How do you know you are not dreaming?

This morning when I came to work, I did a RC as usually. It was negative, as usually. Then it hit me: How do I know I am not dreaming? I walked around in the empty shopping mall, trying to imagine what it would look like if this was a dream. In a dream, there would for example be unknown doors where I would expect them to be. I walked around the entire mall to find out why this was not a dream. I was expecting things to look as they do in a LD.

This made me a 10 minutes long RC. Besides, I now know that shopping mall better than I did before. Maybe it would be an useful question to ask: How do I know I am not dreaming?

Arrgh, I wish my english was better. I hope you will understand what I am trying to say

Your RC’s always confirm reality if you’re not dreaming, but only some of the time if you are dreaming. The biggest difference you’ll see in dreams is that the environment is not stable, even if it is extremely vivid and realistic.

Of course I know the difference. What I was trying to say was, this way i can imagine being in a LD while I’m awake. Maybe it’s possible to “train” your brain so you can recognize the dreamsigns easier.

I don’t think you can make everything “look” like it would in a LD. All you can really do is try to imagine what your surroundings would be like if you were in a dream.

I know that I am not dreaming when things make sense. ^.^

Groove on

Yes, that was exactly what I was trying to say. Sorry about my bad English.

I think that’s a traditional Tibetan dream yoga technique, looking at your surroundings as if it’s a dream. There’s something about it in EWLD if I’m not mistaken.

Yes it is. It is also in EWLD under the combined Tholey technique.

You do RC then image everything is a dream and pick out a dream sign. Then you imagine you are doing something you want to do in your dreams (like flying) then you tell yourself next time you will realize when you are dreaming. ( short description )

Yes it can help you remember dreamsigns.

yep i totaly get what you mean. How much does it trip you out. to look around this world and try and figure out if you are dreamin or not, and even when all your RC fail you still want to be sure and you keep looking. I did this for close to 4 hours. After wards i was so detached from reality that my head hurt and people were asking me what i had been taking.

But that is just the question isnt it. How do we know we are not dreaming. Inside the dream state we can take things from outside it and test it. For example: gravity. We all know there is no such thing as that in our dreams unless we create it, and there for knowing this it can be tested as a RC. Flying.

But do you remember when you didnt LD. you just made up some strange excuse and went along with your lives inside the dream,. like there is no gravity because the gravity machine broke. or somthing like that.

What about this waking world. We think it is real. and ofcourse all of our RC fail, but they only fail because we are basing them on laws of this world. The dream world doesnt have laws, as far aswe know. but is this world real? we cant do a RC to check it cuz we dont have anything to compare it against.

Have we really woken up in this world yet?

Well said, TimeLess_Soul. You voiced my thoughts exactly (minus your grammar/writing). J/K. I think DA’s too hard on you. That was a pretty cognizant post, in my opinion.

lol ty. That is because i was drinking a coffee while writing it, trust me that will wear off in bout 30 more seconds :d

I must admit, that was one of his best written post I’ve seen recently!

Recently I’ve noticed I wasn’t dreaming when I notice regular dream themes or signs. Such as a recent dream involved me collecting things I enjoy, but when I wake up empty handed I’m disappointed. I remember when I’m dreaming “boy this is so good, I hope I don’t wake up disappointed” and then I suddenly without doing RCs realize I’m dreaming.

I also do this with people from my past as DCs. When I see people from my past I think “oh wow, I have not seen you in so long” and it reminds me that I dream of these meetings often. Sometimes I’ll say to the DC “I always have dreams of seeing you.”
When this happens it doesn’t always trigger lucidity, but more than often it does.

lol tyvm.

I understand ya DA. i think that is teh best way to get lucid. Cuz you dont get surprised by a RC. Well that is imo anyway. I think that has a lot to do with memory and even more so, keepin a DJ. So whoever wrote that DJ = LD was Right

having your ideas of reality blurred is very very strange

i mean lately, i’ve been waking up, and doing reality checks, repeatedly, and KNOWING that i’m awake… but then it turns out I actually wasn’t?

It doesn’t make sense… really… how the reality checks would extensively fail, how absolutely LIFELIKE the “dreams” were

it is almost as if I am time traveling, or something… I don’t know.

Last night in the early morning… I started falling asleep, and I would hear my dad say my name… and I’d wake up… and then… I’d think “no, he isn’t here, that was a hypnagogic hallucination… go back to sleep” and this happened like 3 times in a row, over a time span of what felt like maybe 30 minutes.

So then I dreamed… for a very long time, and I woke up, and it was 9, and I remember doing some RCs I think… and I thought well okay it’s 9, I’ll have to get up at 11 or so… but then… I went back to sleep, and dreamed for a very very very long time… I mean… I don’t know how long, it felt like an hour or more…

and then my dad woke me up… sounding just like he did before… and this time I knew it was “real” and he was in my room, he told me about how he’s taking my brother to the doctor and he left me his credit card to buy glasses with…

so after he left I checked the clock… IT IS ONLY 8… it’s only 8… it should have been 11 following my perception of the flow of time… and following the various morning RCs I did with my clock…

in fact I do think… that one of them… it was 9:14 and I checked 3 times, still 9:14, then it changed to 9:15 and I thought “aha, a dream… wait… maybe the minute just changed” so I checked like 3-4 more times and it was still 9:15… and… I tried breathing through my plugged nose, and it didn’t work.

I thought man there is no way this can be a dream, not at all…

But… apparently… it was?

It’s really weird. I know my dad really came into my room becuase the card was still on my desk, and what he said about my brother was true…

and I know that it was really 8 because I couldn’t fall asleep after that… and I laid in bed from 8:40-9:40 trying to get back to sleep.

So… I don’t know.

I’m inclined to think that by doing RCs during the day, as trying to establish a habit, that you become very familiar with that RC, so it is more likely to fail when you do it in a dream?

I just feel like my dream world and waking world are meshing together sometimes.

interesting post. Time is stuffed up isnt it, and how we see it, amazing.

i have to disagree with that. it is all how much effort you put into it, if u just look at the clock look away and look back half heartly and dont expect it to change, then you will do the same thing in your dreams. but if you actually question your reality then there is a high chance that you will do the same inside the dream. that is just from my own personal experince. maybe yours is very much diffrent from mine

I have thought about this alot since i had my first lucid dreams. My conclusion is that if you agree to that you can dream anything, then a logical consequense of that is that nothing that happens could ever prove that you are not dreaming. (This is my thesis )

But in practice, most of the time when you are dreaming and you ask yourself the question you will be able to determine that you are dreaming. If you can’t determine that you are dreaming you are probably not. But you can’t say for sure if you believe in the ‘thesis’.

I don’t believe in the opposite - that anything is possible in real life. If you are flying over the rooftops or breathing through your pinched nose, you know for sure that you are not experiencing the real world.

I am more certain of what state I am in when I have a lucid dream than I am in waking life, and for good reasons!

Ouch! I did that for only 10 minutes and it made me dizzy enough! But I had a LD this night. It might be a coincidence, but…

i dont think it was cons. i think you are hittin gold

, I will start right now. Lets just hope I don’t go insane and start thinking that my entire life is only a dream.

maybe that is sanity. maybe it is crazy to think otherwise