Thread: Strange experience

hmm, i guess sometimes people have very detialed dreams. Next time do a reality check by flying. Just try differenrt things and one of them will work.

i've had similar experiences.

any time you seriously think you might be dreaming, you probably are. i've had that 'feeling' before, and been fooled by reality checks.

and personally, i wouldn't have considered any of the things you tried an actual reality check. looking in the mirror? that can fool you. looking at your hands? that's a good technique if you're already lucid, and need to increase clarity or stabilize the dream, but if you are non-lucid, and everything is already clear, you'll only convince yourself you're awake when you see two normal hands.
please don't get me wrong, i'm not saying you're an idiot or anything, just giving my opinion. i did similar things when i first started, and thought they would show if i was dreaming or not. but i quickly learned how easy it is to be fooled in a dream.
the fact the layout of your bedroom seemed normal is an example. or the fact your face seemed normal in the mirror. it is easy to be fooled by 'general' reality checks.

in my experience, the absolute best reality check is to re-read an entire paragraph, look away, and then re-read it. if even a single word seems off, repeat until you are absolutely sure it has stayed the same.

i've had a dream where i looked around my room, and everything seemed normal. i looked at the digital clock three times, and it stayed the same. i looked at my hands and lower body, and it was normal.
and the same way you thought "maybe i should see if i can fly", i thought "maybe i should read an entire paragraph". i almost didn't. but i did, and halfway through the words started jumbling all around.

i suspect that the dreaming mind can only recreate text or sequences of numbers up to a certain point, and then it lapses into chaos. whereas if you do a 'general' reality check (surveying the room for instance) it is easy to be fooled, because as long as each item seems normal its hard to notice the way they are put together is unusual. whereas with letters and words, they either stay in the same order, and make sense, or they don't.

hope this helps

As Asher was saying, it's good to do more than one reality check just in case the one you do fails. One that always has worked for me is to plug my nose and try to breathe normally through it. If I can breathe, then obviously I'm dreaming. There are more ideas, also, in the Tutorial forum under "Reality Checks."

I'd highly advise against jumping out a window as a reality check, though.

-Ame

Thanks for the replies.

I've never had that sort of lucid dream before. Previously, my LDs have always involved a sudden realisation - like, I'm sitting an exam and getting really stressed out because I can't answer any of the questions, then I just suddenly think "but it doesn't matter, because it's only a dream!" - things like that.

I think I'm getting the hang of this. 8)

I had a whole series of lucid dreams this morning, all on the theme of being worried about the horses escaping. In some, I was unsure whether I was dreaming or not, but the flying worked well as a reality check. In another, I looked out the window, saw the horses in the lane, ran down stairs (a very much more impressive staircase than the real one ), opened the back door, then realised it wasn't the back door at all, but the front door of a car - and that worked as a reality check too. Strangely, one of the horses looking like a black highland cow rather than a horse didn't seem to faze my dreaming self!