Thread: How long till I perform RCs in Dreams?

It seems my dream self never performs RCs even though Iv done them for 3 weeks while awake. How long does it take till I do them in my dreams and is there something to be done to speed it up?

That isn't really how it works. I know people say that's the point of it, but honestly what happens is by doing RCs frequently while you're awake you're learning to pay attention to your state of consciousness. Asking yourself if you're really awake right now, or could you actually be asleep? It's THIS that crosses over into your dreams, the alertness to your state.

Generally when I've done RCs in a dream I already know I'm dreaming. But you go ahead and do the RCs anyway, to confirm, which strengthens the lucidity. Because once you push your finger through your hand or breathe while pinching your nose shut then it's clear you're definitely dreaming.

The best way to speed it up is to really think as often as you can, "Could I actually be dreaming right now?"

And MEAN it - because really it's very hard to tell. Think back – can you clearly remember the things you've done since waking up? If it's a dream you can't. But of course in a dream your mind will trick you, it will give you silly reasons why you can't remember - oh, you're having a bad day and your memory just isn't working right now, or it's that amnesia - you know, the amnesia you caught yesterday...

Um – what? ... "Caught amnesia?" Well, in a dream you'll buy into that, and all kinds of other ridiculous ideas. But if you train yourself to ruthlessly double check and try to remember your whole day, as well as doing the reality checks, then what you're really doing is checking on your thinking process. Is the logic working? In dreams it doesn't, instead your mind dreams up weird crazy excuses for things and just expects you to buy into them. And when you notice that happening, it's a pretty good bet you're dreaming, so that's when you do a couple of RCs.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

That isn't really how it works. I know people say that's the point of it, but honestly what happens is by doing RCs frequently while you're awake you're learning to pay attention to your state of consciousness. Asking yourself if you're really awake right now, or could you actually be asleep? It's THIS that crosses over into your dreams, the alertness to your state.

Generally when I've done RCs in a dream I already know I'm dreaming. But you go ahead and do the RCs anyway, to confirm, which strengthens the lucidity. Because once you push your finger through your hand or breathe while pinching your nose shut then it's clear you're definitely dreaming.

The best way to speed it up is to really think as often as you can, "Could I actually be dreaming right now?"

And MEAN it - because really it's very hard to tell. Think back – can you clearly remember the things you've done since waking up? If it's a dream you can't. But of course in a dream your mind will trick you, it will give you silly reasons why you can't remember - oh, you're having a bad day and your memory just isn't working right now, or it's that amnesia - you know, the amnesia you caught yesterday...

Um – what? ... "Caught amnesia?" Well, in a dream you'll buy into that, and all kinds of other ridiculous ideas. But if you train yourself to ruthlessly double check and try to remember your whole day, as well as doing the reality checks, then what you're really doing is checking on your thinking process. Is the logic working? In dreams it doesn't, instead your mind dreams up weird crazy excuses for things and just expects you to buy into them. And when you notice that happening, it's a pretty good bet you're dreaming, so that's when you do a couple of RCs.

That's interesting, I haven't thought about it that way. But this raises the question: how long till I start noticing that stuff is wierd in my dreams? How long did it take for other people?

I imagine that is different for each individual. I started attempting to lucid dream about a month and a half ago. I've had seven LDs so far. I think I started noticing weird stuff within dreams a little more consistently a week or so ago. I started cataloging my dream signs and noticed that most of them are Context dreamsigns. So I started paying attention to context in waking life throughout every day and trying to be mindful and aware of where I am, what I'm doing, how I got there, where was I before, etc., and that seemed to transfer over to some of my dreams after a few weeks. I had a lucid within two weeks, though, by noticing my shirt was gone in a dream. I had another one within a week of that. Then this past week I had four LDs within seven days. This is all anecdotal, of course. Some people will start having LDs faster or slower. It also is probably, to some degree, contingent upon how much effort and energy you put into it.

I agree with zelcrow - it's different for different people, and largely depends on how much you're 'into it'. Essentially what you're trying to do is transform your inner self, from believing dreams are just random or whatever, to understanding them in a whole different way. This is really a major shift of consciousness, or at least in your understanding of it. And that's very different from the way you learn things in school, which is by rote memorization. It's an experiential change, a change in your overall understanding of the world and the mind. Some people make that shift easily and some less so, but everyone can make it with sustained effort.

Probably the things that help the most are to spend a lot of time thinking about it and reading about it, which can mean reading a lot of threads in here (look back through the archives – there are some amazing threads from years gone by) or reading a book about it. The most highly recommended one of them all is Stephen LaBerge's Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming. Many people start having lucids while reading it.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

it's different for different people, and largely depends on how much you're 'into it'. Essentially what you're trying to do is transform your inner self, from believing dreams are just random or whatever, to understanding them in a whole different way. This is really a major shift of consciousness, or at least in your understanding of it. And that's very different from the way you learn things in school, which is by rote memorization. It's an experiential change, a change in your overall understanding of the world and the mind. Some people make that shift easily and some less so, but everyone can make it with sustained effort.

Very well said in few words, Darkmatters. That very much seems to be true. Over the span of the past several weeks I feel I've experienced a shift in awareness and my experience of consciousness feels different at times already, but I think I've only scraped the tip of the iceberg as there's much more room to grow and learn. I welcome and encourage the changes since it seems to be a positive type of growth. The changes in consciousness seem to be a byproduct of the pursuit of lucid dreaming (or vice versa depending on perspective) which before I knew virtually nothing of. The awareness growth seems to work in tandem with LDing and the importance of it feels more vital over time. I might be rattling at this point, though.