Thread: Reality Checks...What Am I Doin?

Welcome to the forums!
Id recommend trying to breath through your nose while holding the nostrils closed or trying to push a finger through the palm of your hand.
The idea of reality checks is to get into the habit of trying to test reality during the day to check if you're dreaming, and hopefully take these same habits into your dreams. While dreaming you should find you can, for instance, breath with your nostrils closed and you should then realise its a dream.

Its important to actually test reality, be openminded when you attempt to push your finger through the palm of your hand, if you get into the habit of thinking "this is stupid" and not really putting any effort in then you'll take that same habit into your dreams. Its really a case of actually (and seriously) questioning and testing whether you're dreaming or not, and hopefully repeating these tests when you dream.

Hope this helps

Edit:
The hand rubbing is usually used during a lucid dream to prolong the lucid, the rubbing of hands and the feelings produced seem to anchor the dreamer more firmly in the dream. I believe its all to do with engaging more of the senses within the dream.

The digital clock check comes in a few variants i believe, but the main one is when you look at the time on a digital clock and then look away remembering what the time was. When you look back at the clock a second or so later you check to see whether the time is noticably different. If the time is over a minute difference for instance this could indicate a dream.
Another form of the digital clock check is simply looking at the clock to see if it makes sense, sometimes the numbers flick around or simply arn't numbers in dreams, but id advise against this method as the dreaming mind isn't as capable at seeing these flaws as the waking mind.