Thread: Why is reality check so importatn?

I personally don't see reality checking that important for inducing lucidity. Instead things like self awareness and really questioning your yourself, surroundings, etc are much more important. Reality checks are mainly there to confirm wether your dreaming or awake.

You usually dont criticize your environment when dreaming, if you were you'd realize that you were dreaming instantly. It is possible though, You just need to get a form of awareness about yourself and the situation going on around you to do this. This is obviously also what lucid dreamers work on building, but (in my understanding) this comes slowly, and building "general awareness" to the point where you can spontaneously become lucid is hard and unreliable. This is why we use different other techniques, such as dream guides, dream objects, and reality checks, which let us "bind" paying attention to certain actions/objects/situations. And as Alexthedreamer said, reality checks arent that important if you can build such awareness in other ways, but reality checks are probably the easiest way to do this.

Reality checks are important so that you question reality and perform an RC while dreaming. After a lot of LD experience you will have more spontaneous lucids, and RCs may be less important, but I would not stop altogether. I dont RC much....maybe 2 or 3 times a day, and hardly at all during the work week. Usually only when a weird dream-like feel comes on. But I also miss some LD opportunities that I think I would have caught with more consistant RCs. Last night I was dreaming I was in a store to buy some drug to help with lucid dreaming. I changed my mind and told them I would rather just learn to do it naturally. I should have done an RC but didnt. When I woke up I was frustrated to have been so close. Then I practiced mantras while falling asleep (I want to have a lucid dream). Took 30 mins. Then i had a spontaneous lucid. So RCs are not critical but maybe your hit rate might be higher.

thanks for the answear! but how is RC gonna help when sometimes you cant control it? I mean when you go to bed in a normal dream, your not just normaly doing a RC, since its on autopilot.

Originally Posted by Darkrobin

thanks for the answear! but how is RC gonna help when sometimes you cant control it? I mean when you go to bed in a normal dream, your not just normaly doing a RC, since its on autopilot.

The idea is that if you get into the habit of doing it, it will carry over into your dreams.

RC's probably won't be the thing that makes you lucid. Self awareness paired with techniques like WBTB and MILD or WILD etc will cause lucidity. A reality check is most likely going to just confirm your lucidity.

Right. MOST times you are on autopilot, but combining with WBTB and MILD, increasing awareness, etc, you sometimes have something trigger that says "hey, wait a minute...this seems weird..." and you gain sufficient control to RC. For me having a strong intent to LD and thinking I WILL have an LD when I fall back asleep does it. But remember, get 5 hrs of sleep before trying this if you want good results.