Thread: Say no to reality checks...

Originally Posted by Hercuflea

Wow i gotta say that was incredibly ignorant

Lizard King, that is usually how i become lucid as well. I have had a few lucids and i think only in two of them i used the hands-melting reality check, thats it

for some reason the hand rc's dont seem to work for me. Ive never seen my hands melt. Once I tried to poke a finger through my hand and it was as solid as real llife. That rc failed and before i had a chance to do another one a dc came and convinced me it wasnt a dream.

Also I dont know if anyone else does this but lately i've been using my cell phone as a rc. Recently I had a dream where a friend was supposed to meet me somewhere after school(I meet this guy guy everyday) and he was unusually late so i pulled out my phone to call him and the screen had a bunch of gibberish on it and the screensaver was different. This made me quickly realize that i was dreaming. Unfortunately It only lasted for a few seconds because someone came in my room and woke me up.

When you RC really really really really HOPE TO GOD that you really are dreaming! Really expect to be dreaming! Dont just do them to see if they fail or not!
Thats were everyone messes up! Expect to be able to count 10 fingers, expect to be able to breather through a closed nose!

Don't expect anything. Why bother with a reality check, unless you are asking a serious question? If you expect beforehand, then you introduce bias.

Spontaneous lucidity. Some call it that; I do, too. But was it really spontaneous? Or did you think to yourself, "I was in bed an hour ago," or "Wait... There's no such thing as zombies," before the onset of lucidity? Because, although I call this "spontaneous lucidity," I believe it could also be called a mental reality check.

And if you don't have a mental reality check, or any sort of basis to prove that you are dreaming, then how do you know you are dreaming?

I thought the exact same thing when I started trying to LD. One problem I saw with it was that I don't ever do any habits (biting my nails, whistling, brushing my hair back with my hand, etc) in my dream so why would I do an RC if it became a habit?

It turns out though that the purpose of RCs is really just to question your reality more often. It isn't necessarily to make you "accidentally" do an RC in a dream. I've never become lucid from doing an RC. I'm always at least fairly sure it's a dream before I do an RC.

Well, they do for me, and I'll keep doing RCs because it works for me. Everyone is different, I guess.

Originally Posted by John11

It turns out though that the purpose of RCs is really just to question your reality more often. It isn't necessarily to make you "accidentally" do an RC in a dream. I've never become lucid from doing an RC. I'm always at least fairly sure it's a dream before I do an RC.

Exactly! And I do a RC to make sure I am dreaming, even though I am pretty sure I am dreaming, most of the time.

Originally Posted by Abra

Spontaneous lucidity. Some call it that; I do, too. But was it really spontaneous? Or did you think to yourself, "I was in bed an hour ago," or "Wait... There's no such thing as zombies," before the onset of lucidity? Because, although I call this "spontaneous lucidity," I believe it could also be called a mental reality check.

And if you don't have a mental reality check, or any sort of basis to prove that you are dreaming, then how do you know you are dreaming?

RCs are pretty usefull to induce lucidity (keeps your mind on subject) and, while dreaming, were pretty usefull to me on my first couple of atempts since I didn't quite know what to expect from lucidity. After that, however, I did it more for kicks or to stay focused. I don't usually need them (in the dream) and the only question that normally pops into my head is "You know you're dreaming, right?"

The one time I found myself thinking something was off it was because the dream seemed too real. I got confused and started wandering if I was awake.
Then I RCd. I wanted to make sure I wouldn't get ran over by a bus.