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Okay so first I want to thank y'all for your continued support. Now I'm tuning into this thread again to look for some additional tips on effectively examining my state, since I thought I had everything in place, but now that I've tried the method y'all told me about new questions have arised.
I wanna ask: What does it mean to reflect on my current situation? Is asking critical questions a way to reflect? What other ways are there?
Asking critical questions is it, basically.Quote:
Originally Posted by WildWolf1
For example, I just woke up from a non-lucid dream where I was not in my own body and in a situation that felt "odd", so I started thinking "Wait, am I really myself?" and proceeded to start reality checking. My RC'ing was interrupted by another dream character, because even in waking life I have the "weakness" of being very self-conscious about reality checking in front of/around others, so while I did everything "correctly" in a sense, there was a non-conscious drive (self-consciousness) and an expected distraction (someone being around when I happen to want to RC) which still got me to lose track of what I actually should have wanted to do in that moment, and so I did not proceed to ask myself more questions or try to will things differently to check reality in such a way too.
This is why the critical questions and the feelings accompanying them ("wait, am I REALLY?") are important, because reality checks alone are fallible. The first RC I did manage in that moment was accurate to waking life logic and not to dream logic, so that was part of why the rest of the distractions and lack of further critical questions got to me.
And to "reflect on situation" is about things like this example above, too.
When I RC in waking life, I always stop and look around (do a full 360), trying to find things that are out of place, odd, etc. I ask myself "Does anything here look like a dream?" and also "What was I doing a few minutes ago?"Quote:
Originally Posted by WildWolf1
So then last night when I was dreaming, I noticed things were out of place and I remembered that what I was doing a few minutes ago was falling asleep. That lead to 2 lucid dreams. Important to mention WBTB was used, which is a huge huge huge help.
Any questions along those lines, combined with using your senses, is pretty much what is meant by reflecting on your current situation. "How did I get here??" is another good one.
:laughtillhurts: I used to be like that, but not anymore. I am still discreet at work (I pretend I'm looking at my nails, when I'm really counting my fingers), but not around anyone else. Honestly, I would be proud if someone realized and knew what I was doing. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkestDarkness