Not sure if this has ever been posted before, but I've come up with that I think may be a great idea for recognizing false awakenings nearly 100% of the time.

It's a well known fact that when you go into a false awakening, the familiar features of your room appear as they would in reality. My idea is to tape a piece of paper somewhere that you will see when you wake up every day(I will put the paper on the wall next to my bed so it will be right in my face). On the piece of paper you would write something like "REALITY CHECK". This would eventually establish a routine of every time you wake, you perform your RC of choice.

Then when you enter a false awakening and see the paper you will do one of the following:

  • Read the note clearly and perform an RC, resulting in an LD
  • be so used to reading "REALITY CHECK" on the note that you find it odd that a bunch of garbled nonsense is on the note instead, resulting in an RC and subsequently an LD
  • do an RC out of habit as you do every time you wake up, resulting in an LD


It seems to me that if you established this as a routine every time you woke up, you would inevitably be able to turn false awakenings in lucid dreams nearly 100% of the time. I'm going to experiment with this, and if anyone else feels like trying it out you are welcome to post your results here!