Thread: Reality Check Techniques

(I did a search on this topic, and couldn't find one like it specifically for techniques)

What RC techiniques do you use? I try to turn something a different colour, but last night that was proved as an inneffective technique.

I've also heard of:

1. Trying to breathe through your hand.
2. Telekinisis (sp?)
3. Jumping into the air.

Share your tests!

Nice thread, it might be worth stickying, depending on how it goes

Tests I use(d):
- Hold your breath with your nose, but keep trying to breath. Check if you can still.
- Count your fingers
- Look in a mirror and touch your nose (sometimes hard to find one)
- Try to recall what you ate last, and if it makes sense.

Others:
- Throw a ball in the air, and catch it
- Flick light switches
- Try to fly (problem is if you can't normally fly...)
- Ask DC's whether you're dreaming. Their response isn't normally the usual 'Are you insane?' or 'huh?'

Originally posted by Placebo
Nice thread, it might be worth stickying, depending on how it goes

Those are some good ideas you've got there for RCing!

What do you sometimes get for the "recalling what you ate last?" I'm guessing you get bizzare results if you question if it makes sense.

Oh, nothing fancy. Usually you can't remember what you ate, because your memory is so foggy. Then you need to force yourself to ask why - eg. because it's a dream and you haven't eaten?

How about looking at your hands? Your hands allways look weird in dreams!

I think it's the most easy RC to do. It's the one I use allways. But I only used RC to check lucidy 2 times, I never got ludic becouse of a RC.

Every single lucid dream I've had came about thanks to the good old "Finger Through The Palm" test...Even if it doesn't go through, I still say to myself "Why would I try to put my finger through my palm unless I'm dreaming?" and it all goes from there...

Originally posted by Neruo
How about looking at your hands? *Your hands allways look weird in dreams!

That's why I said to count your fingers. That kind of implies you look at your hands as well
Consider it 2 RCs in one

i got one! breathing under water i did iy once it was reely akward. oh and congragulate me i had my first reel lucid!! but during it i almost woke up but held on three times at constant intervels and during the last half i could not control anything though i was still lucid. and for the past three days after the lucid i cant remeber my dreams at all. oh and i leraned something you can do. cloropoam! that drug stuff that knoks people out. i just put my hand over this girls mouth said chlorpoam and it was like i had a rag drenched with it in my hand but i dint.kewl! hehehehehe is funny for gale!

Originally posted by Placebo

That's why I said to count your fingers. That kind of implies you look at your hands as well
Consider it 2 RCs in one

Oh sorry I didn't see that you said that allready =)

I consider it a RC1.5
Becouse it's a RC that is hard to do wrong in real life, and hard to come out wrong in a dream, and I heard that counting wakes up the right part of your brain so it makes you more aware.

Or something =)

The nose pinch breathing test is the only RC that hasn't at one time or another failed me by giving a false negative (i.e. a "you're not dreaming" result when in fact you are dreaming). It's the only one that I consistently use.

Originally posted by gale
i got one! breathing under water

That can do a bit of damage if you're NOT dreaming.

Because somebody has to say this:

Jumping out of a window or off of a cliff to see if you can fly is not a good reality check. Do an RC before said actions.

Ok. Our backsides are covered in case anyone thought of that and decided to blame the results on DV.

I think the best technique is to use a bunch of techniques. Check your hands, then look at your watch and then plug your nose. It is VITAL that you are absolutely sure you're dreaming, or else you may kill yourself while attempting to fly off a building in real life.

Master bait.

lol no do not know about that. Hitting someone or something allways is hard in dreams.

I thought about carrying around a piece of paper in my pocket that says "A R E Y O U D R E A M I N G??" I type it in Word (size 6 font, tahoma), print that out, fold it a few times with the question still exposed, tape together and I'll whip it out now and then to see if I can read it. I already know what it is supposed to say, so if I can't read it, something is definitely up. I'll do a combination after that...finger through palm, look at watch, check out the environment. I just started this today, so I'll see how that works out .

I wrote on a Post It note: Are You Dreaming? in glow in the dark marker and stuck it to the side of my alarm clock, that way if i wake up in a dream and see that its not there, i know im dreaming.. it's worked once for me so far, as i have only had one WBTB since i put the post it note up....

FTP always work for me. (Finger Through Palm)

But I use it not as a means to get lucid, but as a way to confirm I am dreaming, before jumping through windows for instance.

The finger through palm is quite good (if you can remember to do it) as it something which you can do during your normal day without arousing suspcion or getting funny glances from people.

Trouble is I struggle to remember in the daytime let alone when I'm dreaming and I am sure I have missed quite a few valuable opportunities when the clues have really screamed at me that I am in a dream and still not twigged it till I wake up. Gets me really annoyed when I realised than

Originally posted by CalmoftheEye
I think the best technique is to use a bunch of techniques. Check your hands, then look at your watch and then plug your nose. It is VITAL that you are absolutely sure you're dreaming, or else you may kill yourself while attempting to fly off a building in real life.

Exactly!
And not a bad choice of RC's either. They are things that you generally have around you (or if you don't, you're probably dreaming)
And they don't require any particular dream control skill.

Although I would have chosen to count my fingers one by one, while looking at my hand.

What's funny is that I don't really need dream signs since absolutely none of my dreams make any sense. You can't draw a line between them and reality, they're too abstract. I guess this is one of the reasons that I often get lucids. I can instantly tell after seeing or hearing something ridiculous and otherworldly that I'm most definetly dreaming.

Well, it does just take practice. I don't usually need reality checks either, I somehow just know whether it's a dream or not without explicitly checking. Like knowing the difference in sensation.
However reality checks are good for the novice to start with.

Originally posted by CalmoftheEye
It is VITAL that you are absolutely sure you're dreaming, or else you may kill yourself while attempting to fly off a building in real life.

Well... at least I´d die doing something that I really love doing. But another technique is to preform a reality check every time you see a certain word or a number. Maybe even a colour. I guess it would be most reasonable to preform a RC after you have seen a certain number. You musn´t go too crazy with it, though, because when studying maths, for example, one simply can´t preform a RC every time one sees the number 2 or 3 or 4 or... But the main idea is to make all these connections. Maybe preform a RC each time before you open a book or drink a cup of coffee. The possibilities are infinite.

Almost every single bloody time I try to perform an RC, I wind up being not asleep yet, and it has finally worn away cracks into my tolerance, and as such, It's REALLY starting to piss me off.

Seeing as how I'm quite willing for that to change, I'll try out Mr. Trekflatland and Mr. Myriad's Ideas, and the finger through hand techniques, for it seems like something I can do regularily. Perhaps I'll even throw in that delightful Idea about RCing every time I run into a certain event, which I will set as being seeing the colour red (Easy colour for dreams) and pruple (most of my cloudy HI things are that loverly vibrant colour)