Thread: 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Originally Posted by ouija

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

Paranoia?

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?

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.

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

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.