The Importance Of Reality Checks.

Why do you do reality checks in the daytime? Please correct me if you don’t. But to me, doing a reality check in the daytime seems stupid. That’s because I KNOW that I’m not dreaming, my concious and subconcious brain knows I’m not dreaming, so I don’t need a reality check. Please explain and elaborate.

do it in the daytime so it becomes a habit, so that you would do it in your dreams aswell, and become lucid

It’s nothing stupid about it.
Dreams usually contain fragments of events that
occured during daytime.
So there is a probability that you will do a realitycheck in your dream.
That’s the reason why people are doing them daytime, so that they hopefully will occur in a dream.

yeah, doing RC’s are important if you wanna do techniques like MILD, or DILD RC"s would really help

Thanks for your replies, but i still don’t understand. You do a reality check to build a habit for your dreams? So your doing a RC, knowing that your not dreaming, just to build a habit?

I’ve been also wondering about that one:

In reality I’m sure that I am not dreaming, and I know it. But in dreams I’m also convienced that I am not dreaming. RC’s are great way to question and test your current reality.

Edit:Well, habit is also important :smile:

Ok. You do it while you’re awake to it becomes habit like everyone else said. But it has more affect then you obviously think. When you do a RC you have to really consider the fact that you might be dreaming. Because when you’re dreaming do you know you’re dreaming? Not unless you’re lucid! So doing reality checks often imprints it into your concious and subconcious.

So now that its imprinted, you’re in a dream and you don’t know you’re dreaming. You do a RC like you always do, WOAH wait a minute! You’re not awake! Woot.

Do you get it now? When you’re asleep you don’t know you’re asleep. So whats to say you arn’t asleep right now? Because dreams do seem real when you’re in them. You need to learn to prove that they are not. RC’s is how you do it.

I dont really find RC very important anymore. I never use them in LD’s anymore because i already know im lucid when the dream first begins.

wow, if only i knew that >.<. i ALWAYS miss my dreamsigns thats why i got into doing RC’s ive had a few ld’s with em… about 3 or 4

I dont really see any dreamsigns i just know im luicid, its kinda cool i guess.

Even if you “know” during daytime that you aren´t dreaming, you normally don´t think that you COULD be dreaming, thus your brain takes the reality as simply granted.
The second you do a reality check (or even just think about dong one for that matter), your brain has to take into consideration that it could be dreaming, waging the different factors of perception against each other.
When i do rality checks i don´t think so much about the action itself but much more about the possibilities that could be.
Am i awake or am i dreaming.
You are in a more aware state of mind and thus more able to recognize that you are dreaming, if you are questioning things.

/me clears her throat loudly.

Oh, of course we all feel the same way during waking life; we’re completely sure that we’re awake, but so are we in dreams! I’ve had plenty of dreams in which I was completely sure that I was awake, and yet all it took was a reality check to prove otherwise. In fact, if you go by that logic, even while you’re awake and sure of it, you have to take the time to think to yourself, if I’m so sure that I’m awake in a normal dream before lucidity, why should I be so sure now?

As some people mentioned already, doing reality checks eventually become a habit so that when the time comes, you’ll remember to RC during a dream. In fact, the mentality that you’re explaining now can easily block attaining lucidity; before becoming lucid I’ve had experiences where I “KNOW” that I’m not dreaming. There have also been a few experiences where I was so sure of this that the reality check failed and I never became lucid because I was so sure that I wasn’t in a dream.

That isn’t to say that I have a tough time with lucid dreaming or that all lucid dreams start out this way; I’ve had several lucid dreams where I suddenly became lucid without the need of a reality check, or the dream started out lucid or whatever. However, some dreams are just a tad more doubtful.

Lucidity is when you really can say “I am dreaming!” The thing is, your brain wants to tell you, sometimes very effective, that you’re not. So even if you’re 100% sure that you’re awake over the day (and you can be), while you’re dreaming sometimes you’re just almost as sure. Reality checks make the line between those two clearer and LDing easier.

I use RCs while i’m lucid, to increase lucidity…

As some people have pointed out, part of doing an RC is getting in the habit, but just as important as getting in the habit of doing the RC’s is. It is also learning to get in the habit of questioning if you are dreaming or not. As many have said, you always “know” when you are not dreaming, however, if you never question if you are dreaming or not durring a dream, then you will also “know” that you are not dreaming in the dream. That is also why many say that after a while they no longer need to do RC’s. They have gotten in the habit of questioning reality, so as soon as they start to question it, they know if they are in a dream or not, and if they are in a dream, they become lucid.
The fact is that we are used to accepting dreams as reality while we are in them. All kinds of things can happen that we know can’t happen in reality, but in the dream it is ok. What we are doing with RC’s is teaching ourselves to be a bit more critical in our dreams so that we can become lucid.
Note: this does not work for everyone. You can find lots of posts here about how many and how offten RC’s fail in dreams. You can also find lots of people who say that RC’s are the tech. that gives them the most dreams.
don

I find that it is much more important to ask myself whether I am dreaming than actually performing the RC! This is because If I ask myself this question, I can do a RC or stabilizing technique, or some other thing that will only work in a dream (asking DCs whether they think this is a dream or the like) and immediately know I am dreaming. Thus, asking this question almost implies becoming lucid in a dream! For me, it is like having attained a low level of lucidity even before doing a RC.

I admit that it can be difficult to question the state of consciousness in WL - after all, you are absolutely sure you are not dreaming. But it is possible to take advantage of confusing situations in WL to trick the mind into questioning reality. For example, if I am surprised, if something seems just strange or if I am absent-minded (just after reading a book, drawing, or even having listened to music for a long time, for example), it comes more natural to ask “Could this be a dream?”. Probably sounds :crazy:, but that’s the way it seems to work for me. :mrgreen:

Edit: Just to make my point clearer, I think just randomly doing RCs in WL without actually asking the question whether you are dreaming is a waste of time. You may end up doing the RC in a dream and still think everything is normal!

To motivate RCs during waking hours, all I have to do is think of the times that I have thought I might be dreaming, but everything seemed so real. And even saying to myself, “if it turns out later that this is a dream I will be annoyed with myself.”, doing that and still not doing a RC and failing to realise I was dreaming.
Remembering how it felt in that moment I say to myself again “if it turns out…”. If you had that happen to you, you understand exactly why you do RCs in waking life.

From now on it’s RCs 100 times a day for me… :eek:
I had a dream that felt soooooooo real that even when a woman started shouting at me “RC RC RC!!” and i actualy did the nose RC (but realised i didn’t have a nose) i completely ignored it and went on with the dream… :ack:
So yes… it is possible to mix dreams with real life… :bored:

Sometimes when I’m awake I dont ever realy know I’m awake thus I do an RC :tongue: