Practicing REALITY CHECKS as a primary method?

Hey people :D

Few years ago I had naturally many LDs, once lucid I have no limits, I feel like a God lol. I had even chains of lucid dreams, I wake up and go many times back to my dream to continue it. But since 2 years I had almost none. I don't know why, maybe because my mind was not so peaceful and calm as before. I had relationships problems. lol

NOW I practice RCs maybe 5-10 a day. It became an habit.
So my question is: Could RC alone produce LDs? If yes why? If no why?
Should I do more? Add another technique?

PS: I meditate daily (buddhist meditation: awarness of the breathe)

Thanks :tongue:

I would keep at the meditation and it will reboot your mind. The relationship probably messed your mind up but im not sure of course. Our motivation for sex and satisfaction from others can lead to a lot of mental problems as happiness must always come from within oneself. The partner is just a reminder of that however our culture gives us a different message which we need to interpret as being I don't need that rather than I want that. This answer is just based on my own frame of mind at the moment but it might relate. Keep boosting your meditation and it will reboot your mind quickly quicker than you think you will find the answer! :P

RCs may bring about mindfulness and LDs but it may only increase psychological problems therefore use LDs to clear negative habits but enjoy yourself at the same time and enjoy life. RCs and LDs are not enough on their own in my view.

Well, reality checks are my only method. I've created my own RC (expect something unnatural to be behind me, and if it is, I'm dreaming) that works very well. So long as I can nap, I'm guaranteed lucidiy--and the RCs just help me out a bit.

This is true for me; what is true for me might not be true for you. It's important that you find what works for you--if DILD is your best option, then stick with DILDing; if WBTBs are good to you, then do them a lot. Much of lucid dreaming, if it isn't natural, is trial and error. Reality checks might work for you, but they are more likely to need another method along side them.

I agree fully with CoffinCakes. We all react different as to what works for us and what doesn't, or how well something works. Best way to be sure is just to try it for a while. It's possible that RC's alone will be enough for you, though a lot could also depend on how thorough and invested your RC's are.

-Redrivertears-

Thanks for your answers!
I do it for about one week now and I feel confident about it, it made my dreams more vivid... Maybe the next step is lucidity.

In my RL I make the reality checks fully! I mean I really question my reality and then I try to breathe with my nose closed lol The habit is there in RL I hope it will soon come in my dreams too.

Thanks again for your answers, have an amazing day/night! And if others have something to add I will read you with pleasure :p

IZ DIS A DREAM? Lol

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NOW I practice RCs maybe 5-10 a day. It became an habit.

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This might be the reason why you're not achieving that many lucid dreams: if you turned them into a habit, then you should be doing way more, as there are dozens of cues every hour on practically any person's routine that might cause them to question their state of consciousness.

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So my question is: Could RC alone produce LDs? If yes why? If no why?
Should I do more? Add another technique?

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Yes, reality checks alone can produce lucid dreams, is just as good of a technique as any. Why? Because they are specifically designed you to achieve lucidity by wondering directly about it. In some ways, they're even more reliable than other principles that lucid dreamers tend to rely, since they dismiss any need of rationalization and put you straight into "action mode".

Regarding the use of other techniques, stick to the basics: dream recall and focus on the awareness that you might be dreaming at any time. The rest is all a matter of experimentation: see what interests you, check if it works (if not, readjust), and repeat it over and over ^^

I think I do more than 10/day. The more days passes the more I do it often.

I love the confidence that "resonates" in your text :)

Thanks :D

Would like to do more RCs myself. Today I will remember to do more.

I always had Big opinion of REALITY CHECKS because it's part of DREAM YOGA. Buddhist monks use them in a different, more radical form: they consider the whole day as a dream, its the key for them. So of course when you install that in your mind you consider the dream as the dream too so you have more ease to be lucid. WILD technique too is inspired by them. MILD too... Almost every technique for attain lucidity is inspired by Dream Yoga.

I can rely on just RCs for lucidity if I expect them to fail. What I must do sometimes while awake, is pretend it did fail and vividly imagine that I just realized I'm dreaming. RCs alone are not very effective for me when I just go about my day always proving that I'm not dreaming, then carrying on with my day.

What do you mean by "not effective"? You dont get them in your dreams or they fail to indicate you that you dream?

I had 2 epic dreams this morning I didnt had that since many many months but I was not lucid.

For me, it really seems that there is something more that I need apart from reality checks, but I can't quite understand what that is. In the couple of instances that I have become lucid, I *knew* it was a dream before I did the RC. In one of these times it was because of realising I couldn't remember how I got there (reverse reality check) but the other time there was no apparent trigger.

I have done multiple reality checks in dreams that have either failed, or didn't actually fail but didn't produce lucidity. Perhaps they have become a habit, but there seems to be a very fine line between doing them enough and correctly, and not-over-doing it so they are just mechanical.

I think that what you may be missing is awareness. When you do a RC in RL or a dream you already have some degree of awareness which gives you critical thinking. I think that if you do the RC in a machinical way with very few lucidity or awareness it will not work.

When you do RC do it fully with full lucidity. When you do that everything is more vibrant (yes im talking about real life not dreams) but even in dreams with greater awareness everything is more real and vibrant. RC are just a tool to rise your awareness and critical thinking, they are not magic by themself. Thats why sometimes you are lucid even without doing them because you have already that needed state of mind.

I think that its not the technique the most important thing but the state of mind, the attitude about it.
Thats why if you think that RC are not important or effective you will automatically do it wrong, with wrong attitude.

Yes more awareness haha coming from someone who is easily distracted/slighty ADD, lucid dreaming training is very healthy for me.

I do think RC are important as I do them everyday, but mainly to train my prospective memory side and for that critical thinking. I think awareness can be trained well in meditation as you say, and it doesn't have to be seated but can be walking meditation.

Then we need to combine awareness of everything around us (what we see, feel, hear), as well as critical thinking. So awareness/focus (meditation) + Critical Thinking (Reality checks) go hand in hand and are perhaps incomplete on their own? You seem to be on to that already Metaphysic ^_^

I don't know, just thinking :P I need more practice with everything anyway.

They are not effective because I will do them while dreaming but they don't induce lucidity. If I can breathe through my closed nose, I'll just tell myself it wasn't all the way closed. I always have an excuse instead of becoming lucid. I have overcome come this by imagining and feeling that I do recognize that I'm dreaming while doing a RC while awake. It's obviously not necessary for everyone. Stephen Laberge does recommend something similar when doing RCs.

Perhaps we should look at our waking life as do the Tibetan Buddhists in regard to dream yoga. Waking life is just a form of dreaming. So when you do your RCs, make sure they all validate your dream state, because you are indeed in a lucid dream already. In so doing, you are training yourself to wake up in a dream on a real time basis to allow the realization to transfer directly into the dream state. You won't have to worry about an RC failing, because you are training yourself to show every RC succeeding. Why train your subconscious to fail? Sounds counter productive. Train your subconscious to do what you want it to do; why show that failure is an option?


edit: changed first 'fail' to 'validate your dream state'. My bad. Lost direction of my thought for a moment.

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Originally Posted by madmagus

Perhaps we should look at our waking life as do the Tibetan Buddhists in regard to dream yoga. Waking life is just a form of dreaming. So when you do your RCs, make sure they all fail, because you are indeed in a lucid dream already.

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Some of what you are saying makes sense to me but I'm a bit confused how do you make sure your always RC fail if you are in a dream and things are unstable? Do you mean not expecting to see multiple fingers or whatever RC you use instead of training to expect this, or expect fingers to go through the palm or expect to breath through the nose?

Yes this is interesting...it would be the opposite of what I have been doing which is trying to expect it.

The most effective reality checks are: breathing through the nose, or trying to pass your finger through your other palm. In the past they never failed for me. I don't see how could they fail? Maybe you don't do them fully so even in dream you do them quickly and so you have no time to become aware. I think that you have to install an habit of doing them with great attention/awareness. Take time to do them with great criticizm. So when you do them in dreams you will do the same so the failure is not possible.

