Are Reality Checks Pointless?

I was thinking about the way reality checks work, the basic ones at least. With something like the nose plug, remembering to do it in a dream is supposed to result in you being able to breathe through your nose even though it's impossible.

I know that dreams are made from our own expectations of what will happen as a result of our actions, and that they aim to replicate everyday life. So you'd think that if you did the nose-plug RC everyday several times your brain would know for sure that whenever you do this reality check you would not be able to breathe. Therefore, because you have been constantly reinforcing the fact that your RC won't work, your dreams would ensure that whenever you tried to breathe through a plugged nose you would fail.

Instead, a great deal of the time you can breathe through your nose and you go on to become lucid, and your dream has completely contradicted what happens in real life, even though you've been reinforcing it constanly throughout your day. I realise that dreams are often not realistic, but surely they would conform to a rule that you have tried and tested repetitively and every time got the exact same result in waking life.

This is even stranger with reality checks such as the "finger through hand" one which is entirely impossible in real life, whereas the nose plug could work if you weren't squeezing tight enough, etc. The only conclusion I can come to is that deep down, the logical part of your mind must realise already that you are dreaming before the reality check happens, in all circumstances.

This is even true in the circumstances of more complex reality checks and even to some degree more advanced techniques such as ADA, because your mind would become much more attuned to all of the little background going-ons and your dreams would become far more detailed and realistic. This would mean that the techniques you use would actually be making life harder for you, as you would be less able to realise what is a dream and what isn't. Of course, it would be useful in the respect that your dreams would be more powerful, but it would not contribute to lucids.

With this in mind, are reality checks at all necessary? Can't we find a way to harness this inner-logic and have lucid dreams without effort? Are these just the ramblings of a madman :D?

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Originally Posted by Ikkalebob

Therefore, because you have been constantly reinforcing the fact that your RC won't work, your dreams would ensure that whenever you tried to breathe through a plugged nose you would fail.

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But that's not how you do a proper RC during day.

When you do any RC during day, you expect it to work, because you expect to be in a dream, unless proven othervise.

RC should start with an awareness question, something like "wow, am I dreaming?" and you believe you are. Examine your surroundings and try to find differences between waking life environment and the one you are in at that moment.

Then you RC and you fully expect it to work. Then you say your mantra about next time when you come to question your reality, you realize you are dreaming.

So it's not really the RC that will get you lucid. It's the question you ask yourself. It's the "wow" moment, that makes you stop anything you doing and become aware of where you are. And then this behaviour will start happening in your dreams. You will start questioning your reality in your dreams. Later on, you may even skip the question (automatically, not you will decide) and realize you are in a dream just out of the blue. You still may do RC to confirm (also automatically).

That's how I see why RCs (+awareness) work.

I see... looks like i've been doing something wrong then!

Thanks alot for the advice :).

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Originally Posted by Ikkalebob

I see... looks like i've been doing something wrong then!

Thanks alot for the advice :).

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Makes sense now. I've been feeling the same way recently. I thought we were attempting to check our reality, but rather we're checking our dream. I'm not sure if this is unclear or not but we're intended to act as if we're in a dream while in our waking lives, rather than act as if we're waking in our dream lives. :P

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Originally Posted by Ikkalebob

I see... looks like i've been doing something wrong then! Thanks alot for the advice :).

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You are welcome.

It's certainly not easy to "believe" you are dreaming, when in fact you "know", you are awake. But then, you "know" you are awake in your dreams also, untill you realize you are not.

Some cultures believe, that this waking life is no more real, than dreams. If you think about that, it may become easier to believe, that all this waking life is just an illusion, a dream, and it may help you generate that "wow, am I dreaming" moment during day.

I agree with gab.

Reality checks isn't pointless, it can be if you are just doing it without really thinking about the action.

If you just look at your hand, without much focus, and count the fingers and see five fingers while you are awake, you will most likely get the same result when you are asleep.

Awareness is what's important, you don't get aware by doing a reality check, you become aware by the intention of becoming aware.

Imagine that you are walking with some friend's around the town and you suddenly think about lucid dreaming, become aware of what you are doing and look around and tell yourself where are you? what are you doing? By asking that, you become aware of the situation, then you might see something strange like a man running around screaming "The sky is falling!" this can be enough for you to realize that something is strange and you might be dreaming. This is when you ask yourself am I dreaming? Then you perform a reality check by counting the fingers, for best result count twice.

Let's say that you was in this example not dreaming, then you clearly see that you can be aware of yourself and the situation, but before you do the reality check you can't be aware of the fact if you are dreaming or not. Sometimes the awareness alone is enough because you might notice that something very strange or impossible is happening in the dream, in this case the reality check is not needed to become lucid.
(This works as your reality check instead then)
But since that doesn't always happens the reality check is a good way to induce your own impossible experience, both to induce or confirm.

Reality checks are also a very good way to make the dream last longer, so either way the reality check is powerful and useful ;)

False positives always occur. By the way wasn't there a thread somewhere about motionless reality checks?

Nonetheless I probably can't add anymore then what's been mentioned by most of the above guys who probably have 10 times my experience. However you have to always remember the most important thing to cultivate is techniques like All Day Awareness (ADA).The basic principle is to perform reality checks after witnessing certain peculiarities or just general signs. I simply do what Stephen LaBerge recommended in EWLD which was to make a checklist of things to perform a reality check after. You have to always bare in mind the idea isn't to perform reality checks casually, I think it was one of my initial mistakes, I treated RC's as though they were a lucidity trigger, when performing them in waking life I'd do them without thought and this carried into my dreams leading to lucid albeit terribly vague dreams. Always put thought into what your doing, Sageous over in the Dream Academy recommends something quite similar which is to perform a reverse reality check. The idea being you consider what you were doing 5 minutes before and after your present situation and contemplate how your actions shape your current perception and experience.

I think the best thing to do in a dream however is just to simply question your surroundings. The Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex is inactive during sleep as such you don't have access to working memory, therefore the best reality check hands down is always going to be reflecting on your memories, coupling this with a reality check is key but one should never substitute the other. Wikibooks has a table which lists the probability of a false positive for reality checks, typically like most lists breathing checks beat all opposition. Though in my opinion I'd recommend performing more, I've moved towards doing 2 or 3 reality checks nowadays and it works considerably better then just 1 simply because it decreases the likelihood of a false positive and more importantly makes you actively engaged in discerning whether the dream is real or not. I think it's highly important as well that you pick a reality check that can be performed while stationary (breathing or hands RC) and couple it with one that requires you to actively seek a part of the environment (mirrors, light switches, watches, books/text). Using this method I've literally never had a problem with lucidity.

Using both a stationary and environmental RC really helped me and hopefully it'll help you. If it becomes routine you'll immediately question the nature of the dream even with very limited awareness, the reason is because the active process of seeking out an environmental RC such as a mirror will start a cycle of questions in your brain. Plus one huge, huge issue I've had a noticed among many other LD'ers is they don't realize there body doesn't stop moving, think about it the next time your half-lucid, attempt to
make yourself stand still, most of the time you'll realize your body acts autonomously and keeps walking around. You can then throw in cooler stuff like sense checking (smell, sight, hearing etc) which enhances the length and vividness of your dream.

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Originally Posted by Drax

By the way wasn't there a thread somewhere about motionless reality checks?

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Does anyone remember this?

Are reality checks pointless?

Yes.

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Originally Posted by Woodstock

Does anyone remember this?

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There was a thread specific to it. But Sageous's page on the Dream Academy is essentially what it's about. You just need to cultivate self-awareness in waking life and you won't need reality checks. RC's aren't pointless per se but they're just a means to an end. Most people seem to treat them like lucidity triggers and just perform them habitually. The idea is they're meant for you to question the validity of the surrounding you are currently in. Sageous mentioned in this way they can become counter-productivity, because by there very nature the more they're performed the more they become secondary and therefore defeat their inital purpose.

Just use Sageous idea of Reverse RC's or All Day Self Awareness (ADSA) where you question your existence and ponder things throughout the day. Try even projecting your awarness and imagine yourself inside the body of an inanimate object/animal. Just keep cultivating this idea that you exist, the oddness of that sensation and the fact that everything around you and your own presence affects everything you perceive and witness. If you keep at it you won't need RC's or anything to be honest it'll be second nature to be aware and therefore lucidity is a constant stream, not something that needs to be activated.

Yesterday I woke up in my bed with 4 teeth broken an bleeding.

It felt weird, I looked at my hand, they were normal, I tried my light switch, they work perfectly.
I browse some internet and inside the folder of my computer, everything was working fine.
Finnaly I looked inside a book, closed it an re-opened it, text did not change.

So I called 911 and opened my door, then I woke up.

That was scary, sometimes, now matter how hard you try, all your reality check will fail.

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Originally Posted by frost458

Yesterday I woke up in my bed with 4 teeth broken an bleeding.

It felt weird, I looked at my hand, they were normal, I tried my light switch, they work perfectly.
I browse some internet and inside the folder of my computer, everything was working fine.
Finnaly I looked inside a book, closed it an re-opened it, text did not change.

So I called 911 and opened my door, then I woke up.

That was scary, sometimes, now matter how hard you try, all your reality check will fail.

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I always do a logic RC first. ;)

Honestly it all depends on the person. I have had 15 Lucid dreams now and I've become lucid off of RC's 4-5 times out of those 15.

I find they don't work for me. I still use them at least a couple times a day, but I use them mainly when I'm in the dream before I do something, or just to keep my awareness in the dream.

What doesn't work for some may work beautifully for others. :)

Usually I never even think to do a reality check in a dream unless I suspect I'm already dreaming. They confirm it without a doubt, so they aren't pointless or anything, but yeah, I don't know what the deal is with making them a habit during the day, because it never seems to spill over into my dreaming life.

