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

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.