How does one know/remember when to do a reality check?

I understand that you should do a reality check when something strange happens or when a strange event that occurs in your dream happens in real life, but i have had trouble with my dream recall and I only know 1 or 2 things that are strange in my dreams and strange things rarely happen to me in real life. So the question is how do I know when its the right time for a reality check.

Well, you are right about doing RCs when you see something weird. Now, to actually find weird stuff, you've got to pay close attention to everything around you. When you start doing that in real life, you'll do it in dreams, meaning that you'll find weird stuff.


Check out the All Day Awareness technique by KingYoshi. That's the sort of thing I'm talking about.

Yes, you are supposed to reality check whenever something strange happens, but that isn't the only time you should be doing it. Just randomly throughout the day.

There are plenty of time you can do a reality check. Whenever you see something weird, whenever you see a dream sign, whenever you use the bathroom, whenever you walk through a door, etc. It may be hard to remember at first so I recommend doing things like writing 'RC' on your hand in order to remember. Set an alarm on a watch or something along those lines.

I'm not sure I'm a fan of discussing it in this fashion. It takes focus away from the fact that the reality check doesn't really matter, what matters is looking out for and picking up on the need to do one. Look at it from that angle; the whole idea is just to get yourself to keep an eye out for it.

I agree with Supernova here - Reality Checks can be used as a simple tool to tell you are dreaming, but they are more helpful to confirm the suspicion you are dreaming after you have the suspicion through awareness.

Learn to use RC's to truly doubt reality - when you do them don't just do an RC, wonder where you are and how you got there, if you are truly awake or asleep. It is the more indepth practice of questioning reality that will help you get lucid, not just the RC itself.

Personally, I RC any time I see something strange, feel odd, think about dreaming, just in general any time I feel like it throughout the day. Between RCs I try to keep awareness of what is going on around me to stay in the habit of increasing my awareness :)

Usually I RC randomly when it comes across my mind or when it something is really weird. For example, i swear i saw some kid run around a house with a checkered jacket and go into his backyard, then he ran around the house again with the same jacket, but the backyard has no exit on the inside so there is no way he could have done a full loop unless he has a brother with the same jacket and same age =/ WEIRD... but i wasn't dreaming..

Basically, don't get in the habit of checking, get in the habit of looking for situations or conditions which might otherwise indicate that you are dreaming, and know that that's the time to check (reinforcing the importance of doing so by actually doing so).