Reality Checks Destroy Me

I've found that I have an intense psychological block in motivating myself to begin a regimen of reality checking. The problem: reality checks drive me into an obsessive, self-imposed hell. Consider:

When I've started up reality checks in the past, they all follow a similar pattern. First I'll start gradually and moderately, checking when it occurs to me I ought to check. I might draw something on my hand to remind myself, I might not. Typically I rely on spontaneously remembering to do them rather than external stimulus, though, because I know from long dream experience that I can't rely on anything in my dreams being remotely the same as in real life. I can't do an RC every time I walk through a door or pet my cat because I'm too busy flying through space or torching people with fireballs in my dreams to bother with those mundane things... so I rely on spontaneity.

The first day or two will be fine. I'll be on a mild buzz from taking the initiative to actively pursue LDing again, naturally, and I might average a reality check once or twice an hour. I'll check my surroundings quickly, ask myself the Ubiquitous Question, and then look at my hands/pinch my nose/glance over the rim of my glasses/look at my nose to double-check that I'm awake. That much is fine. The problem occurs after the first couple of nights when I don't have an LD. These drive me not to give up as might be expected from the weak-willed, but to try harder. I ramp up my RC frequency. Half a dozen an hour. More must be better, right? I still don't have any LDs. I begin questioning the legitimacy of my RC routine; after all, if I RC enough aren't I liable to fall into the trap where even my reality checks become a part of my unconscious day-to-day action? What good are they then? So then I start really pausing at each RC and asking myself if I'm dreaming - and then asking myself if I really mean the answer I give, and staring around myself and really trying to be radically self-conscious. Each time I spend more time trying to make sure that I'm in the state I say I am.

Increasing frequency and intensity of reality checks quickly escalates to the point where I can't get them off my damn mind. It's impossible for my mind to wander for more than a few minutes before returning like a soldier at attention to the question: am I dreaming? This paralyzes my normal life. I can't focus on anything without constantly being distracted by my need to know if I'm dreaming. Ironically, this state is what I've heard been called "lucid living" on these forums, or described by BillyBob_001 as what Dream Yoga is all about - and either way, they're considered highly desirable states to be in, a state of constant consciousness and questioning. For me, that can't be any further from the truth. It locks my life up.

And for all the pattern entrainment that makes me spontaneously remember to check my reality every few minutes, it still never shows up in dreams. So I get to the point where I become disgusted with this obsession and cast it away from me, and stop RCs entirely. This cycle has happened to me so often now that just reading the term "reality check" gives me a minor feeling of nausea. I've ruined reality checks for myself by taking them too far too fast, too often.

Not certain what I mean to say by all this, but I thought some of you might like to hear what can come of taking reality checks a little too far.

I have three things to say here, which will hopefully help.

1. Try varying your RCs some, instead of the same ones. Simply look at your hands, do you have five fingers?

2. Try WILD, VILD, or other methods.

3. Don't consciously overdo it. Doing it too much will only cause more stress and make it worse. If you have to, take a week off and do no RCs at all, only focus on recall or not on anything at all.

Don't know what I can say other than that, sorry.

Hmm. I understand what you mean. This happens to me sometimes too, but not half as bad. Instead of going for the more is better approach, try and make a little schedule. Do one every hour or so. Do one when you use the bathroom. And if that doesn't work, just don't do them at all. There are other ways to gain lucidity besides RC's. Try out the WILD or FILD. Although you might have to do an RC once inside them to see if you are dreaming or not, you will be concious anyway. What I'm trying to say is that by using those techniques, you are entering a dream conciously so there is no need to consantly RC because you will want to do one once you enter the dream to check anyway. I hope you understood that. But anyway, good luck with your dreams!