I have had lucid dreams that were 100% caused by reality checks. One I remember in particular was really crazy, and even when the thought of doing a reality check struck me, I was still thinking to myself "Good thing I remembered to do this during a weird event, hopefully it'll carry over to a dream", but then I could actually breathe through my nose, so I realised I was dreaming and became lucid.

The nose pinch reality check has only failed me once, as far as I remember.

Woodstock. A RC without moving. Dutchraptor told me to just try and levitate. He said that is what he does when he wakes up and tries to DEILD.

After decades of LD's I have settled into just one type of reality check... this would be a gravity check. Anytime I get this 'am I dreaming' thought in a dream I just jump. This has never(as far as I recall) failed to bring about lucidity as dream gravity, as we all know, is more like lunar gravity. However, I should further state that RC's are just one way of many that I use to become lucid.

That gravity RC seems to work really well.

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That gravity RC seems to work really well.

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Got me lucid in last couple of WILDs. No complaints there. It's a good one to check reality in daytime too. Discreet.

I tend to get Deja vu often, should this trigger a reality check in waking life? I am slightly confused about RC's, this thread has cleared some things up but I am still a little confused about the events that trigger a waking RC.

Ikkalebob - I look at your name and I think about Ikabob Crane :) I think the given prompts for reality checks in the Introduction to LD (the nose plug and the palm finger poke exercise), are for people who need help finding a marker to be able to see if they are dreaming or not. Maybe it would help you to choose a "reality checking" marker that applies directly to your life. Put it into context, so that its meaningful to you. Me personally, I chose three things that apply directly to me and no one else. If I'm not dreaming, I will want a cigarette (in dreams I don't), my children are not with me (in dreams they are), and my physical body hurts, I can feel the gravity in my hips and knees (in dreams I don't). Those are subtle differences - nothing outlandish in those markers, no super powers. However, I'm an experienced dreamer. Lucid dreaming, dreaming within a dream (within a dream in some cases) is something that I've done all my life, so I learned to "know when I was dreaming" early on - mostly to prevent myself from peeing in the bed, go figure. I'm sorry if thats gross to hear, that was just reality, part of being a psychic kid growing up!

Choose markers....reality checks....ways to identify if you'r dreaming or not - that are meaningful to you. Not a nose plug or palm poke if it means nothing. If it means nothing, you will not enjoy learning it.

I've actually been trying to use my legs hurting for a RC. My work requires me to walk 10 miles a day, so my legs always hurt by the end of the day. How often do you think about it? And how often do you LD?

I've been lucid all my life. I don't ever try to do it. It happens in cycles, when the hormones are elevated. I'm due for another round within the next month up through February. It's no surprise I found this site now.

That's a good one blackbird, I smoke as well so I'll keep that in thought. I'll also keep the gravity check in thought. :content:

I used to use the nose plug check, but it looked too weird to do during the day, so I switched to trying to put my finger through my palm and it worked great twice in my dreams, but yesterday when I was napping I tried it in a dream when I had already become lucid and it wouldn't work. I woke up very quickly because I was so freaked out. I was completely sure that I was dreaming, but my reality check wasn't working. I think i'll go back to plugging my nose now haha, that one always worked. The feeling of being so unsure if you are dreaming or not is horrible.

It seems that reality checks are either not habitual enough to be performed in a dream, or so habitual that even their performance in a dream will not induce lucidity, and that there is a rare in-between where they are actually effective, which is usually when one would have become lucid anyway, and is just "making sure". In this sense reality checks are good stabilization methods more than anything else. That's the way I see it.

@audiovisual
What are you talking about? Everyone said pretty much the opposite. Yeah, you can make them habitual, or you can make them non habitual, but the point is that you are not trying to make it a habit to try and plug your nose etc, you are making it a habit to check reality as often as possible. ADA is pretty much the same thing as an all day reality check.

Most of the time pointless for me.

99.9% of the value of reality tests is your attitude when doing them! If you don't take it seriously when awake then you wont when dreaming. So yes, they can be pointless if you let them be, otherwise they are one of the most important things you can do to get lucid.

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Yeah, you can make them habitual, or you can make them non habitual, but the point is that you are not trying to make it a habit to try and plug your nose etc, you are making it a habit to check reality as often as possible. ADA is pretty much the same thing as an all day reality check.

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Right. The important point here is that the reality check is secondary to the important part: awareness. If you are exclusively using reality checks as your lucid dreaming method with DILD then you will not have much success because of the reasons I mentioned. Questioning reality constantly and habitually, as in ADA, is a great way to become lucid, and can be considered a reality check. However, performing the actual physical reality check to accompany this will not help nearly as much as being aware.

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99.9% of the value of reality tests is your attitude when doing them! If you don't take it seriously when awake then you wont when dreaming. So yes, they can be pointless if you let them be, otherwise they are one of the most important things you can do to get lucid.

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Absolutely. Again, the reality check is secondary to the ability to be aware, and only a small part of "the trick" to having a DILD.