Thread: Awareness in dreams

Doing an RC could just become part of the action. You'd do it, thinking that it will "work in a dream", then, miracuously enough, you'd realize that you are in fact dreaming!

Reality Checks help "turn on" self awareness which is usually not present during dreams. The main reason reality checks work, is because you know they work. If one would go into a dream thinking that reality checks don't work and will never work, then they probably won't work. That is why some reality checks work better for others. Alot of time people will suspect they are dreaming first and then do a reality check to confirm. I (like many have before) have just randomly done a reality check, maybe for fun or out of habit, in a dream, and was completely blown away by the fact that I was dreaming. Usually when this happens I do about 10 nose pinch RCs before I accept the fact that I am dreaming, lol.

I suggest the nose pinch reality check and here is why. While you are dreaming your actual body is breathing, not your dream self. If the dream self breathes it means nothing and is habit or just plain fake. So the nose pinch reality check closes off the nasal passage, but because you aren't really closing it off (in real life) you are still able to breathe through your nose. This triggers the part of your brain that deals with reason/(self) awareness thus causing you to realize you are dreaming.

Like you said, we accept strange an unusual things to be true during normal dreams, so if you don't stay busy/aware in a lucid it is very easy to accidentally slip back into a normal dream. Hope I helped clear things up a bit.