Strange & confusing (almost) lucid dream ?

I just woke up from by far the longest dream I have ever had. Or, the most I have remembered, I should say. Possibly some of the most vivid, too. I have never written a dream log so long.

Something really strange happened. It was a very stressful dream, about trying to get to the airport for a flight, not being able to find my way there, losing my boarding pass, missing the replacement flight, and so much else. But, something REALLY strange happened. At one point, I thought to myself - Wait, this is a dream. I know this has to be a dream. Immediately I tried putting my hand through the wall as a reality check, but it didnt work. I feel like I tried at least one more reality check, but I cant remember what it was. Me knowing I was dreaming but the reality checks failing confused me, so I lost lucidity. At least I’m fairly sure thats what happened.

On top of that oddity, I also vaguely remember somehow forcing myself awake because the dream was so stressful. I may have closed my eyes, since a few days ago thats how I accidentally woke up out of a lucid dream. Either way, it worked, but I went right back to sleep, and the dream resumed, which is frustrating because that has not worked when I actually wanted it to.

The last “wtf” thing that happened, was that I was standing by a bookshelf in line for TSA, and picked up a book about astral projection. Then a man near me handed me a book about lucid dreaming, so I proceeded to tell him about my earlier experience with becoming lucid and the reality checks failing. He was distracted and not really listening. Somehow, none of this triggered me to realize I was dreaming or even do a reality check as I probably would have done in waking life in that situation. I have been missing a crapton of really obvious triggers in my dreams like that lately.

I also want to add one more thing - I have gone on a lot of trips lately, and seriously everytime I fly somewhere, the day before or after the trip I will have a lucid dream out of nowhere. I would say about 75% of my lucid dreams have been before or after a trip at this point. Thats what happened this past monday night after landing back home from LA. But in this one, for the first time in my dreams, lucid or not, I remember looking at a clock, and it read just fine! I thought they were supposed to be screwy in dreams, like in the movie Waking Life! I even use the clock as one of my main reality checks. What in the world, reality checks, why are you failing me!?

I just wanted to see if anyone had any input on the whole, failed reality check thing. Do I just chalk this up as false lucidity or something? I mean, as I said Ive been dreaming a whole lot about lucid dreaming and things that should trigger me without realizing I was dreaming right then, but this time I knew I was dreaming, at least briefly. I’m very confused and havent ever heard of something like this happening to anyone even though all I do nowadays is read about lucid dreaming and metaphysics, so I’m pretty bewildered at the moment.

Your situation sounds like several lucid dreams I’ve had in which I said, “I’m dreaming! That means I can fly!” and then I jumped in the air and came right back down like I do when I’m awake.

I guess if there’s truly no limit to the things we can dream about, then we can also dream about walls that are solid and clocks that read correctly.

It’s possible that even knowing that you’re dreaming, your expectations are habitually conforming to the world you’re used to living in, and so the wall, as expected, stops your hand from going through. Overcoming waking life expectations while within a lucid dream has been an ongoing challenge for me. Perhaps one way through is to make a point of recalling, while you are in the lucid dream, that you have had other dreams in which the “impossible” happened, and therefore the “impossible” can happen in this dream too.

I would put your fingers through your palm as a reality check, as it’s a bit easier in dreams without walls. It also makes sure you have both of your hands, and you can focus on making sure they look correct to make it more vivid. So with the reality check, were you expecting your hand to go through the wall, or were you not sure?

With the waking yourself up part, unless you did a :rc: you can’t be sure that it wasn’t just a FA, I get tons of them in vivid LD’s.

When you missed the obvious dream sign, just know that it happens to everyone, and I often am talking about dreams but not even considering if I’m in a dream, while I’m dreaming.

Finally, about the clock, do not listen to the tutorials! I believe that everyone can see text in dreams (I see it all the time!), and the only reason most people don’t is because the tutorials tell you that you can’t. If a guide tells you exactly what’s going to happen, it will.

The whole idea about reality checks is that they depend on what you expect from them. That being said, I don’t understand why many people continue to use very concealed/hidden ways to test whether they are dreaming or not. If the whole thing works based on expectation, then why not use that to our advantage and blow things out of proportion? Instead of looking at clocks or text, why not change the whole setting, or create something from your imagination, or turn gravity upside down? I find it better to create something more obvious or spectacular, something that immediately catches my attention and lets me know I’m dreaming.

In my opinion, memory is the most reliable reality test we can use. It always works, and provides convincing evidence to let us know whether one’s dreaming or not. It’s also very simple to use: whenever you find yourself wondering whether you could be dreaming or not, ask and answer yourself the following three questions:

Where am I?
How did I got here?
What was the last thing I remember doing?

You’ll find out that by the time you finish answering these questions, it’ll be easy for you to conclude whether you’re dreaming or not.

Hope this helps. :smile:

Another good one:

“Can I remember the last time I went to sleep and the last time I woke up?”

I’m just realizing that the dreams I have that aren’t set in the city I currently live in have a great big reality check waiting for me to notice: “I am not in the place where I last went to sleep. Can I remember how I got from Boulder to New Orleans?” And so forth.

I also have issues sometimes with reality checks being negative during a dream (like the finger test where you effectively count five fingers). And even if they are positive it sometimes happens that I’m not convinced and that it goes back to a non lucid dream again.

These dreams are called ‘pre lucid dreams’ from what I remember.

I use the term similarly. For me, any dream in which I question my dream state or think about being in a dream, but don’t quite break through to the realization that I am dreaming, counts as pre-lucid.

Example: I frequently have versions of recurring nightmare themes in which I actually think, “Oh no! This is just like in those dreams I have! Only now it’s for real!” I tend to consider that a pre-lucid dream.

I don’t think I’ve actually actually achieved lucidity via reality check. But I’d like to–it would give me more control over whether I can get lucid. Up to now, all the lucid dreams I remember (except the one spontaneous WILD years ago) came from spontaneous realizations apropos of pretty much nothing.

I was thinking about that a lot. That would be a perfect RC. I mean how could you not tell that you just went to sleep when you find yourself in a completely different setting but sadly it doesn’t work that easily. I guess if you would practice LL and ADA like in hardcore way then this is possible. Because this dream logic will mostly always find a way to rationalize the situation you currently find yourself.

Just to reply to the thing about reality checks, it would be kind of embarrassing if you start waving your hands around in public trying to change gravity or something. In dreams, it’s fine to do that but it’s hard to do crazy reality checks in real life without them looking crazy.