Thread: Asking yourself how you know that you are awake instead of whether or not you are dreaming...?

Originally Posted by Laurelindo

One common practice while trying to get lucid dreams is to develop a critical thinking and ask yourself whether or not you are dreaming - but let's face it, sometimes we just know with absolute certainty that we are indeed awake, for example if we have stayed awake and active for several hours and if everything has felt completely solid and logical that whole time, and in such cases it can feel a bit fruitless to ask yourself if you are dreaming, because you know that you you aren't dreaming at that point.
So I was wondering, wouldn't it sometimes be a better idea to ask yourself what it is that makes you sure that you are awake?
For example, instead of asking yourself "is this a dream?", maybe a question like "why do I know that I am awake right now?" would be more effective?

It's interesting, but I think it's a bad idea.

So many times I was 100% sure that I'm awake. Until I RCed.

And when in a dream, we don't find anything strange. That's because our daytime memory is not "on". So you would rationalize to yourself anything as normal, as we do everytime in a dream.

IMO, asking yourself if in a dream, or better yet, telling yourself that you are in a dream and then testing that is the way to go. And even after your RC confirms that you are awake, you should never acknowledge it. You should never tell yourself "oh, ok, I'm awake". That thought should just be skipped and RC should be followed by mantra "next time I'm dreaming, I realize I'm dreaming".