Thread: Fluctuation of Reality Check success

Hey guys! I wanted to see if you also experience this kind of stuff, here it goes. When I reach critical state in a regular dream, I'm 99% percent sure that this is a dream(inner awarness?) and I'm going for a reality check. I push my finger through my palm and I pinch my nose and try to breathe. It works. I stabilize myself, become fully lucid. After stabilization, interaction with dream objects, everything seems more real to me and RCs kinda fail. I try to push my finger through palm again and I need to apply more force, it sinks in pretty hard, and also nose pinching gives me feling like in real life - I'm running out of air[during these moments I'm lucid and aware of my intention and what should happen]. But when I start to lose lucidity, I reassure myself with RCs and they work better these times.

I don't think I ever did RC again later in a lucid dream, after the first initial RC that confirmed my lucidity. I do other things to keep my aware that I'm dreaming, like clapping my hands while yelling "I'm dreaming".

I never had an RC fail. Not once. Everytime I RCed, it worked. I had more than 5 fingers, thumb went through palm... What started to happen though is that my fingers started to look more and more normal, and my palm started to really hurt and bleed when I tried to push my thumb through it. I actually had to stop doing this RC.

I know this wasn't what you were really asking, sorry. But maybe it will help seeing how other people's RCs change in time.

I was just thinking about this because I had nose plug RCs fail during a false awakening after a long lucid yesterday and this has happened a few times before. I believe if I breath in for long enough air would start moving but the realism of the initial try throws me off. I don't have much to add except anecdote so I would be interested to hear other peoples theories and input.

There could be other factors at play, but I think most of the time RC fails in a dream because the way we practice them while awake.

When we RC during day, we have to believe that it will work. That finger will go through palm, we can breathe through pinched nose, that we count more than 5 fingers, that we can levitate...

For some, it may not be easy to believe, but just humor yourself and believe.

I just love knowing it is a dream and not doing the RC at all. Love it.

Originally Posted by ThreeCat

I just love knowing it is a dream and not doing the RC at all. Love it.

Actually, I know inside that I'm dreaming, I don't need any kind of reality check, but the point is about them working and failing while relating them to your awarness (or something else).

When I begin to initially suspect I'm dreaming but haven't fully confirmed it to myself yet, my RCs occasionally will seem to want to indicate reality at first, though they'll eventually begin to work reliably if I continue to remain skeptical and believe there's a decent chance I could be dreaming.

This may have been more of a problem for me early on, but rarely seems to be an issue nowadays. If I already suspect I'm dreaming, phony RCs don't fool me so easily; I'll usually just keep doing them until they work or try a different check until that works (or, if my lucidity peaks high enough, actually realize that I already know I'm dreaming and just stop fooling around with RCs and start enjoying it already ).

I can't recall RCs failing when I'm already pretty sure I'm dreaming. I've occasionally repeated an RC, even when already lucid, to help strengthen the lucidity if I feel it's weak or slipping. The reassurance of seeing undeniable proof that I'm dreaming really helps.