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1. Use an activity reminder - something you do often
- walking through doors
- using restroom
- noticing specific color
- get a phone call
- get a drink
- and anything else you can think of
2. Use a physical reminder - audio or visual
- set your watch to beep every hour
- set your timer
- put some sticky notes all over your place, school books, laptop, door frame, wall above you bed, first thing you see in the morning
- put a rubber band or bracelet on your wrist
- and whatever else you can
All these are just to help you get into habit of RCing. Pretty soon you will find, that you will start RCing even without them. And that's the best way to do it. Spontaneously. Whenever the feeling "OMG, what if this is a dream" strikes you.
3. Dream signs - anything, that occurs often in your dreams AND in your waking life.
You RC on these in WL every time you see it. Then, when they show up in your dream, you are likely to RC there as well.
4. When you notice something strange. It can be strange for real or you just pretend it is. Let's face it, our lives are not that strange, so we have to make up some stuff.
- a classmate shows up when you know he is at home sick
- you thought you still had some beer in your fridge but it's all gone
- it's lunch time, you should be hungry, but you not
- boy/girl that has been ignoring you is suddenly talking to you
- you see or hear anything and you think to yourself "that's strange"
5. At random
-every time you get the sinking/exciting/freeky/exhilarating feeling n your stomach, that what if this was a dream and you didn't notice
Just remember, RC by itself doesn't get you lucid, it only confirms.
Awareness does. The awareness question "what if this is a dream". And being aware of your surroundings, noticing details, changes, patterns, constantly questioning and knowing where you are, how you got there and what you were doing before. Walking through your life as if you were in some video game, where anything can jump out at you at any moment and if you don't notice where you walk, you will miss some cool pickups. Be alert!
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What really works for me is adding strong emotions when I RC. I ask myself "wow, what if this is a dream, I just didn't notice". I try to recall a happy/startling feeling. You know, like when you wake up in the morning after Christmas and you know something really good happened yesterday, but for a second you don't recall what it was. But you have this happy feeling in pit of your stomach. Then you remember all those toys you got the day before.
Or any other happy/expectation/surprise feeling you can recall from your past. If you had LD before, you can think of that startling/happy feeling as when you first time realized you are dreaming.
Then this jolt/startling feeling transfers into my dreams and I go "wait a minute, am i dreaming?". And byt the end of that question I'm already lucid.
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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.
You can always PM me, but to be honest, you will get more intense help here, because of all the different replies you will get.