Trouble deciding to RC

**WinRic** · 04-05-2011 07:12 PM

Last night was my first time ever trying for a lucid dream.

I usually have trouble going to sleep and take around thirty minutes to fall asleep, but as soon as I laid down in bed I started saying "You are about to have a dream" repeatedly until it gave the feeling of how counting sheep would feel (just a guess since I've never used something like that to help me sleep)

Now my problem is that I think I had a lucid, but am unsure.

What happened is that I think I fell asleep, and because of telling myself I would have a dream my dream was me trying to go to sleep. Really confusing, and I couldn't decide if I should RC or not, because I decided my phone would be my RC and the light would have most like have made me wide awake.

What made it worse is that there was a bad storm last night and I don't know if it woke me up and caused the whole "Am I still trying to fall asleep or am I asleep thing".

It was too complicated after waking up a (maybe) 2nd time and trying to figure out if I should write it down or not since i couldn't be sure it was a dream.

**Robot_Butler** · 04-05-2011 10:08 PM

You're probably right! Similar to this, (but opposite) is when I try to keep myself from waking up from a lucid dream. I will think to myself, "I hope I don't wake up," then immediately have a false awakening where I dream that I woke up. Frustrating. We are slaves to suggestion.

**dashneo** · 04-05-2011 10:31 PM

when you go to bed, you should put something you can do a reality check with next to your pillow. I have my phone next to my pillow so that I can make sure I'm not dreaming. I've made it a habit to check the time on my phone when I wake up in the middle of the night.

**WinRic** · 04-05-2011 11:13 PM

Originally Posted by dashneo

when you go to bed, you should put something you can do a reality check with next to your pillow. I have my phone next to my pillow so that I can make sure I'm not dreaming. I've made it a habit to check the time on my phone when I wake up in the middle of the night.

I like checking my phone when I wake up also, but every since I moved to my apartment to go to college if I check my phone within 2 hours of having to get up I can't go back to sleep. So I've found that if I don't check my phone I can go back to sleep easier.

And also through this experience I've decided to make my RC's a bump on the back of my arm and one on my hand (the birthmark on my hand serves as a double, since I would need to look at my fingers to see it)

Does anyone know if those could work as RC's, since I feel like in a dream your body wouldn't have any birthmarks, scars, etc. from real life. Does anyone know if this is true? Or if it's just plain stupid to try using marks on your body as RC's?