Thread: Failed reality check!

Yeah, the dream you had is the perfect example of why you should always do more than one! You could check your hands, and then pinch your nose, I think an important factor is to also really focus on doing RC's when your awake, that way they'll be more effective when your in a dream.

I've had problems with the nose-pinch RC before too. For me the problems came as a result of doing them to often. I try and use my watch more often now, but the nose-pinch remains the easiest for me to remember to do in dreams. After taking a break from using it for a while, it started to work fine again.

But to answer your question, yes, you always should do multiple RC's. It doesn't necessarily mean that you will always remember to do another one once one fails. But sometimes you will. Sometimes I'm not quite sure if I believe what an RC is telling me. For me this is when using a secondary RC comes in very handy. More than a few times it took the secondary RC to convince me.

Next time I'll try and stick my finger through my hand as a back-up! Or I could look at my watch.

Originally Posted by Taromon777

Next time I'll try and stick my finger through my hand as a back-up! Or I could look at my watch.

Yeah, I've had a lot of success with using the finger through hand as a secondary RC too. It's kind of fun. You just have to remember to keep pushing hard if there is resistance. I think when that one fails for people it's just because they give up on it too easy.

And it's always fascinating the things that happen to watches in dreams. I love when I remember to look at mine. For some reason that's hard for me to remember to do though. I don't know why.

Yeah that can be annoying. I get this from time to time which leads me to not become lucid. I guess what's worse is that I don't have a back up besides triple checking the time.

One time I had a dream that someone else was doing a reality check. I felt like a dummy after waking up

Originally Posted by Taromon777

Next time I'll try and stick my finger through my hand as a back-up! Or I could look at my watch.

Beware of using the finger through hand RC, because if you don't really expect this to work it might not work. It's a hard concept to wrap your head around so if you aren't sure that you are really dreaming then this RC might fail. I suspect this is why the pinching your nose RC failed as well, because you expected to not be able to breath. To try to overcome this, just open your mind and believe that anything is possible in dreams

Looking at a watch or a phone has never failed to get me lucid, and I think it is a pretty failsafe RC. This kind of thing is personal though so you might have to test out which RC's work for you and which don't and just keep note.
Good luck!

Originally Posted by Taromon777

Last night, in a dream, I vaguely remember doing a reality check, but it failed! I questioned something unusual that happened, but then pinched my nose and couldn't breathe, so I came to the conclusion that it wasn't a dream. Should I always do more than one reality check in case the first one fails?

If a test fails don't quickly conclude you are not dreaming. When reality checking in waking life; consider your surroundings examine short term memories for anomalies.

It would be a good idea to experiment with some RC's after you are already Lucid. Just to see how they work for you, and to get yourself used to doing them in dreams.

This is especially true for the finger through hand RC. I've also discovered that you can push your finger through anything, not just your hand. You can also push your entire arm through, and follow with your body. Like through walls for instance. It's kind of fun to play with.

This happened to me in a dild, I was trying to push my hand through my hand but like real life it hit the skin and stopped. I then tried to breath with my noseblocked and I could.
But why did that first rc not work??

Originally Posted by snumbers

This happened to me in a dild, I was trying to push my hand through my hand but like real life it hit the skin and stopped. I then tried to breath with my noseblocked and I could.
But why did that first rc not work??

I don't think anyone can explain why reality checks sometimes fail. They just do. Until you establish a new set of laws in a lucid dream, your semi-lucid mind is more accustomed to the old set.

When RCing, assume you are dreaming and expect the the test to pass.

I've failed the palm test and subsequently passed the the nose test the same as you.

Caradon gave good advice.

The only RC that I have done in a dream that was a success was with my watch. I glanced at it, as I do hundreds of times every day, and it looked normal, then I looked at it again for some reason, and the numbers were all messed up, and I thought that I might be dreaming, so I tried to make the watch display what I wanted, and it did. I became lucid! I have never tried the nose or hand-though hand RCs. However, before and after I WILD, and whenever I wake up, I do those two plus the watch RC. That's how I did the watch RC. I WILDed, got to SP, and fell asleep. Then I was in bed, so I did an RC, thinking I woke up, and that's how I became lucid. So now I will hopefully catch FAs, but I only have them when I try to WILD.
-FreakyDreamer

Really? People still wear watches?!?
Trying to read usually works for me. Usually unable to read much at all, much less to have it be repeatable.
I had a dream a couple years ago that was very unusual for me. In almost half of my dreams I know, to some degree, that I am dreaming but the dreams are still kind of scattered. But this one dream was super stable, and I totally knew I was in a LD (or OBE?). Things were stable and repeatable and I couldn't change things. Super real. I picked a fiber from a sisal or hemp rope and put it in my mouth and could feel the texture as I gnashed it between my front teeth, feel it slowly soften. I left a part of a room (separated by a drop cloth) and returned to find everything exactly as it was. There was a large (chest high) object I knew to be a pump. It had a domed top painted green. I spread my arms around it and concentrated on it and tried to change its paint color to red. But it stubbornly refused until after a prolonged attempt I got it to flicker red for a flash but otherwise everything was rock steady, unchangeable, testable, IRL-like down to the minute detail. Smell, taste, dust etc. And I was totally clear-headed, probably the only reason I knew it wasn't IRL.

Twice in a row now, my reality checks have failed. They weren't properly done, but I did look at my hands (no change) and briefly consider my situation. Unfortunately they all made reasonable sense.

It's been a reminder to sharpen up on my RCing. Also interesting is how reality checking seems to bring the entire dream world into extreme clarity.

Originally Posted by Skicanoe

Really? People still wear watches?!?

A watch is a wonderful Lucid Dreaming tool.

In my opinion, there isn't anything cooler than being able to wear a small device on my wrist, that not only tells me the time of day, but also the reality in which I'm currently immersed.

So, as a Lucid Dreamer, I'll be wearing mine until my final day.