Reality Checks - Attitude of approach and methods

I've been reading D. Love's book (Are You Dreaming?) and he advises one to approach reality checks with the thought that one is very likely dreaming already. I have heard people approach them with just the opposite mindset (to disprove one is dreaming).

He also states the hand checking is ineffective in the long run, and only recommends the nose pinch and textual/digital clock distortion checking. What do people think about this? He gives a pretty good rationale, but then again, rationales are not necessarily how reality operates.

Now, whenever I've become lucid, to the best of my memory, it has never been due to any standard reality checking. However, I've never consistently practiced any of them.

I do feel it works better to use RCs as a means of proving one is dreaming, but not to prove that one is not dreaming. I say this because RCs sometimes like to troll me and indicate reality during a dream (and depending on my lucidity at the time, I may or may not be fooled by this), but it's pretty much impossible for a well-chosen one to indicate dreaming when awake. So, I don't tell myself that I'm not dreaming when I do a RC in waking life, but rather that I simply haven't found evidence that I'm dreaming yet, and I try to encourage myself to continue keeping my eyes open for such evidence rather than simply forgetting about it and going back to what I was doing.

As for some types of RCs working better than others, I can't speak for that. I wouldn't be surprised if it varies by individuals, perhaps based on their schemata/expectations. I mostly use digital watch/text-checking and/or flying/hovering since they're the first ones I used and I found them sufficiently reliable for me.

It's probably not unusual, either, to do an RC after becoming lucid rather than the other way around. This is usually what happens to me: I suspect I'm dreaming first, and just use the RC to prove it to myself so I can be confident I'm dreaming and then go about my usual LD stuff. Even so, though, the RCs still seem to help with having LDs, perhaps because they encourage the user to develop a sense of self-awareness and critical thinking about their state of reality when done regularly.

Exactly what Travis said!

About approach, I also think it's better to use to prove one is dreaming. If you don't entertain this possibility (that's it's a dream) you'll eventually start doing RCs in a very loose way - which is not productive. I'm not saying you have to believe it's a dream in RL (this is always never possible to do for obvious reasons) - just be diligent...

About the ineffectiveness of hand RCs, I have to disagree with D. Love's book - every RC will eventually get a false negative here or there. Even breathing tests are not impenetrable. I think that instead of worrying about false negatives, you can just use 2 - 3 RCs at a time. I also try to use variable checks, but have my favorites like hands+fingers, breathing, face, and just plain awareness.

Plus, like Travis said, in a dream it's likely to have a dild before doing the RC. Practicing RCs is not only so we will randomly do them, like during a dream, but also to make us question "inconsistencies" and be more aware - so you're more likely to be aware from the start, despite not doing the RC yet.

About practicing RCs - don't forget to test awakenings or before heading to bed. Doing at least some RCs at night is more likely to transfer into the dream, plus this fights FAs.

I made a thread about how I approach Reality Checks here:
http://www.dreamviews.com/attaining-...ity-check.html

Basically for me, a reality check is reminding myself that I am probably dreaming.

I think you have to approach it as "I'm not sure one way or the other". If you are open to either then you do a test like the nose pinch (my only method) and you validate which state is correct.