Wow that’s a very helpful response, Sageous; thanks!
About including the exchange -- yes that’s fine, I don’t mind.
Originally Posted by Sageous
Unless you've become a total creature of habit and do RC's without thinking about them (which is bad), or use an alarm of some sort to remind you to do RC's (which is not part of your question), yes, doing a RC is actually a product of your awareness, of remembering for whatever reason that you are supposed to do one (in waking-life or in dreams). So you would indeed possess a bit of self-awareness at the time of doing a RC, and that is good. But the purpose of the RC, I believe, isn't to create lucidity, but to confirm it. Yes, you can become aware that maybe you are dreaming when you see a dreamsign, but that bit of awareness might not be enough.
Without the physical reinforcement of a RC, that awareness will probably fade quickly, especially if you are in the midst of waking-life distractions. Or, worse, without a physical digression to doing a RC, when you see a dreamsign you will quickly learn to say to yourself, "Oh look, there's my dreamsign! But I know I'm in waking-life right now, so this is not a dream," followed by a return to whatever it was you were doing, dreamsign and the possibility of being in a dream forgotten. And, sure enough, this same thing will happen when you get that dreamsign in a NLD, without a hint of lucidity. Adding a RC to that moment of awareness sustains the moment, and confirms not only your state but your interest in that state. I think that is their real value, especially in the beginning of your lucid journey.
Ah I see. As well as having the right mindset, I have found dream signs to be particularly useful. I’ve had dreams where I was spurred into doing a RC from noticing something I had been RC’ing to IWL, thus becoming lucid. But yes at times that this did happen, I suspected that I might’ve been dreaming upon encountering it, but the actual check amplified my self-awareness. If I hadn’t have done it, I might have continued the dream non-lucidly. This does make sense actually because the RC ultimately gave my slightly self-aware DC something to latch on to.
Originally Posted by Sageous
All that said, remember that your RC can involve little more than eye-movement or perhaps a quiet flex of your fingers in your pocket as the, say, squeeze an object you keep there for just this occasion. There is no specific requirement in what you have to do, as long as what it does tests and confirms your state accurately and meaningfully.
Good to know. Oddly enough, I had the idea once that I would RC any time I spoke to someone. Eventually I had a NLD where I was in the midst of a conversation thinking: “I should RC…but how?…she’s looking!”. So instead, I tried to just emphatically and broadly determine my state -- wrongly concluding it was reality. This led me to think “there must be a way to determine my state without checking it” -- but yes, I can see now why the actual check would be important, for the reasons you’ve listed. Also, thinking back on it, I could have easily looked for something in the dream environment, looked away and checked if it changed -- or lots of other things.
|
|
Bookmarks