Reality checks are fallible?

Last night, I did a straight up reality check- I looked down at my hands in the middle of a non lucid dream, and saw that my left hand had only three fingers and a thumb. But I didn't connect the dots and see that that means it's a dream. I assumed it was part of a game (in the dream I had just started up a video game, and the room I was in changed to match the game. Well it didn't but in my dream head I thought that that's how games worked).

Shouldn't this still have worked though? Be it a false reality or a game, shouldn't the reality check still worked? I'm not too mad, it's a good sign that I'm getting somewhere, but still, why didn't it work? Are reality checks not 100% fool proof?

Yeah, they aren't 100% full proof if you are just doing the action with the mental questioning, Is this a dream? You shouldn't think that dreams a false realities. You should know that everything is a dream, including reality. I tried that false reality deal with dreams, asking is this reality or false reality, didn't work. It seems the brain associates the word dream with the actual state, and you have to Know it is a dream, to initiate that feeling of knowingness that is a dream. I'm currently conducting a poll to hopefully prove the correlation between that feeling, and not only lucidity, but also how long a person can sustain lucidity in dreams.

It's good that you looked to check your hands, but you weren't quite conscious enough to realize what it meant. You're very close though! :)

Often if you are aware enough, you'll become lucid and then do your RCs, so you'll know for sure what they're for.

Once I did a nose plug that didn't work in a dream. Turned out my nose was congested due to hayfever :P

Is there any way to do them so they will work nearly all the time? Is there any reality check that always works?

The noseplug reality check have never failed me, but I haven't done it with hayfever so :D

Well the counting fingers, finger through palm and noseplug R.C.s have worked for me 100% of the time...... on the single occasion I ever used them. So I wouldn't have any idea what ones seems like they work well for me or not, apart from those three.

I guess the noseplug worked very well, as it was tactile and not visual, which can be an issue in some dreams, where you can't really see your hands that well and you don't notice your fingers.

One's dreams usually allow them to breathe underwater and in other identical scenarios, so it doesn't know what else to do than continue letting you breathe. I think that's why the nose RC works so well. If one RC fails though (and the nose-plug has failed me once before), it's always good to perform another just in case; I usually do the finger-count and then nose-plug.

So a reality check that really makes your brain think then? It's easy enough to stick extra fingers on or make a finger go through something, but to be normal in a place you have never been "normal" is a tough one. I'm sure no one has ever been underwater without a mask and taken a breath in, and not swallowed water.

Nose plug has always been my go-to RC, and the finger count is usually fairly reliable as well (interestingly I find with this one, if I;m dreaming it will be difficult to determine how many fingers I have).

Generally though, with reality checks, they are mostly useful for when you think you might be dreaming. The act of becoming lucid isn't in the reality check, that's just to reassure yourself. You become lucid when you actually suspect that something's off. When you think about it, you constantly excuse things as weird as having 6 fingers in your dreams.

I guess. Like the one time I ever became lucid I just thought somethings up and did them automatically, but then it just faded away, like I never really got it to work. It's not like I tried to do everything at once, it just ended and returned to a short normal dream before I could even think of stabilizing.

You can try to start practising those RCs during the day along with you really questioning reality and seeing the possible outcomes from the RC. Let's say you see 5 fingers you can think "Hey, 5 fingers is normal, so i'm awake, if i had more or less or deformed fingers i would be dreaming". This would probably lead you in the dream to look at your fingers, notice the abnormal number or aspect of your fingers and thinking that it was unusual so you should be dreaming. This way it isn't just an automatic action either, you really question yourself.

Other option is using more than one RC. I combine the finger counting one with another one in which i try to pass some fingers through the palm of the other hand. If one fails i have a safeguard against it.

dont you see all the threads about failing reality checks :/

Yeah, but they are just about not doing them in dreams. This time I did one but it didn't work. I'm now looking for one that will work almost all of the time. I know it would be stupid to look for the perfect reality check, but maybe just the best one. Then I can practice that instead of the one I'm doing now which actually failed.

in my 1 lucid dream that wasnt a semi, the mirror reality check worked, i wasnt moving in the mirror and it didnt reflect the room properly.

I know about that one, but I rarely have a mirror on hand, and people often say that looking in a mirror is a bad idea.

oh yeah, it could show a little girl laughing like it does in all horror movies/ games :evil: or some completely distorted version of yourself with someone stabbing you from behind.....

and technically the reality check was a success if you had 3 fingers and a thumb, but you werent aware enough to realise it.

Oh well, I just want to find the best and most successful reality check now really.

many of the guides here have reality check ideas

Ok then Mr. Topic killer.

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No they arent foolproof, which is why its imperative for all lucid dreamers to develop dream awareness. Through practice you will become more familiar with the difference in sensation between reality and lucidity. Reality checks are simply the tools which can help us achieve that level of awareness.

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Originally Posted by Origami

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You ruined it!

But yeah, I think my dreams recently are becoming longer and more straightforward. Before I was slipping in and out of normal situations to different ones in a second, now they have a pace and I can almost choose to do what I want. Or more like I do stuff I would normally do.

Also, one other thing. I normally wake up at night and take down notes to remember my dreams in the morning. However is this actually good recall if I can't remember them if I don't take notes?

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Originally Posted by Solarflare

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we should stop :/

:laugh:

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lol

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Originally Posted by Solarflare

we should stop :/

:laugh:

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:roll:

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Originally Posted by Origami

You ruined it!

But yeah, I think my dreams recently are becoming longer and more straightforward. Before I was slipping in and out of normal situations to different ones in a second, now they have a pace and I can almost choose to do what I want. Or more like I do stuff I would normally do.

Also, one other thing. I normally wake up at night and take down notes to remember my dreams in the morning. However is this actually good recall if I can't remember them if I don't take notes?

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Not a bad thing, those are dreams you would otherwise forget if you didn't wake up and took down notes. I only remember a lot of dreams in detail through wakefulness during the night.

They don't work all the time but it will still get you semi lucid if you do one. So you'll remember the dream and maybe next time you'll actually lucid. I've had countless times where me being lucid was caused directly from a reality check so def don't give up on them.