RCing - A waste of time?

As we all know, reality checking is one of the basic ways to become lucid. It would probably be fair to assume that the majority of lucid dreamers practice their craft by actively searching for and finding a breakdown in what is normally physically possible. However... There are near-constant piles of threads where a person is venting that a reality check passed in a dream, preventing lucidity. Less often, we get a thread about the people that suddenly know that they are lucid in lieu of anything other than a feeling to suggest it. The more experienced lucid dreamer seems to get this more often than the newbie, and the naturals get this all the time. This has me thinking...

Are reality checks actually working the way we think they are?

A reality check gets performed for one purpose: to test whether the world you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel is provided by your senses or by a mental feedback loop. When you do a double-take at that clock, the thought foremost in your mind is probably something along the lines of "Okay, let's see if the numbers change from the first look to the second look. If they're different, something is definitely up."

When you look, for a moment, you are no longer fully accepting the world around you. You are being skeptical of the most basic concept possible, reality itself. You are literally questioning everything meaningful. This is the mental state that someone practicing dream yoga is trying to uphold all of the time.

The fact that RCs are inherently unreliable some percent of the time suggests to me that the lucidity we derive from them is not from our noticing that the world is behaving strangely, but because they temporarily give us that extreme skepticism.

I'm still toying with the implications of this. Any comments, arguments, discussion points, "Licity you're an idiot"s?

I am coming to think the same way as you. I'm interested in the idea that we've been inducing lucidity in spite of the techniques, not because of. I can't quite get a handle on the problem yet.

RC's are just a way to test something you have found odd because you have generated a heightened sense of awareness. They should never be the main meaning, rather the addition for your constant perception with reality.

I can become lucid without RC's too, merely by noticing I am dreaming. I don't have to confirm it with RC :)

Well, the million dollar question is:

Has anyone ever done a reality check in a dream and became lucid?

We can all do RCs in real life, but if that doesn't result in any RCs being done in dreams, then RCs are a waste of time.

RC's are incredibly helpful for a lot of people seeing as they condition the mind to question the fabric of reality in that moment. The theory is that after a while of this repetitious conditioning, that the unconscious mind will carry out this new habit within a dream. I, on the other hand, never used them and still WILD. :P

Hmmm, just thought-experimenting here:

I've noticed recently that my dreams are near on 100 percent visual (The only sounds I can recall are people talking, but perhaps even then I don't recall the actual sounds, just the sentiments of their words.)

Maybe, RCs are conceptually too complex for the mind to include within the dream of a predominately visual dreamer like me. Or maybe they're just too complex for the subconscious dreaming mind to comprehend and include easily.

My RCs are: finger through palm, and the jump to see if I float down to the ground. (In a recent FA I used them both and they failed (ie, indicated I was dreaming.))

Okay, next thought experiment:

I was reading another thread about people obsessively RCing throughout a day (we're talking about every five minutes.)

Results were not that impressive.

Let's say that the brain realises the dreaming state is different from the waking state: would it not make sense to visualise yourself RCing in the dream world only - by that I mean you spend your day visualising yourself RCing in your past dreams (from your DJ) or from "created" dreams (where you get pen and paper and concoct ridiculous scenarios that could only exist in dreams.)?

(I realise that visualising yourself RCing in dreams is part of MILD, but has anyone tried continuing this visualisation throughout the day?)

Reality checking helps if you are actually questioning reality. If you are just doing it without question you need to change that. Even though I have never had a lucid dream where I reality checked then became lucid I believe that the reality checks help because they have me questioning reality. So yes I believe they do help.

None of my lucid dreams started with a reality check, I just "realized I was dreaming" and accepted it. Then if I fly or summon something, that just confirms it.

I actually really want to do a reality check in a dream but I never remember to. I just wonder what its like to put your finger through your palm or something :P

I understand where you are coming from, I have never used a RC in a dream, or intentionally used one. Sometimes I will look in the mirror and notice I look different and then I snap into lucidity, but I have never thought, "I'm going to check my reflection to see if I'm dreaming." I don't think they are useless though because the keep the idea of lucid dreaming constantly in the back of your mind which definately helps for DILDing. I however have most of my sucess with WILDs, I find they are always clearer and last longer.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Flashdance

Well, the million dollar question is:

Has anyone ever done a reality check in a dream and became lucid?

We can all do RCs in real life, but if that doesn't result in any RCs being done in dreams, then RCs are a waste of time.

