Quote Originally Posted by Rolo View Post
I had a questions that I'd be grateful if you could answer, please:

I do reality checks with triggers that appear in my dreams. For me it's red/pink dyed hair, the metro, talking to cashiers, and some other stuff I'd rather not mention lol. However, a big one is finding myself back in a school or college setting. These trip me up and I get suckered into going along with the dream every time. I can't train myself to check when I'm back in high school or college during the course of a normal waking day.

Question: is there a clever way to practice reality checks with a setting that I don't see normally that keeps recurring?
About intent: yes it's a bit slippery. I think over time you'll get a "feeling" about it being set. Intent on the other hand is not that hard, we intent to do things all the time in waking life: buy something at the store, remember to do some task.

About waking rehearsal of triggers that only occur in dreams: do what I call "daytime MILD:" visualize the dream scene you wish to recognize as dream, see yourself recognizing the experience as a dream and getting lucid, and then pursuing your lucid goals. You can also reinforce this with saying (either in your head or out loud, "I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!...". It's pretty much the same as night-time MILD just done during the day and from whatever dream visuals you can remember and want to install as a trigger.