Using Pain to Help Reality Checks

**gloriousbattle** · 07-19-2012 12:35 AM

Got this idea today, and am in the process of trying it out. Please note that I am only refering to mild pain that is not dangerous, so, please, nobody wimp out at the title.

My idea is a simply one. Though my lucid dreaming frequency is improving, I have never been able to do reality checks in my dreams, except accidentally (happen to see hands, happen to flick a light switch).

My idea is that nothing anchors quite like pain, so why not use some (relatively) mild pain to try to induce lucid dreaming?

Today, I stuck a pin against the palms of my hands, not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to cause mild pain. While I did this (for a few seconds) I concentrated on seeing my hands while dreaming to do reality checks.

Curious if anyone has ever tried anything similar, and what the results were.

**USA** · 07-19-2012 01:28 AM

How does causing yourself pain make you more likely to RC in your dream?

**gloriousbattle** · 07-19-2012 01:41 AM

I don't know that it does. However, pain is an excellent stimulus and memory enhancer, there's no denying that. So, I wondered if it could be used to improve reality checks. When the hands are seen in a dream, after being associated by the subconscious with pain, and when that pain is linked to a reality check... get the point? It might not work, but it seems like a novel approach.

Anyway, I will try it tonight, and for a few days. I'll see what I find out, and report back anything interesting.

**USA** · 07-19-2012 01:49 AM

I think I get what you're saying now, if you feel pain in your dream, you'll remember to RC then? And you should post your results, I wanna see how it goes!

**gloriousbattle** · 07-19-2012 01:54 AM

Will do!

**faceonmars** · 07-19-2012 03:52 AM

If you ascribe to modern dream theory then our big human brain processes memories in sleep and dreams; throwing out what it deems useless and putting important events in permanent memory. So, I would imagine, a pain would be processed. I cannot see how a minor discomfort would be processed in dreams with a higher priority then anything else. Now if you actually stuck the needle in your skin and drew blood.. THAT would be different.

**Ajden** · 07-19-2012 10:06 PM

I have used pain as a RC since I was a little kid (not on the sole purpose of Lucid Dreaming). My friends told me that you don't feel pain in dreams and that I would pinch my arm whenever I was scared to see if it was a dream or not, since I was ALWAYS having nightmares. This made me have my first Lucid Dream when I was 7, but I didn't know anything about it back then. I still use this RC and it works fine for me

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**gloriousbattle** · 07-19-2012 11:39 PM

Tried this last night and it was a complete success, somewhat to my amazement.

I was walking through a hallway, going to my office. Suddenly I realized that I might have been sleeping, and had just told myself I was going to have a lucid dream. For the first time ever, I voluntarily looked at my hands (the only other time I used this RC was when I happened to see someone else' hands in a dream). Sure enough, they were a little deformed.

I will try to repeat this tonight, and see what happens. I have never yet had a lucid dream two nights in a row (once every week or two is about the best I have done), but I'm curious to see what there is to this.