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I did and this way I became lucid many times. Reality checks also helped me to stabilize my lucidity when it started to fade away.

My first few lucids were classic DILDS. I am dreaming, I notice an anomaly, I suspect this may be a dream, I pinch my nose and can still breathe, I become lucid. These days things have become more complicated. I become lucid without dreaming first. I just know and accept that I am lucid dreaming and get on with it. I usualy shout "this is a lucid dream and i am lucid!" Just to 'claim' it. I have done the whole thing of reality checking throughout the day and I think it has screwed me up. I have been experimenting with Galantamine which produces ( for me anyway) very realistic Lucid dreams. A bit too realistic actualy as normal physics seem to apply and I cant do anything like fly or change things so it seems a bit dull if that were possible. Anyway, I have seriously suspected that I might actualy be awake in these dreams and done the usual RC which 'pass' falsely confirming that I am awake and have just made a huge arse of myself in public! So no more RCing for me:)

The way you do RCs and what you use as a trigger for them makes a world of difference. See here:

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...0&postcount=28

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Originally Posted by TheWeirdnessSymposium

I am coming to think the same way as you. I'm interested in the idea that we've been inducing lucidity in spite of the techniques, not because of. I can't quite get a handle on the problem yet.

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You just summed up what I was trying to put into plain English in one sentence. The RCs are working in spite of themselves.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Naiya

The way you do RCs and what you use as a trigger for them makes a world of difference. See here:

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...0&postcount=28

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This should logically be the very best way to think. Instead of calling reality into question, assume that nothing is real until proven otherwise.

Interesting theory and certainly makes quite a lot of sense.

If that is the case... is there a more efficient method of achieving the same state of mind?

Paranoia? :lol:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Flashdance

Well, the million dollar question is:

Has anyone ever done a reality check in a dream and became lucid?

We can all do RCs in real life, but if that doesn't result in any RCs being done in dreams, then RCs are a waste of time.

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In responce to this, and to you Licity, I'm going to tell you what I told another DV member; When I get Lucid, I use RCs as dream stabilizers. I've just actually started doing this in my Lucids (the 1st time I did it was during my 6th LD), and it's helped immensely in keeping the dream stable so I don't wake up prematurely. This is why I don't view them as useless. Even though I don't use them to help get me Lucid, they help me stay Lucid instead.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Snowy Egypt

In responce to this, and to you Licity, I'm going to tell you what I told another DV member; When I get Lucid, I use RCs as dream stabilizers. I've just actually started doing this in my Lucids (the 1st time I did it was during my 6th LD), and it's helped immensely in keeping the dream stable so I don't wake up prematurely. This is why I don't view them as useless. Even though I don't use them to help get me Lucid, they help me stay Lucid instead.

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I wasn't disputing their effectiveness in and of themselves once already lucid. One you go lucid, your own schema regarding what RCs are supposed to do take over and they would end up helping stabilize if you were conditioned for that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ouija

If that is the case... is there a more efficient method of achieving the same state of mind?

Paranoia? :lol:

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I've been thinking about this a lot lately. There must be a more efficient way of enforced skepticism, as natural lucid dreamers practice it accidentally and plenty of people, especially children, slip into a lucid dream at random.

Dream yoga is the obvious way of doing it, but to be frank, it's mentally exhausting and horribly inefficient.

Hypnosis or subliminal messaging might work, but those are somewhat flimsy and are effective on only a percentage of those that try.

The trouble with any quick surefire method is that you are trying to upset the one belief that humans build up from the moment of their birth, the belief that the world around you is both relevant and exists apart from yourself. Something that challenges that would have to be quite earthshattering indeed.


To anyone reading this that is a natural lucid dreamer:

What is your story? Have you always been able to do it? If not, was there some specific event that kickstarted it?

RCs are good when you already have a fair idea you're lucid. The frustrating thing is making that step (or steps) to lucidity from a non-lucid dream. Dreamsigns are frustrating too: my dreams have been full of my dreamsigns lately and I don't realise that I'm dreaming - it's almost as if my dreams are taunting me.

I'm going to try an experiment. What do you think of this idea?

Orange conditioning

I'm going to see if I can condition myself to make my dreams have more of the colour orange. The idea is, once the orangeness of my dreams reach a certain level, I may twig that I could be dreaming.

How to make the colour orange appear more in dreams?

