Thread: Reality Checks..what a joke!

The purpose of a reality check is to test whether or not you're in a dream. If something impossible works, you can deduce that it's a dream. If it doesn't, you can deduce that your RC has failed, and try a few more before deciding you might be awake.

RCs are not for the development of prospective memory. Awareness and memory exercises serve that function. Prospective memory is used (in lucid dreaming & RCing) to remind yourself to merely question or to reality check to dreamsigns and other unusual things.

Lots of people don't require a 'physical' reality check- they can review their memory and realize that the timeline of recent events makes no sense, that the location isn't real, that the people aren't real or shouldn't be alive, etc.

If you don't need to RC, if it just happens very often that you know you are dreaming, then congrats- you're a natural.

Originally Posted by Shift

congrats- you're a natural.

The strange thing is that I never had a lucid dream until after I found this website, started RCing and dream journaling for a while, and began having lucids after maybe a year of practice. I guess those techniques are good for training your brain and being "natural" is just like learning to do it on your own after that. Like a child having a few music lessons then realizing he can make all sorts of awesome music without thinking too much. ?

dreamjournaling is still very valuable. I've found that I lose a level of clarity and detail in my dreams if I don't DJ for a while.

I agree with Shift. "The purpose of a reality check is to test whether or not you're in a dream."

A reality check is not necessarily a tool which one uses to become lucid. It's more of tool to confirm or test whether a certain event was what we call: real or imagined. Some people are more aware of their surroundings than others, as Shift states "Lots of people don't require a 'physical' reality check- they can review their memory and realize that the timeline of recent events makes no sense..."

A common example, mentioned by Acala, is being naked in public. At first glance everything seems normal. People are stopped at street corners--maybe people you've seen somewhere else,--cars are passing by, you're late for work, or school and you need to hand in an important paper.
It's a normal day, just like any other hurried and emotionally oppressed day. You need to be somewhere quick, there's no time to stop and take a breather. You rush out the door to the bus and notice something strange. [The bus is more crowded than usual and many peers are staring at me, oh well, they all have projects to turn in as well, I'm--I'm forgetting something...oh, my coat, and my shoes!? I can't be late, no one is going to notice anyways.]
RC
As several thoughts and emotions are firing in your brain, relaying possible actions and outcomes of this single event, you forget that you saw mail car was delivering mail at 6:30 in the morning. You forget that the brand of dedorant you used this morning was not 'Old Spice' but 'ol'Sport'. You missed the yellow robin outside the kitchen window. You didn't notice how clean your room was, or that your furniture had been re-arranged. You don't realize that the music you hear on the bus is the same from the music in your MP3. No, instead you need to make it to school on time to impress your friends, teachers and family with a half-assed term paper.

And then the alarm goes off. wtf
Nix the dream journal. I need to snooze this one... If I go back sleep I know I can go lucid, I was soo close. All this only to be distracted by another dream(s) and a fast-fading recollection of what was once such a vivid dream with many opportunities.

Take a step back.
Look around you.
Make it a habit of continually asking yourself questions...perhaps you'll find some answers.
Talk to all entities and be interested in what they have to say, you never know when information they teach may come in handy.

You lost me after 'common example', but... yea. Just a test. Hence the test/check part of the name. It's a simple concept.

Like shift said. Reality checks are used to test whether or not you're in a dream.

And i think that every experienced lucid dreamer uses them.

Originally Posted by Shift

The purpose of a reality check is to test whether or not you're in a dream. If something impossible works, you can deduce that it's a dream. If it doesn't, you can deduce that your RC has failed, and try a few more before deciding you might be awake.

RCs are not for the development of prospective memory. Awareness and memory exercises serve that function. Prospective memory is used (in lucid dreaming & RCing) to remind yourself to merely question or to reality check to dreamsigns and other unusual things.

Lots of people don't require a 'physical' reality check- they can review their memory and realize that the timeline of recent events makes no sense, that the location isn't real, that the people aren't real or shouldn't be alive, etc.

If you don't need to RC, if it just happens very often that you know you are dreaming, then congrats- you're a natural.

I use RCs to train my prospective memory, then again, my reality checks aren't like normal reality checks.