Thread: Reality checks every time I see a person

I need some help. I do a reality check every time I see a person and repeat I am dreaming in my head. Do you think this is a good way to do RCS or should I do something else?

Hi and welcome!
I think you should consider the fact that you are already inside a dream when you see a person, not just saying it makes the trick but feeling it's happening right now. I think your DC RC is a good one, although a very difficult for me to keep unless I don't interact with the person I see, I tend to get distracted very quick. Lately I'm trying to use this one to trigger my awareness, which is the most important thing here.

Yeah, that seems pretty good, its very frequent though.
I read a book by LaBerge, and he has an exercise for RC-ing, I think it would be effective but I find it quite difficult. He gives four different RC's for each day of the week, and you're supposed to read them in the morning only, and then do them throughout the day, for example for Wednesday it says to do a RC the first time you see a red car, a vegetable, the first time you handle money and the first time you touch a radio or tv. I only got one, as I forgot the rest as my day progressed. I think if I can get the hang of them, I would remember I was dreaming more often. Has anyone else had success (or tried) these exercises?

Originally Posted by BarefootDreamer

Yeah, that seems pretty good, its very frequent though.
I read a book by LaBerge, and he has an exercise for RC-ing, I think it would be effective but I find it quite difficult. He gives four different RC's for each day of the week, and you're supposed to read them in the morning only, and then do them throughout the day, for example for Wednesday it says to do a RC the first time you see a red car, a vegetable, the first time you handle money and the first time you touch a radio or tv. I only got one, as I forgot the rest as my day progressed. I think if I can get the hang of them, I would remember I was dreaming more often. Has anyone else had success (or tried) these exercises?

What you're describing is not a "reality check exercise," but a "prospective memory exercise." You're training yourself to *remember* to check your state (or "to recognize that you're dreaming") in the future, when some target even occurs. I've been doing these for going on a month, and at first I would often forget the day's targets, often right after reading them! The key, at least for me, is to visualize hitting the target several times, and with each visualization saying to myself "I'm dreaming" (since the word "dreaming" is a strong lucidity-signal for me, it's given me my two DILDs). Another member here suggests visualizing with all your senses, really try to imagine yourself immersed in a situation with sight, sound, smell, touch, etc., and imagine the event occuring. It is like setting intent. Pay attention to how this feels when you do it, because when you MILD, you do exactly the same thing: you set your intent to remember to recognize you're dreaming, the next time you're dreaming. I try to do the PM exercise every day. Now I find that four targets are a bit easy, and not enough PM stimulation: now, every time I realize that I've missed or hit a target, I set myself new targets to replace the hit/missed ones, so that at all times during the day I have 4 or more active targets (mostly 4 though). I have had days where I chose up to 12 targets. Both of my DILDs by the way came on days where I had over 10 prospective memory targets (and hit most of them). My first DILD felt very much like a prospective memory target hitting: I just realized all of a sudden, "I"m dreaming" and became lucid.

The prospective memory target is hit if you realize it right away the *first time* the target occurs, otherwise it is a miss (or perhaps you might never actually encounter the target .... I now try to choose targets that I *know* I will always encounter at some point during the day).

The "reflection / intention" technique is the one where you decide ahead of time (and you don't have to try to memorize the list, you can check it during the day) under what circumstances you will check your state. This could be an "every time I see/hear/feel something", or "the next time I ...." like the prospective memory exercise.

The problem with frequent reflection/intention targets (like "every time I see a person", unless you're a hermit ) is that you may very well exhaust yourself. Because you must always take the reflection of your state very, very seriously, truly try to prove to yourself what your state is, by examining your memory, by doing reality checks, seriously considering your surroundings, etc. For me that takes generally a minimum of about 20 seconds, sometimes more. You have to give it your attention, or the whole thing is pointless, because in a dream if you just slide over the RCs and the examination of your state saying "yeah, yeah, I 'm awake," you'll miss the opportunity to become lucid. So keep the frequency down to the point where you don't think "oh gawd, not another one...", and you're excited to think "I may be dreaming!" (or better, just "I'm dreaming").

Thanks for the clarification!
It's motivating to read that the PM's become more achievable the more one practices.

Originally Posted by BarefootDreamer

Thanks for the clarification!
It's motivating to read that the PM's become more achievable the more one practices.

Totally! Like I said in the beginning I would forget the entire list sometimes 5 minutes after reading it! Now I set my own targets throughout the day, and keep track of them in the notepad app on my phone. I still miss some targets, especially ones quite new from what I've selected before. I notice that I miss targets when I'm occupied with other thoughts, when I'm otherwise just walking around with no other thoughts, I'm more or less always in "target acquisition" mode and rarely miss them, and usually anticipate them beforehand.

I think if I were starting all over again, once I realized that I had forgotten the entire list, I would set myself new targets and consider the forgotten ones as all missed, so as not to waste time during the day just waiting for new targets on the next day.

Originally Posted by FryingMan

I think if I were starting all over again, once I realized that I had forgotten the entire list, I would set myself new targets and consider the forgotten ones as all missed, so as not to waste time during the day just waiting for new targets on the next day.

Thanks! I didn't consider that, I shall begin post-haste! I have enough trouble atm remembering to RC every time I go through a doorway.