Which RCs work for you, and how?

Considering I had my first LD where I was really in control of the situation last night, i’m kinda curious as to what other people do? Obviously we know about various RCs, but how do you experience them?

like, for me, when I do the nose pinch RC, i’m able to breathe, but it feels like my nose is much smaller, as if it wasn’t fully pinched. So far this is the only RC i’ve been able to do more than once, and this result is fairly consistant. Does it happen to anyone else?

I tried the “push your finger through your hand” RC, didn’t work, I didn’t pay too much attention to my hands, but they looked normal.

I also tried the light switch RC, which caused the light to flash briefly (which shouldn’t have happened, especially considering I have a push-button light and not a switch anyway), although when I turned it off, and turned it back on while chanting “light light light…” in my head the light came on dim and got brighter (usually my light comes on bright and doesn’t go dim unless I hold the “On/Off” button for too long)

Also, more of a DS than an RC, but is it common for people to see right handed cars in dreams? Because I know i’ve had a car reverse on me like that, and I read about it happening to someone else.

Looking at my hand: my hands never looks quite OK in my dreams, it’s very decisive RC for me: it’s either strangely blurry or there’s some anomaly (too many fingers, forked fingers etc.)

Mirror: tried once, reflection was chaotic.

Pushing finger through solid: tried once, worked, felt like pushing my finger through higly viscous liquid

Text: triggered lucidity once, text changed with every additional look.

-NL

  1. Clocks. Lookit 'em, remember the time, look away, look back and see if the time has changed. Blinking at a clock can also be amusing.

  2. Count fingers. This is actually harder than it sounds - sometimes I even struggle to remember how many fingers I’m meant to have. ‘Twelves fingers - dang, I guess I aint dreaming then…’ :razz: Trying to move extra fingers feels odd as well. I also find that shaking my hands makes me gain/lose fingers.

  3. Pinch nose. I can feel my nose has been pinched shut, but at the same time, I can breathe. Also, breathing under water is incredibly cool, and if you haven’t yet tried it, do.

The text ones generally aren’t that effective for me. The writing stays the same, or else I can’t read or remember it in the first place.

Pushing my finger through my hands doesn’t work too well for me either.

The three above are the ones that get the best results for me, whilst at the same time can offer some amusement.

I don’t need a RC atall. When I realize it is a dream I just fly around or kill people with an invisible sword.

personally i’m not much of a risk taker, so i’m not going to try doing much in an LD until i’m sure it’s an LD =p

The nose RC works well for me.
Lately I’ve been having problems walking through things so that doesnt work well anymore.
Looking at my hands works well.
Flying or hovering is a good one.
Just randomly questioning my surroundings had proved to be the most sucessful way of making me lucid.

For me looking at text is very effective, but i don’t often have text handy when I’m prelucid. I really wish I did it’s cool. I like it when I look at the text and it changes before my eyes.
My hands are always there. And if I’m clearheaded enough I am already almost convinced I’m dreaming and I usually have and extra pinky finger.
One that I haven’t had any luck with is inspecting my surroundings. I usually just conclude that it seems real enough. I forget to look for oddities.
Thinking back over the past few minutes can work too. But it’s harder than a “physical” test.

Well, when i had my first LD last week, I become fully lucid when I did the hand through wall RC. I also looked at my hand, and saw it looked different than IRL.

I personally like looking at text, that nearly always gets me lucid. Pinching my nose works well too. :smile:

Usually the RC’s I use in my dreams work well-- but the problem for me is that I usually don’t do them at all in dreams. :razz:

hrm, when i has an LD i didnt remember to do an RC. i just knew i was LDing, i guess cuz i fell asleep LDing and didnt need a RC.huh. i wanna try the mirror one, and try to walk through it. that should be fun

hehe i was in a ND and normally i know i am dreaming but i decided to put my finger in my hand and it failed and i held my breath and that failed so i stayed in the normal dream which sucked, i knew it was a dream too thats why i tried it in the first place arrg hehe.

i think if u knew u were in the dream at the time of the dream its still an LD
therability to control it depends on the person or the experience.
i think. im no expert, hell i only had 1 LD
im just throwin round ideas heehee

I find that the hand reality check is most effective if you take the time to count your fingers. Consciously count them. I actually just wrote wrote a fairly long article about RCs, as well as the important parts to remember about them.

I have failure with the RCs of

  • push finger through solid - item stayed solid!
  • look at fingers - they looked normal only 10!
  • hold nose and breathe - couldn’t breathe

I have used digital clock RC and thinks its best.

When no clocks are around I will try hop in air. In dreams I stay floating in mid-air.

I use MILD mostly, so I just recognize I am dreaming and don’t normally need to RC. In my first 25 LDs, five of them involved RCs. Next 25 had zero RCs.

While I’m on a current LD dryspell, the RCs that used to work for me the most a few months back are the hand related ones. Pushing my finger throught the palm of my other hand never failed me (you have to really believe it’s possible). Looking at my hands was a surefire also, they’d often come out purple and fuzzy. Looking at the sky can also lead to the most amazing views.

Anyway, I guess in the end it comes down to believing that RCs failing is possible, which is hard to do in waking life because you don’t exactly expect extra fingers to pop out on your hand out of the blue.

My only LD (for now) became a LD when I did the digital clock RC.