Some thoughts on Reality Checks

Hey everyone,

I've been thinking about this since my first lucids, and would like to open a discussion about the nature and effectiveness of reality checking.

Many of us perform reality checks during the day, to question our state: are we dreaming?
This seems to be a relatively simple and easy way to get ourselves to question our state, a habit we hope to carry into our dreams. However, I have two main discussion points about this:

- Many of us, especially beginners who 'need' RC's the most, struggle with dream control. One of the challenges there is losing our expectations based on waking life restrictions: we can walk through walls in a dream; we can fly. In reverse, these expectations may limit the success of our reality checks; we try to breathe while pinching our nose, but we can't because we don't expect it to be possible. We try to push our finger through our hand, but we can't, because we don't expect it to be possible. In these moments, we risk missing a lucid because our check fails.

My point is, reality checks are not perfectly effective. Could there be a way to bypass this? A way to make it foolproof?


- In my own experience, I have never actually become lucid from a reality check. I have performed them in a dream, but I never needed them to convince me. The moment I even thought about checking my state, I already knew it was a dream. I'm not sure how to describe it, but some of you probably have similar experiences.

How many of you have the same experience? And do some of you actually need the RC to know whether you are dreaming?

These points taken together, I would like to discuss the following: how could we 'bypass' reality checks and become better at recognizing this 'dream feeling' that actually makes us lucid?

I think the act of practicing reality checks is actually practicing presence. The ability to notice things in the dream that are off, different, etc. Practicing reality checks during the day helps bring us into the practice of being present in our environment, and in dreams.

I guess the bypass would be all-day-awareness, or intense meditation practice. But, I think that reality checking is a great stepping stone that helps those of us who have very active, wandering minds. :panic:

I think, Eddie, that you very nicely summarized a deep misunderstanding about state tests (RC's) that has evolved over the years, especially thanks to all the "experts" explaining to unsuspecting newbies that RC's make you lucid. I know I've said this a hundred times on these forums, but RC's don't make you lucid, they confirm your lucidity -- and even then they are an imperfect tool.

In order for a RC to work during a dream, you must already know, at least slightly, that you are in a dream. In other words, you are already lucid when you do a functioning RC in a dream. If you are not lucid, then you are only dreaming about doing the RC, and it may or may not work, depending mostly on your expectations. Then, again if you are not lucid, your dream will likely follow one of two paths: either the RC will work (meaning it confirms that you are not dreaming by, say, making you think you can't breathe when you plug your nose), and DC-You will continue your dream assuming you are awake; or it will fail (meaning, say, that you can still breathe with your nose plugged), and you will then have a nice dream about being lucid, without even a wit of lucidity on hand. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen to dreamers over the years; I don't think it's ever happened to me, thankfully, because I developed my skills long before RC's were invented as a technique and never relied on/expected a RC to "make" me lucid. I have used them occasionally to help increase my lucidity, and used them for years during daywork, because they really do work for that:

As Moonage Daydream already noted, RC's are very useful in daytime work, though. Practicing them can help you to think about LD'ing repeatedly during your busy waking-life day, which is a very good thing because it helps build your expectations and general lucid mindset. Also, just by maintaining a routine of sincerely doing them, you are learning the skill of "remembering to remember," which is critical for achieving and sustaining strong lucidity. So I highly recommend doing them, for those reasons. But they still don't make you lucid during a dream.

What's the bypass here? Well, I guess the first step is to forget the countless times the "experts" told you RC's will make you lucid. Keep doing RC's during the day, but just remove them from your plans for your night's dreams -- at least in that context; they are still helpful in confirming and strengthening lucidity, after you know you're dreaming. Judging by the fact that you've already had LD's, this step ought to be relatively easy.

The next step -- and those who've known me for a while here can say it with me -- work on your fundamentals! In the end, there is no technique, machine, drug, or fancy trick that will "make" you lucid. Period. Lucidity is not a stimulus response, it is a state of mind. In a very real sense, becoming consistently lucid comes down to a decision, and only you can make that decision. Develop your waking-life self-awareness, memory, and expectation/intention (the fundamentals), add in some discipline and solid focus, and lucidity will come, probably regardless of the techniques you use to get there. Okay, I guess that's less a bypass than it is getting on the high road, but the best stuff is never easy, right?

tl;dr: You're right, RC's don't make you lucid; they confirm lucidity; yes, I have never become lucid thanks to doing a RC; and the bypass, unfortunately I suppose, rests in practice, patience, and the fundamentals.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

I think the act of practicing reality checks is actually practicing presence. The ability to notice things in the dream that are off, different, etc. Practicing reality checks during the day helps bring us into the practice of being present in our environment, and in dreams.

I guess the bypass would be all-day-awareness, or intense meditation practice. But, I think that reality checking is a great stepping stone that helps those of us who have very active, wandering minds. :panic:

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Back in my days when I first start having random AP's, I started practice RC's before even know what lucid dreaming is, of cource I didn't call them RC's yet. I draw three seals in three different places around my room and when I felt something is weird I checked them while trying to remember where I was before that and how I got there, I also done that when see something weird happening around me. After a month I started to have some experiences that doesn't look like an AP, when I search about them some time later I found about lucid dreaming, but these days I only practice techniques not RC's anymore. Maybe I must return to the roots to able to have more sudden lucidity moments "hey I'm dreaming" :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MoonageDaydream

I think the act of practicing reality checks is actually practicing presence. The ability to notice things in the dream that are off, different, etc. Practicing reality checks during the day helps bring us into the practice of being present in our environment, and in dreams.

I guess the bypass would be all-day-awareness, or intense meditation practice. But, I think that reality checking is a great stepping stone that helps those of us who have very active, wandering minds. :panic:

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That does make sense, and actually describes a little more accurately what I'm trying to say!

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Originally Posted by Sageous

I think, Eddie, that you very nicely summarized a deep misunderstanding about state tests (RC's) that has evolved over the years, especially thanks to all the "experts" explaining to unsuspecting newbies that RC's make you lucid. I know I've said this a hundred times on these forums, but RC's don't make you lucid, they confirm your lucidity -- and even then they are an imperfect tool.

In order for a RC to work during a dream, you must already know, at least slightly, that you are in a dream. In other words, you are already lucid when you do a functioning RC in a dream. If you are not lucid, then you are only dreaming about doing the RC, and it may or may not work, depending mostly on your expectations. Then, again if you are not lucid, your dream will likely follow one of two paths: either the RC will work (meaning it confirms that you are not dreaming by, say, making you think you can't breathe when you plug your nose), and DC-You will continue your dream assuming you are awake; or it will fail (meaning, say, that you can still breathe with your nose plugged), and you will then have a nice dream about being lucid, without even a wit of lucidity on hand. I can't tell you how many times I've seen this happen to dreamers over the years; I don't think it's ever happened to me, thankfully, because I developed my skills long before RC's were invented as a technique and never relied on/expected a RC to "make" me lucid. I have used them occasionally to help increase my lucidity, and used them for years during daywork, because they really do work for that:

As Moonage Daydream already noted, RC's are very useful in daytime work, though. Practicing them can help you to think about LD'ing repeatedly during your busy waking-life day, which is a very good thing because it helps build your expectations and general lucid mindset. Also, just by maintaining a routine of sincerely doing them, you are learning the skill of "remembering to remember," which is critical for achieving and sustaining strong lucidity. So I highly recommend doing them, for those reasons. But they still don't make you lucid during a dream.

What's the bypass here? Well, I guess the first step is to forget the countless times the "experts" told you RC's will make you lucid. Keep doing RC's during the day, but just remove them from your plans for your night's dreams -- at least in that context; they are still helpful in confirming and strengthening lucidity, after you know you're dreaming. Judging by the fact that you've already had LD's, this step ought to be relatively easy.

The next step -- and those who've known me for a while here can say it with me -- work on your fundamentals! In the end, there is no technique, machine, drug, or fancy trick that will "make" you lucid. Period. Lucidity is not a stimulus response, it is a state of mind. In a very real sense, becoming consistently lucid comes down to a decision, and only you can make that decision. Develop your waking-life self-awareness, memory, and expectation/intention (the fundamentals), add in some discipline and solid focus, and lucidity will come, probably regardless of the techniques you use to get there. Okay, I guess that's less a bypass than it is getting on the high road, but the best stuff is never easy, right?

tl;dr: You're right, RC's don't make you lucid; they confirm lucidity; yes, I have never become lucid thanks to doing a RC; and the bypass, unfortunately I suppose, rests in practice, patience, and the fundamentals.

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Thank you for responding! After I read your reply I realised this might tie in well with your own points on self-awareness vs general awareness. Also, I guess 'bypass' was a wording mistake on my part, sounding too much like a shortcut. What I meant is indeed going to the core of what makes us lucid - the self-awareness and presence in the situation - instead of adding in a reality check, potentially complicating the process. Although I guess the habit of reality checking is a good way to trigger that feeling of self-awareness regularly and reliably.

The way I see it, the core of what makes us lucid is knowledge. If we know everything we need to know during a dream to be lucid, we'll be lucid. If something that made us lucid were not knowledge, that something would not be able to be learned. To learn something, we create that new knowledge by creating a combination of our old knowledge that equates to the new knowledge.

I figure to know we are dreaming during a dream, during the dream, roughly we have to know:
1)we are in a situation
2)what a dream experience is like
3)the situation we are in is a dream

If we don't understand certain things, we can break those things down into simpler things to learn.

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Originally Posted by dolphin

The way I see it, the core of what makes us lucid is knowledge. If we know everything we need to know during a dream to be lucid, we'll be lucid. If anything that made us lucid were not knowledge, that something would not be able to be learned, unless we were able to learn something that was not knowledge. To learn something, we create that new knowledge by creating a combination of our old knowledge to create the new knowledge.

I figure to know we are dreaming during a dream, during the dream, roughly we have to know:
1)we are in a situation
2)what a dream experience is like
3)the situation we are in is a dream

If we don't understand certain things, we can break those things down into simpler things to learn.

