. Notice that being consious o your breathing allows you to altier it deliberately.
Now I don't want to type the rest such as, "emotions, thoughts, "I", awareness of your awareness"
I hope I was helpful...

I'm still kind of confused. Like do I just think in my head oh ya I know what that feals like or I hate that smell it reminds me of. Like that?

When you lucid dream is it like 'Oh i'm dreaming' then you like wake up in your dream and everything becomes vivid and it's like real life?[/b]

yes.

Basically I am saying be aware of your senses. Like I bet you aren't or weren't thinking of the noise of your computor noise or if you have a sibling then the noise of the tv. Become aware of that. Also, think of the taste, the texture in your mouth and if it is cold or hot, think of all that as you are thinking of a food or something.

Sweet thats awsome.
So what the advice on when to do reality checks? I do them everytime I enter and exit a building. Is that right?

you can.

think of this: what is something that happens often in your dreams? (dreamsign) do reality checks whenever that happens if possible. if you don't have one, just do them whenever, like as you said when you enter a building, or perhaps set a wrist watch to go off through out the day and do them then.

What usually works for me is to notice violations of physics.
Things like:
I run my car off a cliff and it falls slowly.
I can jump 30 feet up in the air.
I can run, but my stride is 50 feet long.

Stuff like that happens but I never realize that.

Same here, and you can't do reality checks on that becuase it never happens in "real" life...

So what should you do?

Check your watch at random intervals... it worked for me for the first week

So just where a watch and check it like every hour and then recheck? Is that it?

Well... When I was doing it I checked like every 20 minutes maybe. Also, if your playing a video game or something or watchign a movie tlel yourself that every time you see it you will know that you are dreaming and you will do a reality check... that carried over into my dream after doing it once even know I didn't become lucid...

Every time I see what?
O and over time does it become easier to become lucid?

With practice, all things become easier, including lucid dreaming.

Well, for example I was playing Final Fantasy like all day once and I told myself (OUT LOUD, I'm not saying them out loud anymore and that might be a reason for less lucid dreams) every time I see a dude in an giant ice cube in a sky then I will know I'm dreaming and do a reality check... Here's the dream that came with it...

I was in a vast room where there was a shaft of purple light coming from the ceiling. I said out loud, "Every time I see that I will do a reality check and know that I am dreaming." Right when I was about to do my reality check I woke up.

And also to answer your question about more lucid dreams the easier it can be... the answer should be yet from what I know (not experiance) because you know that it can be done and that it is way fun and worth it so you should do it again.

Ok what I would do I would do a reality test before I went to bed and when I woke so If I woke up in a dream I wold try it.
In that dream did you say that on purpose or was it just random?

I'm not sure... Oh and the final fantasy thing wasn't a dream...

So how do you do a reality test? Just ask your self "Am I dreaming" and then test it out?

Well for one, don't just think it is for practice to carry on to the dream world and definetly don't do it half ass/think it is bullshit. What you have to do is consider it actually being a dream. Look at your watch and you should ask yourself out loud if you are dreaming. Look at your watch, look away and then look back. If it has changed or even if it hasn't try to stick your finger through your hand. While you are doing the test, the WHOLE time be aware why you are doing the test (to know if you are dreaming), consider what you are in at the time possibley a dream, and beleive that the time will change and your finger will go through your hand...
If you do all this you are probably sure to have a lucid dream soon...