My experiences with techniques of becoming Lucid
Thought it might benifit some to share my experience with this or if it matches with others.
When I first started trying this, I was very into reality checks. There was a time where I would do RCs every hour or so (got sick of them after a while). I think this does work to some extent but it's not fool proof for a lot of reasons, and it's sort of a very artifical induction of a lucid dream. What I discovered is that sometimes your mindset in a dream will allow anything illogical to pass by and you won't care. Sometimes when I did a reality check in my dream, I just passed! and concluded it was not a dream, that made me realize my RCs, something wrong with them. The thing I had most success with is looking at my hands. The lines on my hands would be difference if I checked then a few times. That was usually a pretty sure way of knowing I'm in a dream. The thing is by the time you are doing a RC test in a logical way like this, by that time you are already critically thinking enough to be aware anyway. Else it can go by like a normal RC check. What I suspect is that an RC when conducted correct is at best an automatic trigger that can disrupt your thinking pattern and boost you into a higher level of awareness (which is I guess the idea of it). Though sometimes in an intense nightmare, It would have the same effect and I would litrally realize it's a dream, just to get out of the nightmare. I think the point is Reality checks are sort of an illusion, it is not really a reality check that gets you lucid.
This is why I think this, doing reality checks focuses you on a goal, getting lucid. I don't think it has anything to do with logic. But an intention of desire. This is why you can suggest to yourself to become lucid and that can also work. Another thing is after you have several Lucid dreams, I began to very easily notice a difference between what the dream realm was and what awake was, without a RC check, or any sort of solid verification. I could just 'know' in my mind in an instant. Clarity came over like a wave, without any need for manifestation of 'evidence'.
Sometimes if I focused on being Lucid, you wake up entirely. I think this has to do with inducing your brain to a inferior level of activity which forces you back into this waking dimension. So I figured that to be in the dream realm. Lucidity was not the only thing you needed to take advantage of it's potential. You needed a certain brain wave activity of thinking to remain in the dream in order to have contact. I suspect that if you do logical thinking in your dream, and it's not balanced with the other half of your mind. You will force an awakening, because it causes the dream to collapse due to the imbalance.
While I agree that Lucid dreaming is probaly a superior form of dreaming, I also think that what happens in the dream can be in different stages of importance. There is prophetic dreams, dreams that communicate ideas, dreams that provide therapy. Then there is dreams which seem to be an outlet for supression of something sometimes. Some dreams deal with trauma or other issues. I think that it's not simply a case of random creation, that it is very integrated into us. Someone else's dream journal is just nothing like another persons really. It's all too unique and everyone has different barriers or challenges and normally we are all after different things.
Mostly when I have Lucid dreams now, they just happen to me. I'm still trying to learn about them, how to use them to full potential, and starting to think that it is a gift from God that we are given to explore our spiritual journey.
