the BIG Reality Check Topic [part II]

I have been successful doing RC Reality Checks with a “Dream Watch” <-- (is a digital watch with some alarms and countdown timers)

Basically I found the RC to be key in achieving Lucid Dreams for myself in my experiments. Basically I have a Timex Ironman Triathlon watch. It’s a great watch because you can use the computer to program its alarms, timers and features. You can set 10 alarms and 5 countdown timers. Perfect for the experiments I have been running.

Anyways I set the watch to go off every half hour with the hourly chime and a 1 hour repeated countdown timer. I also set the alarms but had no success using the alarms at night. I never hear them.

So every half hour I would check the text on the face of the watch three times to ensure that the date read correctly and if the watch read correctly then I would say out loud “I’m not dreaming”.

I had been doing this for about 5 days and was frustrated with this technique, thinking I’m never going to dream about my watch, how is this going to help?

Unfortunately that is the wrong way to look at the RC with a watch. A subject that is mentioned a lot in information of Lucid Dreaming induction techniques is that it’s all about awareness. This is absolutely correct in this case. Reinforcing this technique every day does not make you dream about your watch but makes you aware in your dream that you have a watch.

On my 6th night an RC with my watch induced a Lucid Dream. In the dream when I asked myself the question "Am I dreaming?” my first instinct was to do a RC with my watch. It worked perfectly, the first time I read the watch it looked fine, the second time the text was jumbled. Not sure still, I did it again with the same result. I then thought that I was confident that I was dreaming and away I flew.

The problem I find with trying to use the watch as a “DreamSign” in your dream is that you are at the peak of your awareness just before a potential Lucid Dream. So that even if everything that is happening in your dream is really odd you don’t realize it because everything seems so real. Your body has no hard input that you’re dreaming because all the input is now coming from your brain as oppose to when your awake, the input comes from your senses and your brain. This is why the RC with a watch is so helpful it provides the input your body needs to make the decision.

The RC I use with almost every LD I have is just thinking hard about how i got into the situation I am in and if i am dreaming there are always discrepencies and i realise i’m dreaming.

my 2 cents,
roger

That sounds good! Worth of trying I think… :eh:

I used to look at the clock or text, this has worked for me but I find it easier to just put my hand on my face and see if I can breathe easily.

I have been lucid dreaming regularly for a couple of years now, but have recently hit a problem. I tend to do reality checks as a matter of course during the day just to show that I am not dreaming. Recently I have been doing this in my dreams - doing reality checks which show that I am not dreaming. :neutral:
In a most recent example, I was flying up some stairs (I tend to do this when I am lucid). I reached a bedroom, and was about to fly out the window when it suddenly hit me “What if this is not a dream?”. I decided against jumping out the window and managed to convince myself that I was awake.
I felt so annoyed about this when I woke up - ruining a perfectly good opportunity.

I’m a complete amateur so my opinion may be of no consequence at all but i think it’s important when you ask yourself if you’re dreaming to seriously consider the fact that you may be dreaming. If you just ask yourself if your dreaming without really considrening that you may be, you’ll just fall into the routine of telling yourself no i’m not dreaming.

Like I said, i may just be wrong but this seems like a legitimate idea.

[quote=“Mizzzzzzzzo”]
to seriously consider the fact that you may be dreaming. If you just ask yourself if your dreaming without really considrening that you may be, you’ll just fall into the routine of telling yourself no i’m not dreaming.

[quote]

I find it better to actually presume you are dreaming, and then try and disprove it by finding something (or a few things, if you’ve got time) that make sense and wouldn’t be found in a dream. But eah, that’s a good idea.

A Reality Check ive used when everything was soo real!
Even tho i could jump very light… doing acrobatic jumping to check my reality in the dream… still i wasnt convinced that i was dreaming.
I walked out of my house and still even tho the outside was all different from waking life i still couldnt say to myself that i was dreaming because everything was t oo vivid and too real.

Here is what i did.

