Thread: Correct way to use Reality Checks for Lucid Dreaming

So, we should make an effort to be mindful and do a reality check when we realize that more of our attention is on our thoughts than our immediate surroundings?

I sometimes do a reality check and say of course I'm dreaming and then think nothing of it. That or I pinch my nose and I can't breathe even though I'm dreaming.

Originally Posted by Sergey

I posted this on reddit earlier and think this maybe useful to people visiting this forum

Over the years I changed how I use reality checks because they were not very effective. Once I made the changes I describe below this method began to work for me and many people I coached since.

First let's start with understanding that Dreaming has biological basis, our brains enter specific state when we dream and some parts of our brain remain inactive while we dream, one of those parts forms self-awareness. Training to become lucid, means you train the brain to increase activity in that part of the brain while you are dreaming, leading to lucidity "inside" the dream. This means that without this part being more active, you do not question your surroundings. Great example of this is when dreamers perform reality checks in their dreams, see them fail and not trigger lucidity.
This happens because part of the brain responsible for self awareness is not activated and reality check itself is just part of the dream. So we need "self-aware" part of our brain at least somewhat active, in order to make judgement about reality check or in other words - we become lucid before we do the reality check, and reality check itself, is just means to confirm we are dreaming to already lucid mind.

There are few implications here, one of them being that reality check itself is not important but what happens right before you decide to do one is.
So what happens before you do one?
You stop what you were doing and thinking, and reflect on your thoughts and surroundings. (Does that sound like the definition of what you need to do in the dream to become lucid?)

Let's explore this more
People that meditate allot, naturally begin lucid dreaming, in fact Buddhist dream yoga is in essence based on meditative state, these highly trained people are very good at becoming alert in dreams. Meditation is based on self reflection, or being aware of what you are thinking, feeling and experiencing. By spending allot of time monitoring your thoughts and clearing them you become very sensitive to when they form and may see them as separate from yourself. In other words you are constantly critical of your thoughts and surroundings.
We think we are dreaming only during sleep but in reality we are dreaming all day long, we have images, stories and ideas in our mind that if you really look at them closely, resemble our dreams in terms of content. However, they happen in our mind's eye and with full sensory input we get while awake, they remain there. When we fall asleep, our thoughts take different form but they are still there and without external stimulation from sensory organs and changes in brain activity manifest as dreams. Not to say they are the same as your waking day-dreams, they are different, but we are absorbed by them same way we are absorbed imagining how we are going to do our presentation, while walking to work.

How does this relate to reality checks?
Well, our goal with reality check as concept is to simplify meditation into bite-size exercise we can do throughout the day and it has to be done at very specific time. NOT RANDOMLY
You should do them when you are immersed in thought and especially while daydreaming. Do this to the point where you catch yourself daydreaming many times during the day and eventually - every time. Your daydreams are just like dreams at night, you often suspend all logic and reason, get immersed and let your imagination run wild. This is where you stop your daydream and examine your thoughts and surroundings, and do reality check. This skill then transfers to your sleeping self as any time you are dreaming you have this habit of interrupting the process, and flexing your logic and self awareness.

You may find that you enjoy your daydreams - a lot. Many people told me they hate interrupting their daydreams, they really enjoyed the process of daydreaming. And this illustrates how trying to become lucid is counter intuitive to your mind. You create separate reality and go there to enjoy even while you are fully awake, very often imagining some weird stuff. If you want to be consistently lucid when sleeping you have to train yourself to become alert as soon as you daydream, stop the daydream and become aware of your surroundings.

Anyone seriously going after lucid dreaming had very good success with this, I am very confident in saying this stuff works well.

This is also first training process that has clear guidelines and specific requirements. You can track progress by making notes of every time you notice you are daydreaming or consumed in thought and successfully let it go and examine your thoughts and surroundings. If you get annoyed with doing this - this is a sign you are training, it is difficult to constantly keep pushing your daydreams away but this is what it takes to develop mental discipline needed for lucid dreaming.
I will be happy to hear of your progress, in this thread or you can PM me directly.
If you share this technique please link to this post. If you have questions, let me know.

I do prospective memory targets and during then, I wonder if I am dreaming or not and try to focus on my surroundings. Does that work?

I saw this yesterday and realized it is a great way to get more reality checks in. Because of my lucid dreaming practices I have been working on self-awareness/mindfulness. I catch myself most often when I am thinking non-productive negative thoughts and over the months I seem to be getting quite good at it. Starting yesterday I took those "catching thoughts" moments to also add in mindful reality checks (I used to do them with different kinds of triggers than this) and because of this focus I have also been catching more day dreaming, so I think this practice should be beneficial.

A quick note on "NOT RANDOMLY": I believe that if you are using alarms to remind yourself to do RC's until you get better at remembering to do them naturally, that those alarms should be random alarms versus alarms set to go off exactly once an hour for example. I believe the OP is using "not randomly" in a different way however and is suggesting that you don't just do RC's randomly but instead do them at the specific times that you catch yourself day dreaming - thus "NOT RANDOMLY." Correct me if I misunderstood Sergey.

When you notice that you are consumed by your thoughts and in this case you would usually be unaware.

Originally Posted by kamenriderbaron

I do prospective memory targets and during then, I wonder if I am dreaming or not and try to focus on my surroundings. Does that work?

Reality checks are working before you even did them, the very fact that you drop everything and question everything - that is most valuable.

Originally Posted by Him

I sometimes do a reality check and say of course I'm dreaming and then think nothing of it. That or I pinch my nose and I can't breathe even though I'm dreaming.

This happens because reality check itself is useless unless, the moment you questions things you become aware. If that did not happen, reality check itself is not going to do anything. For this to work, you need to stop and become an observer questioning everything. So that is what you need to practice with reality checks.

Originally Posted by fogelbise

I saw this yesterday and realized it is a great way to get more reality checks in. Because of my lucid dreaming practices I have been working on self-awareness/mindfulness. I catch myself most often when I am thinking non-productive negative thoughts and over the months I seem to be getting quite good at it. Starting yesterday I took those "catching thoughts" moments to also add in mindful reality checks (I used to do them with different kinds of triggers than this) and because of this focus I have also been catching more day dreaming, so I think this practice should be beneficial.

A quick note on "NOT RANDOMLY": I believe that if you are using alarms to remind yourself to do RC's until you get better at remembering to do them naturally, that those alarms should be random alarms versus alarms set to go off exactly once an hour for example. I believe the OP is using "not randomly" in a different way however and is suggesting that you don't just do RC's randomly but instead do them at the specific times that you catch yourself day dreaming - thus "NOT RANDOMLY." Correct me if I misunderstood Sergey.

Reality checks is a technique and it is designed to train you, however if you are doing this technique wrong - you will not get results.
I described core ideas behind reality checks and what makes them effective, this technique teaches you to becomes aware of your surroundings activate parts of your brain that produce critical cognition, this technique is not about checking if you are dreaming. If your critical brain is not alert - you will never come to conclusion that you are dreaming no matter how many reality checks you do.
So what you are doing is trying to catch yourself daydreaming, which is similar to when you are sleeping and make that trigger for turning on your critical thinking, you stop what you were doing and begin examining surroundings. If you do it randomly you will tend to remember to RC when your brain is vacant, so you will not do the part that is actually important, interfering with dreamlike state.

Wow this is so interesting ! i'll try it out,i noticed that everyday's events influence our dreams and when you said that "dreaming is like our day dreams" i noticed that i always dream about the things i thought about while that influencing event happned ! so it's really as you said if we stop the unrealistic daydreaming process and question reality,our mind will get used to do it too in dreams which will result a lucid dream !