Well…

If I was going to use RC’s I would often do them in “sessions” about 3 or 4 random times throughout the day for about 5 minutes each. I do whatever RC’s are convenient at the time but try to include always the most effective ones. I mix them up a bit and take advantage of the environment to come up with new ways to check reality so it doesn’t get boring. Plus I would only do this if I was interested and it didn’t feel too taxing (stressing out over doing RC’s or having them feel like a chore will just prevent lucidity).

The only thing I would be asking myself when doing reality checks is “is this a dream?”. I’ve heard before that with RC’s you should really ask if you’re in reality, but for some reason I find it easier and more effective to ask if it’s a dream instead. I try to be completely aware and accurately test my state…I mean I do them to the same standard I would like to in a dream, in case I have the problem of falsely concluding it’s reality (also, it is the awareness you put into RC’s that bleeds into the dream, which is why it’s important to be thorough and really question your state).

In a dream, then, I’ve had them work in 2 different ways… either to confirm lucidity and amplify it after I’ve already slightly suspected I might be dreaming, or needed to do the check to know I was dreaming, meaning if I didn’t I would not have known even though I had a good level of awareness in the dream (this is why I think it’s important to include very effective ones like the nose pinch, counting fingers etc.)