I closed the door and looked at the door.
I moved my hand to the lock WITHOUT having a key in my hand.
And then i did the locking movement and suddenly it clicked and i locked the door.
This was a real TurnOn, i was like in a total orgasm.
I looked around feeling like a king!

I think I’ve found a couple new reality checks! They seems to work pretty well for me…
Here is the first one; there is one prerequisite: You need to have less-than-perfect vision for this to work.
I noticed that, in real life, when I wake up, my vision is blurry - I can’t see the clock to do a reality check! If this happens, I instantaneously know that I am not dreaming, before I really have to DO the reality check. Similarly, with false awakenings, I realized that I was dreaming due to the fact that I could see so clearly.
Perhaps, if you have less than 20/20 vision, the first question you should ask yourself when you “wake up” is “Can I see clearly?” If you can, ask “Do I have my contacts in/my glasses on?” Hopefully, the answer really is no - you didn’t just forget to take them off! q= - and you can verify your dream state from there. Though this works best with false awakenings, there’s no reason why you couldn’t use the “vividness factor” check anywhere in a dream.
The second reality check has also served me well in the past. First, keep your alarm clock, or a book, or some object that you could use for a reality check in a specific spot, preferably right near your bed. Use it for a reality check every time you awaken for a good while. Make sure you get used to having it in that specific place. Then, one night, move the object to a different place - far away from where it originally was. You’ll find that in false awakenings, the object will still be where it originally was! Your brain hasn’t had time to get used to the change yet. Ask yourself whenever you wake up if the object is really where it is supposed to be, and you might just find you’re dreaming. This is still working for me, and I have moved my object a long time ago.
Sorry that was so long! I really hope it helped. Thanks for reading…good luck!

For the people wearing glasses:

Wouldn’t just putting your glasses off for a moment work? Or is your vision also blurry in a dream? I think it’s not.

Anyone experienced with that?

JJJ

Wow; what a brilliant idea, I hadn’t thought of that! I’ll try it if I get a chance next time…
Come to think of it, I’m not sure if I wear glasses in my dream, though. That’s why I thought of the previous reality check up there. But if I am wearing glasses, and I know I’m dreaming, I’ll tell you what happens when I take them off. Thanks for the idea!

Well my dream-version of my alarm clock worked just fine this morning even when i checked it 3 times when i had a false awakening. Then i went up and through a doorpost wich now has a door in it since a couple of years back… Once through the “door” i was fully dressed and sat down on a chair to have breakfast. I fell asleep on it (or the dream faded) and woke up in my bed one hour earlier than the clock was in my dream. This time the awakening was a real one.

My only lucid dream so far was triggered by a digital watch. I guess i might need the second display for it to get messed up, minutes and hours seems to work fine :eh:

My other RC’s which i perform whenever i have a chance to are to try and put my finger through the bathroom mirror, counting fingers and reading texts in public transportation environments and of course to ‘backtrack’ through my thoughts. Anyone have an idea about other RC’s you can do discretely without people noticing? I often dream of trains, busses, airplanes etc. So i need to be able tio do RC’s in them in real life.

On the other hand my mobile seems to be a good RC even thought it does not have seconds. The whole display got messed up in my dream this night when i looked twice. And the clock display was not even there anymore. Too bad everything faded instantly as i relised it was a dream which freaked me out and then i woke up :grrr:

A little tip for those who uses an alarm clock at night to do RCs in their dreams…

If u have a Cell phone with vibrator, put it under your pillow after you have set it to ring in the middle of the night. Hopefully you will hear the beeps in your dream and do a RC, but if you dont you will probably feel your pillow vibrating. It worked well for me. I also use a hands free ear piece some times. Just plug it in to your cell phone and you will hear the sound louder.

