This sucked.... :(

Okay, so last night I had a dream that I was at some kid's house and he had this cat. I have no idea who this kid is, but anyway, his cat dies and he says "This can't be real!" So I do a reality check in my dream. Now, when I do RC's during the day I just take my index fingernail and poke it into my thumb. It hurts a bit but not too much. So I do it and it hurts (I feel the sensation of the small pain)! What the heck!? So I'm like "Oh, guess I'm not dreaming..." then I go on with my dream. :(

Maybe it's cause I'm so used to doing it. I don't really feel anything anymore, I'll have to try something else.

Could be that you are expecting your finger not to go through and this is spilling over into your dreams. When you do this reality check, do you really concentrate on it and try to make it go through, or do you just do a simple poke and then you are done?

Yeah Davio - you really have to believe that it's going to happen, even in waking life.

One modification to your RC's you may want to consider is after you do your RC (in waking life) and nothing happens, do the same RC again but this time imagine what may have happened had it been a dream.

I had a dream once where I saw my dreamsign, and was going to do an RC, but felt so confident that it was reality that I decided not to bother :shakehead2: <-stupid!

I think what he meant was that the RC he does is to see if it hurts, not if it goes through, like pinching yourself. If that's the case, then you should know now that you can have very real physical sensations in the dream state, lucid or otherwise. That being said, you should try what the others are talking about; stick your finger through your hand, and imagine that it actualy is going through. It's much more reliable, not to mention more desireable, than pain as an RC. :D

Okay, thanks. Yeah, I just pinch/prick it and then I sometimes ask myself "How did I get here?" 'Cause in a lot of dreams, you're just somewhere for no reason.

I find the finger through the hand thing to be kind of a burden. It's too hard to do. I was in a dream, realized i might be dreaming so I decided to try out the old finger through the hand thing since I heard people talking about it on here. It worked.

A few nights later I decided to try it again. It didn't work. So then I did another RC and plugged my nose and tried to breathe. That worked and was easy as pie.

I would suggest the close your nose and try to breathe method... very easy to do with a better success rate. At least for me.

We all do that. RCs out of habit and in the dream it is with the same results. I think that is why some training courses say that you should think” what would it be like if I were dreaming” and really be critical about the state your in. Primarily “This could be a dream and if it were what would it be like” Until you prove it not so. Today on the road show, that’s a show that puts a value on items, I thought I heard a guy say “I got this bat from outer space” What! Could this be a dream? Then really do a RC to prove its not. In the mean time the thrill of being Lucid is present somewhat until it’s proven. Don’t get into the habit of knowing your awake. First think you could be asleep then prove it buy testing how stable your environment could or might not be.