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With respect, I couldn't disagree more. Knowledge is a useful tool, but what you need for lucidity is not knowing, it's being. Presence. Knowledge can even get in the way sometimes, as you're either in your mind with knowledge, or you're in your body with presence. Knowledge is helpful but not absolutely necessary for lucid dreams, after all, children often dream lucidly. Presence, however, is necessary.

I agree presence is necessary. That's what I meant by having to know we are in a situation. I figure if we have presence, we know we are in a situation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dolphin

The way I see it, the core of what makes us lucid is knowledge. If we know everything we need to know during a dream to be lucid, we'll be lucid. If something that made us lucid were not knowledge, that something would not be able to be learned. To learn something, we create that new knowledge by creating a combination of our old knowledge that equates to the new knowledge.

I figure to know we are dreaming during a dream, during the dream, roughly we have to know:
1)we are in a situation
2)what a dream experience is like
3)the situation we are in is a dream

If we don't understand certain things, we can break those things down into simpler things to learn.

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I agree with the implications of what you're saying, not necessarily with every argument though. I guess it's mostly semantics: I wouldn't say you can only learn something that's based on knowledge, but also things that are based on skill. This could be called the distinction between practical and theoretical knowledge as well. Also, neither of them necessarily require understanding (although it never hurts): I can play guitar without knowing music theory; run without knowing how my leg muscles work; and have a lucid dream without understanding (or even knowing about) self-awareness.

However, you do need the skill (or practical knowledge) of (self)-awareness to recognize your state and become lucid, which is summed up very nicely in the three points you mention, so in the end I think we agree :)

As far as becoming lucid regularly and reliably, I see some different ways:

We can regularly identify one specific aspect of our situation that appears in our dreams and relate that aspect with dreaming. For example, we could regularly identify gravity during dreams and relate gravity with dreaming.

Or, we can regularly identify one non-specific aspect of our situation and relate that aspect with dreaming. For example, we can regularly identify many aspects of our situation and/or relate many things with dreaming such that we regularly notice one non-specific aspect of our situation during the dream that we relate with dreaming.

Some might find both ways to be equally challenging or some might find one way easier than the other. The former is less abstract and the latter requires less control over what is specifically identified during the dream.

I’ve been thinking a lot about RCs recently as well and have a bit of a love hate relationship with them. I’m still fairly new to Lucid dreaming and only started 3 months ago but I’ve managed to have 15 lucids in that time, 13 of these were DILDs.
I recently looked back at each one of them and compared the moment I became lucid. Some of them I had that spark of lucidity and instantly realised it was a dream and regained my full waking memory without any doubt. Other times I get that spark but I’m unsure whether it’s actually a dream and feel like I need to check and after checking that’s when I confirm and regain my waking memory. I was surprised to see there was a 50/50 split between the two experiences for me when I looked back and has me wondering why do we sometimes just know and other times we need that confirmation? Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it simply that in some dreams we have better awareness then others and other times we need that extra boost to convince us? I’m also wondering if theres a way to increase the lucids where we just know and avoid the RC confirmations which fail quite a lot for me, again maybe 50% of the time. If the answer to this is to work harder on daytime self awareness (which I’m working on) then my next question would be, does the need to RC within a dream lessen the more experienced you become? Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Tiktaalik

I’ve been thinking a lot about RCs recently as well and have a bit of a love hate relationship with them. I’m still fairly new to Lucid dreaming and only started 3 months ago but I’ve managed to have 15 lucids in that time, 13 of these were DILDs.
I recently looked back at each one of them and compared the moment I became lucid. Some of them I had that spark of lucidity and instantly realised it was a dream and regained my full waking memory without any doubt. Other times I get that spark but I’m unsure whether it’s actually a dream and feel like I need to check and after checking that’s when I confirm and regain my waking memory. I was surprised to see there was a 50/50 split between the two experiences for me when I looked back and has me wondering why do we sometimes just know and other times we need that confirmation? Can anyone shed any light on this? Is it simply that in some dreams we have better awareness then others and other times we need that extra boost to convince us? I’m also wondering if theres a way to increase the lucids where we just know and avoid the RC confirmations which fail quite a lot for me, again maybe 50% of the time. If the answer to this is to work harder on daytime self awareness (which I’m working on) then my next question would be, does the need to RC within a dream lessen the more experienced you become? Thanks.

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I think it is a matter of awareness. It's like a spectrum I imagine. Sometimes we become lucid from awareness alone. Sometimes we are not aware enough without the RC. However, once lucid, even from an RC, our awareness can increase very quickly. I had this happen the other night, lucidity level was very high, but it was an RC that caused my lucidity. Not awareness alone. Also, I don't think dream control and getting lucid from RCs are related, or at least, not strongly so. We can have excellent dream control from a lucid dream triggered by an RC.

To me, this is more than enough reason to practice RCs. Even though they are monotonous, and annoying, it's a mistake to dismiss them in favor of other "advanced" techniques. This very basic technique does work, and that's why LaBerge goes into it so much in Exploring... It works.