i wear contacts mostly so in my dreams, i’m not wearing glasses, but i have had dreams (non-lucid ones) where i would get poked in the eye or something and my contact would pop out and i’d be trying to put it back in (which never works btw because my contact will grow and get thick) but if i look at the world one eye will be clear and the other eye will be blurry

i had a lucid dream once which was an FA, and i woke up in my bed after trying the spinning technique and was like “it didn’t work” i squinted my eyes at my alarm clock (the world was still blurry but when i squinted it came into just enough focus for me to read my clock) i was pissed when i woke up for real because absolutely no amount of squinting would let me read my clock from my bed (my vision is absolutely awful)

so i dunno if corrective lenses would be good to use for a reality check, cause my dream vision is still blurry w/o them, probably cause i expect it to be

anyway, on to my frustration… i usually don’t even do RCs to become lucid, usually my dreams are so weird that i know i have to be dreaming the second i slightly question reality. but the other day my environment wasn’t too out of the ordinary, and even though i could fly, it wasn’t proof enough for me. i was flying around and nobody was impresssed. come to think of it, my DCs are never impressed with my ability to fly, they act like it’s normal. so i started wondering if i could fly in real life since nobody was impressed

i was sitting there hovering in the air and trying to remember if i could fly IRL. i then decided to do another test so i landed and closed my eyes and tried to conjure something up (i wasn’t sure if flying was normal or not but if i could conjure something up i thought then i definitely would know for sure that i was dreaming)

it didn’t really work (i’m really bad at conjuring stuff up) and i couldn’t open my eyes again after i closed them (i should’ve never closed them in the first place) and i woke up :sad:

why couldn’t i remember that flying is not something that people do IRL?

Would putting a sticky note everywhere you go on your morning routine help to make RC checks. Like, putting a sticky note that says “dreaming?” on all your books, maybe a column in the subway station? on your comptuer at work. Would that help or would you just grow dependant on the notes to make the RCs.

It would certainly be interesting for other people that find them. =D

-Crowe

When I did RCs in the past I just wrote “LD” on my hand and everytime I saw this I did an RC. After a while I did them spontaneously so I guess it rather helps instead of making you dependant. Don’t do them only in the morning; do them the whole day. The most difficult part is to do them a lot without making a mere routine out of it. With routine I mean doing them without really expecting to be in a dream, already assuming you’re not dreaming while doing them. You really have to create a critical reflex, always being open to the possibility you’re dreaming right now. And try to combine RCs with other techniques like WBTB and MILD, don’t just rely on them.

I’ve heard that connecting seeing your hand with doing an RC works well. I’m going to pursue this method… If you make a habit of doing an RC when you see your hand (or anyone else’s!) you’ll do it in your dreams, too, from what I understand. Of course the fact that your hand may look distorted in some way while dreaming also works fine as an RC :wink:

I’ve always had a problem with reality checks because I perceive everything as completely normal in a dream. Blurry clock, messed up text, etc. I think I definitely need more practice in that area. However… during probably the clearest LD I’ve had (which last about 10 to 20 secs), the first thing I did AFTER I realised ‘this is a dream’, was poking my arm through a wall ‘because this is a dream and anything is possible’.

Has anyone here tried the computer beeping programs? My computer is in my room so I could do it, but none of the programs work correctly. :\

Other than that I think I might use my alarm clock. I can see it from my bed when I raise my head since it’s standing a few meters away and not next to my head. So I can always see the bright red numbers when I look up, and I also glance at it pretty often when I’m at the computer or in my room.

I guess my problem is that I’m too accepting of my dreams. I’m very quick to believe stuff so when I dream it’s like everything is perfectly normal to me, even when strange stuff happens. I suppose this is the situation of a normal dreaming person. I hope that through practice with MILD and a dream diary I’ll be more alert when I go to sleep. My mind is lazy, heh. ^^

I’ve been doing RCs for a month or so with my digital watch when I can remember to check. But the one LD that I’ve had didn’t occur by those RCs. I was playing cards in my dream and I looked at two cards another person set down. When I looked a second time, they changed from kings to sevens. Then I knew I was dreaming, and changed my cards. Man, that was the weirdest feeling.