Thread: THE TOTEM: Does it work? Or not? YOU DECIDE

I saw the movie "Inception" when it came out a few months ago. It was the best movie ever. I saw it twice in one week. So awesome. ANYWAY I had been interested in dreaming since way before, but i think the idea of a totem is a pretty neat thing. The idea is to have something on hand that you are familiar with, so you can do a reality check with it and no one else can.

So about two weeks later, the idea struck me to make my own totem. The idea actually came to me, ironically, in a dream. I decided to have my totem be a DogTag necklace with the word "Draem" engraved into it. I decided on "Draem" instead of Dream" for a few reasons:
1) no one would want to steal a necklace with a mistake on it
2) if I were dreaming I'd probably read it as Dream instead
3) no one else would be able to replicate my necklace.
Just in case, I also engraved a sigma (greek letter that looks like E) on the back that no one knows about. Until now. But still only I know what it looks and feels like.

40$ later, my totem arrived in the mail and I've been wearing it every day for about two or three months. What do you think?

Sure, but it might not always show up in a dream. And lucidity really only happens from sudden awareness, and reality checks are used afterwards to confirm. It's more convenient to just try plugging your nose or counting your fingers, instead of summoning your totem (and in that case, you already know it's a dream because you just tried to summon it!).

I know that sounds pretty anti-totem, but who knows.

To solve the problem of it not being there, consider it an additional RC to check whether you are wearing it or not.

I thought about this too when I first saw the movie, but seeing it for the second time, I caught that the totem was to make sure you were in your own dream and not someone else's. Now I know that being in a dream other than your own isn't too likely, as I haven't experienced shared dreams yet, but I do intend to try to have some once I get better control. I made one though xD I have yet to test the properties of it's weight in my dream gravity, but one of these lucids I'll remember.

Yeah It obviously has to be altered from the movie... instead of making sure it works I just check to make sure I have it and that it's spelled "right". The checking isnt necessarily done to see if the totem is real, but if it is there.

Actually I had my fourth LD a few nights ago after changing my sleep routine. Instead of wearing my totem to bed I took it off just before I fell asleep... I dont know if that rose my awareness or not.... so it works in more ways than one i suppose. It's also a snazzy necklace anyway.

Excellent idea really. An object that is a constant reminder of questioning reality while at the same time providing an oppertunity to perform a Reality Check with it.

I'm thinking of a wristband with the object hanging on it. A Dice, a Mahjong gamepiece or a Scrabble-gamepiece might be the perfect object.
A text like "Is this Waking Life?" and/or "Might NOW be a Dream?" written on it may stimulate you to question reality. When you do question Reality you can proceed
doing an RC by reading the text, looking away and then reading to see if it still says the same.
In dreams it will never say the same.

Thanks; it took me a long time to figure out what my totem should be. I couldn't just steal Cobb's idea from the movie with the top.... This way it's more original.