Dream Test (DT) is the new RC

[Goldenspark]

Hey guys, long-time lurker and accoasional poster on here for a while, but during the lock-down I joined Daniel Love's Livestream series. If you've not seen them, go over to his YouTube channel and check them out. He's essentially posted 30 hours of free content on all aspects of Lucid Dreaming from the basics to more detailed stuff. Anyway, on his Telegram chat we've come up with an idea to re-name those checks we do, you know, the ones to see if we are dreaming, because the name is confusing, to instead call it; a Dream Test That way, it's more obvious that if you do the test and it passes, you are dreaming. No more of this confusion about if the test passes does that mean you're in RL still :-) So please, start using the phrase Dream test in stead of the normal one, and let's inject something new.

[Occipitalred]

Interesting I do like it, the name is simple and focuses our attention to proving the hypothesis that we are dreaming is true. I might add it to my personal vocabulary, although I also like the 'reality check' because the language focuses me on - checking what is real - in a broader sense. That is, where am I? where did I come from? What am I going to do? Does it all make sense? In the dream, I find it's the easiest step in lucidity to recognize I am dreaming, I often do it subconsciously (in that sense, passing the dream test is relatively simple) and I never need a dream test to confirm my sense that I am dreaming. However, what I do find very difficult is getting access to what's real... Sure I know I am dreaming, but do I clearly understand that I am in bed? are my memories true? are my fears and goals meaningful? So, I think I might say yes to your invitation to call the traditional 'reality check' a 'dream test' and continue to use the word 'reality check' to mean a more profound questioning.

[Lang]

Yeah, I have used both terms. That was the part of the basic lucid dreams fundamentals that he was talking about. What other Reality test techniques are you using from Daniel?

[Caradon]

I think you can use any words you want as long as you know what you're doing and it works best for you. You could use the term gobledegook check if you can relate to that better than the term reality check. Doesn't really matter. The sound of a word isn't it's meaning. I've always thought it was kind of funny that on TV they can get away with swearing as long as they change the sound of the word even though the meaning of what they are saying is still clear. For one example in Battlestar gallactica they just changed the sound of the word fuck into frack. So now it's okay to swear all they want. lol.

[Caradon]

Funny how your post inadvertently sent my mind down a path of things I've not contemplated much for a while about consciousness and symbolism. The way we communicate using symbols. We use language so naturally we don't often even think about what we are doing when using it. We just talk or write. We use drawn letters strung together to form words and those words strung together to form sentences. Which are symbols for sounds. And the sounds the letters and sentences symbolize are also just symbols for other meanings. Because the letters and sounds are not the information that they symbolize. The information itself is invisible. Even items around us, for example, our living space and decorations and art. My living space will look different, and be be decorated differently than yours. My living space is symbols of my interests and feelings, things that are relevant to me. It's all symbolism for the way we think and feel. And I've thought about how that pertains to dream symbolisms. In our dreams all this stuff springing up around us into images and events from deep within our minds/awareness. Like the dreams themselves are a form of language we are using that we are not even aware of how or why we are doing it. And it's like in our dreams we are talking to ourselves in the most bizarre way as we are literally walking through our own language/symbols and interacting with it. And I get this really odd, but amazing feeling sitting quietly and contemplating this. And I imagine myself at the core of my being/awareness as having no form at all. I'm Just a point of awareness and thought and feelings. And all this stuff springing out from me in the form of symbols in an attempt to communicate and express things that are happening on some deep invisible level within myself. Or, maybe I've just lost my mind sitting all alone in a quiet room for too long and I need to get out of the house more.