I apologize for the confusion as my use of the word 'fail' was not at all clear. I've had the finger through the hand fail for me a couple times, meaning it did not bring me into lucidity. Midnightfire, when i said make them fail, I should have said make them validate your dream state. Exp.: 1) If you plug your nose, don't pinch hard enough to stop your breath, and then say to yourself "yes, I'm definitely in a dream." 2) If you try to push your finger through your hand, instead push one finger between your fingers instead and say "yes, I'm definitely dreaming." You are just creating the expectation that the RC validates that you are indeed in a dream. You are getting in the habit of saying "yes, I am in a dream" after doing an RC check. Of course, just my personal perspective. And as stated above, put your focus into them. Don't do them haphazardly, or they will not penetrate into your subconscious as being important. Thanks for the reply.

But madmagus doesnt that create a habit of making all RC successful but at the same make them "normal"?? I mean: Lets say you do that. You say IRL "yeah Im dreaming"... Ok cool. But then you just continue your day and you do nothing special. If we do the same in dreams the RC may say yeah Im dreaming but then you will change nothing in the dream, you will just accept it because there is no that "SURPRISE" that make you say "OMG Im dreaming; now I will become god, I will fly, I will move mountains." lol

Did that really worked for you because for me it seem like "not logic"... But maybe its just me ^^

Can you not act surprised that it works each time? Why do you assume that you must act blase? As if it means nothing to succeed at the RC during the day. I said at the end of my last post, "Do not do the RC haphazardly, meaning overly casually, or it will mean nothing. Simply put your intent into it as you would anything else. You seem to already have come to a conclusion about the idea because it is different than you are used to doing, so you choose not to think it through. Just because I propose this perspective doesn't mean it will work for you, because if you decide that it won't work, you definitely will be right. It's your mind that decides whether the technique is valid or not, not another individual's opinion. If it's not your cup of tea, that's cool too. Stick with what you are doing. There are a million versions of each technique for a reason.

And your last comment, "OMG, I'm dreaming." Now I can be God. A little too much emotional energy for me. I take the calm, quiet approach in order to have the most potential control. But, again, to each their own. Enjoy.

I can see the points both Madmagus and Metaphysic are making and they are both good points I think.

I have heard it said that the "palm push" is the best reality check, so it must be generally successful for a lot of people. In my experience however, counting my fingers has worked far more (not always producing lucidity, but in that I often have extra fingers in my dream).
But I have had a few times where I have been in the dream, trying my hardest to push my fingers through my hand and it didn't work. The last time was really weird as I was quite sure it was a dream, but I couldn't get my fingers through my hand so I had to conclude it wasn't a dream!!

So that makes me think maybe I have gotten into the practice of confirming that 'this is not a dream" too many times, and I will give it a go, as you suggest madmagus.

I guess there are variations between the way we interpret things and the patterns of thoughts as to why one way might be so much more affective from person to person.

This is very similar to the idea I have, only you said it much better! My point, which I didn't explain very well, is that I must train my mind to react to the reality check as if it worked while not dreaming. To create that expectation. Thanks for clarifying this.

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Originally Posted by midnightfire

But I have had a few times where I have been in the dream, trying my hardest to push my fingers through my hand and it didn't work. The last time was really weird as I was quite sure it was a dream, but I couldn't get my fingers through my hand so I had to conclude it wasn't a dream!!

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I sometimes have problems with RCs like that, but with experience I've gotten to the point where, if I really feel like I must be dreaming but the RC doesn't want to tell me so, I just keep trying or do other RCs or look around for other oddities until I do prove to myself I'm dreaming. Often, since I usually fly in dreams anyway, I just attempt to fly/float/hover, and that quickly settles it. I think I'm starting to realize that when I'm really that convinced I'm dreaming already, I'm probably needlessly wasting time trying to prove it to myself. :P

That happens to me too. I've done the light switch check and it worked fine in my dream! I suppose this is why some say you must do several checks. The one that always works for me is to check some words or phrases to see if they change. They always change. So I pretty much focus on this during the day. I do dream more now about seeing wording in various places. So now all I have to do is remember to check it.

As CoffinCakes said, it's important to remember that everyone's dreams work a little differently. What's "most effective" for you might not be the most effective RC for me.

For myself, I tend to use a combination of the counting-my-fingers RC and journalling to improve recall. That works well enough to get me a few LDs a week.