newbie seeking some guidance about recent experiences

Hi all! First of all I would just like to say how interesting this site is. It is very nice to see that so many of you are so helpful and willing to respond to newbie questions.

That said, I would like to explain my current situation and ask for any insights.

Over a year ago I was in a near fatal car accident. Since then I have often had dreams of wrecking my car that terrified me. At some point it seems my mind created a certain escape mechanism to help me "escape" from these nightmares.

Whenever my dream would get too terrifying I would close my eyes in the dream and sort of hum. At this I would instantly wake up. I remebered these instances vividly, and started contemplating them when I was awake.

Recently, I discovered that I seem to have started using this technique in other dreams. For example, I recently had a dream that I won 33 million dollars in the lottery. I was very excited and having all sorts of fun when I thought to myself "could this be a dream?" At this point I did my eye closing humming thing and I instantly woke up.

After looking around on the site a little, it seems that the technique I have discovered in my dream seems sort of like a reality check that has been described in the tutorials. Unfortunately, in my case the reality check causes me to instantly leave the dream and wake up.

I can remember at least 8 occaisons when this has happened in my dreams recently (and this is not including the driving nightmares), so I think I have started to break into the world of lucid dreaming, but my reality check is sort of hindering me.

Any suggestions or comments? Do you think my assessment is correct? Am I starting to have lucid dreams? Any input would be appreciated! Thanks!

I don’t think you humming is a Reality Check. You have set this behavior up to wake yourself from, initially, a bad dream, and now from any dream that you hum in.

So you need to learn what some of the reality checks are and use them the next time you think you may be dreaming. Have you seen this: http://www.dreamviews.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4935

Hi there! Thanks for your response. I see what you are saying and that makes sense. The only thing I thought might make it a reality check was that I did it in my dream on purpose because I thought I was dreaming. Thanks for the link I have been looking over these and will try them instead of my little eyes closed humming thing next time. Thanks!

This seems to be a sort of knee jerk reaction that your having, I would suggest that when awake you practice thinking "Wait, is this a dream?" then do a reality check without the humming thing.With any luck your mind will get used to this and stop it from happening in your dreams.

The humming trick would still be useful if you wanted to wake yourself out of a bad dream. At least you have a fail-safe way to wake upif you want to!

Even though you do the humming in a dream it doesn’t count as a Realilty Check. You aren’t testing reality, you’re testing your ability to hum. Even good solid reality checks can trip you up. I’ve seen people stab themselves with a pin in a dream, not feel any pain, and still not become lucid.

I personally never do RCs awake or asleep. I become lucid occasionally thru Dream Signs, but most commonly by spontaneously realizing that I am dreaming. Reality Checks can become a crutch; a rubber crutch that will let you down from time to time. They have been enormously useful to may people, but they have also proved to be an enormous pain to many others. Test the waters.