1) Go through my DJ, look at my dreams and note any cases when a feature of a dream was orange.
2) Make a note of cases when something was nearly orange - eg, a cream colour, yellow etc. Or even note when one colour is more orange than another - eg, green is more like orange than black is.
3) Make a note of things in my dreams that are other colours - eg, a blue motorbike - and imagine it being orange.
4) Notice orangeness in real life - orange objects etc.
5) Visualise objects from real life and imagine them being orange instead.
6) Visualise objects from real life that could not be orange and visualise them being orange - people, the moon, tap water etc. (so, in effect, I could eventually dream in an orange universe)

I have no idea if this will work, but the positive thing is, I get positive feedback after every night; I'm not thinking in a lucid/not-lucid dichotomy that damages my confidence if I don't become lucid. I make progress that is, to a certain degree, measurable.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by TheWeirdnessSymposium

RCs are good when you already have a fair idea you're lucid. The frustrating thing is making that step (or steps) to lucidity from a non-lucid dream. Dreamsigns are frustrating too: my dreams have been full of my dreamsigns lately and I don't realise that I'm dreaming - it's almost as if my dreams are taunting me.

I'm going to try an experiment. What do you think of this idea?

Orange conditioning

I'm going to see if I can condition myself to make my dreams have more of the colour orange. The idea is, once the orangeness of my dreams reach a certain level, I may twig that I could be dreaming.

How to make the colour orange appear more in dreams?

1) Go through my DJ, look at my dreams and note any cases when a feature of a dream was orange.
2) Make a note of cases when something was nearly orange - eg, a cream colour, yellow etc. Or even note when one colour is more orange than another - eg, green is more like orange than black is.
3) Make a note of things in my dreams that are other colours - eg, a blue motorbike - and imagine it being orange.
4) Notice orangeness in real life - orange objects etc.
5) Visualise objects from real life and imagine them being orange instead.
6) Visualise objects from real life that could not be orange and visualise them being orange - people, the moon, tap water etc. (so, in effect, I could eventually dream in an orange universe)

I have no idea if this will work, but the positive thing is, I get positive feedback after every night; I'm not thinking in a lucid/not-lucid dichotomy that damages my confidence if I don't become lucid. I make progress that is, to a certain degree, measurable.

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Sounds like a plan to me. Even if it doesn't help you become lucid, you've at least proven/disproven the ability to create dream signs.

I've worked my orange conditioning into a structured system. I'll start off with how I use it in RL.

Real Life

Spotting orange - MSN

I made up the acronym MSN.

First, I look round my environment for a Match - anything that's orange.

Second, I look round for anything that's Similar - red, yellow, or creme.

Third, I look round for anything that's Not orange - black, white, brown, green.

I also pick out objects at random in my environment and ask myself if they're a Match, a Similar, or a Not.

So, what I've done with the techniques above is FIND orange and orangeness. Then comes:

Convert

I visualise the colour changing to bright orange.

If the colour I'm looking at is a Match, I imagine it being a brighter orange - as though there's a light behind it.

If it's an Similar or a Not, I visualise that colour transforming into orange.

In dreams

Affirmation before bed

I've dropped affirmations like, "I will realise I'm dreaming."

The affirmation I'm going for is:

"I will spot the colour orange, become more aware and seek out the orange in my environment."

The idea being, that seeking out orange will trigger the logical part of my brain into action and I'll LD.

I'm not quite sure where the conversion-to-orange part comes in during dreams. That may be a reality check. Not sure yet.

Dream Journal

I note in my DJ what in my dream was a Match, a Similar or a Not.

Then, I think of last night's dreams and imagine things being orange.

Ive only had about 5 lucid dreams...well that I can remember, I may have had others that I didnt remember cause I jumped right in without recall. However, every single one I remember started with the nose plug RC. it was like with that rush of air coming in although my nose was plugged came that rush of realization that I was dreaming. Its a pretty amazing experience.

edit: I should note that these 5 came in a span of months when I was really thinking about lucid dreaming a lot and trying. Ive gone for quite a while without trying now so I hope I can just WILD and be done with it all.

I have had numerous lucid dreams with RC's. Also have had lucids that i didnt need RC's. And WILD.

And yes, it only happens when something seems odd to me, where im suddenly like hmmmm wtf is up? I then either pull out my invisible cellphone (pretty funny i thought) Plug my nose, or see if numbers change after a second look. They all happened to me, and the only one ive been doing in the day, is the nose plug, not often maybe like every 2-3 hours (plugs nose) ok haha.

They do help, but they do happen on there own.