Thread: how rigorous is your RC?

thats so over-the-top lol, i just pinch my nose and breath in

I just look at my hands and think "Am I dreaming?" Some reality check methods are too complicated to do all day, and make you look rediculous (like jumping up and down to see if you fly).
But I usually just get that feeling in my dream and realise I'm dreaming. I never became lucid from doing a reality check.

I do three RCs every time. I have 'RC' written on my hand to remind me.

1. Bite my hand
2. Count fingers
3. Look around slowly in case something is out of the usual
4. Read text, look away (usually read something else) then look back

I'm planning to make a list of all the ways to do RCs. I will definitley try the throwing a small object. It's funny when people ask me what RC means when they see it on my hand, and I don't feel like explaining the concept of Lucid Dreaming to them, then they watch me bite my hand, count my fingers, then look at something, look away, then look back again.

Originally Posted by Flashdance

Here's what I do for a RC, all one after the other:

1. Read text, look away, read again
2. Throw something small into the air 3 times, and will it to float
3. Count my fingers, and then examine my hands in detail
4. Remember the last 3 things I did ie. got a drink, went to the bathroom, wrote an email.

It takes about a minute to complete all four steps. I do it every hour when my watch alarm goes off. But I am not motivated to do it more often because it is rather tedious.

Should I only cut it down to 1-2 steps? Which out of the 4 is the most effective to least effective?

Thanks in advance.

Wow, you got the whole ritual going on!

You should definitely change a few things if it annoys you. I believe step 1 and 3 are enough. (2 and 4 can easily fool you in a dream, at least it happened to me )Focus on your awareness, your senses. That should also be a way of living; I'm working on that!

I look at my watch, check my hands (but I'm checking nail side up, so it looks like I'm checking my nails), check my watch again and ask if I can remember what I was doing before the reality checks.

If I'm at my job, I add in looking at the camera screen because it has text (specifically noting that it HAS text... I dreamed about this screen once and the text was gone... was also missing some camera screens too, come to think of it).

EDIT - I also look around for clarity. My dreams tend to have a "glow effect" to them (gamers might get what that means... Essentially, everything seems to have a fuzzy, glowy quality to it)

i gotsa tattoo on ma hand that i look at. i gave it to myself for the specific use for reality checks. It means reality is an illusion. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pi...9&id=734966311

Generally just do it after waking up, and whenever I remember to. And thats about it <.<

I just ask myself what i was doing before and should i be here. Am i doing it wrong?

I only do it when I think of dreaming, or something seems like it could be a dream. I might only do it >5 times a day, sometimes it seems like I'm doing it every 10-15mins (But doesn't last long). So mine varies between 0- 20 times

Originally Posted by Walms

Generally just do it after waking up, and whenever I remember to. And thats about it <.<

This minus the waking up bit, except when waking from a LD.

And all I do is a Nose Pinch RC, bee tee dubs.

When ever I think about it, mostly when I notice something strange, I RC. I think about if what I saw was realistic or not, or if the events that are going on are normal or strange. Then I do the nose-pinch RC and the text RC. Occasionally I'll glance at my hands, but I only usually recount the last places I've been if something seems really out of the ordinary or I feel dream-ish. I'd stop the throwing stuff up into the air, though. People will think you're strange.

This is how I RC:


Ok I'm sitting. There's a table in front of me with food on it. Big room, probably a restaurant. I can move my hands but they don't too much, they seem solid and so on.

Originally Posted by Kangaxx

I just ask myself what i was doing before and should i be here. Am i doing it wrong?

No, thats what i mainly do so it stops me just autopiloting reailty checks through the day. If i actually believe that im dreaming i will then hold my nose and try to breathe.

I ask myself what I was doing an hour ago. In a dream I probably wouldn't know, since most of my regular dreams don't seem like they last for longer than an hour. The only problem with RCs is that every time I do them, I lose The Game (if you don't know what the game is, this is a pretty good explanation).