reality checks

How about a list of RC's that works for us. I have trouble with this as I don’t tend to notice the "clues" that appear. I spend hours looking at screens with changing numbers so this is normal and not a RC I make documents and then proof read so wrong words and changing words is normal I look at numbers that change by the instant so they are not a good RC I look for tiny details in my day so focus on detail won’t work I am lucky that I have lots of time to day dream and think so abstract ideas and images are also normal in my world So when numbers change or txt changes or I zero in to look at detail it won’t often work as a RC in a dream. I will either spontaneously enter a LD or need a stressor to do so. In a tunnel that gets smaller and smaller or a car crash that ends in water and I need to breathe. Looking at hands and as suggested on this site trying to push one hand into another but I don’t seem to remember to do this. What works for you?

I've noticed I can pull myself into a LD with the simple question of "Where am I?" I have yet to find myself in my room or at work, which are the two places I would be if I were awake. As long as that question sparks, I can pull myself into a LD.

I've found myself asking that during a dream, but the dream wasn't "real" enough for me to start a LD. Timing seems to be key of where your brainwaves are at. I think you need to be deep enough in and have a RC to start a LD.

My favorites are:

• Clamping my nose to see if I still can breathe
• Pinching the innside of my forearm, when awake it hurts a lot, but it doesn't in dreams.
• Trying to remember how i got to where I am.

These 3 have always worked for me, but rebbeca's advice (and I encourage it) is to perform 2 or more RCs so that if one doesn't work, the others do.

Some of these sound good and they work, next question is how to you remember or what decides that you will make a RC?

Whenever I think about it which is def not enough times per day. I saw someone say they set their alarm on their watch to go off every 30 minutes to get a RC going. I may try that with vibrate on my phone since I seem to keep missing my RC in my dreams right now, and then I wake up not angry, but laughing at myself for missing it!

same. I sometimes think the the "me" that sets the signs must think I am thick, I mean how can jumping off a building and floating to the ground or the price of an item in a shop changing be missed. I too wake up and laugh at the signs that I miss.

That is the most frustrating part and making RC's a habit is my issue but also I enjoy the many vivid dreams for the pure entertainment so not all bad.

Peter

100% with you Peter.

I am going to make a new post on that topic of "Funniest missed RC?"

the pinching one may not work for all people, especially me, cuz in my dreams I am able to feel pain as I have felt it before, I've been doing the pinching nose and breathing technique as well as the pushing one finger through other palm, but I have never remembered to do this in a dream yet

Great topic, Peter! I'm really interested in seeing what RCs work for other folks too.

I completely suck at hooking any daily reality checks into my dreams. So far all of my lucid dreams have come on spontaneously--except for one, which I wrote about in my "Some Thoughts on Personalizing Reality Checks/Dreamsigns" post.

Do you folks feel that there's a difference, in a dream that is, between doing an RC and recognizing a dreamsign to bring on lucidity? Or does the one depend on the other?

My last LD (just this past weekend), came on in what I think is a really interesting way. A dream figure (my wife no less) suddenly said to me excitedly "Hey, I'm lucid--so you probably are too, aren't you?", and--bingo!--bigtime lucidity! Has anybody else experienced a dream figure as a "lucidity helper"?

Nope but it would be a good one.

Think I have said it before but I have so many vivid dreams that are so close to being lucid that it is hard to tell. This morning I have clicked on a simple observation and that is the light in a LD at least at the start is not broad daylight and seems slightly dimmed and with less clarity. This is constant and so I might do a heap of RC during the day and say " is this light normal?" I really struggle with making the link in dreams and my most interesting LD are WILD or WBTB (I am not sure of the differance in these two)

I was in the water the other night, my boat rolled and I was drowning and I left this scene and landed on the beach, I asked some men for help as my "body" was out in the water and could they please go get it. I said I was still alive as I would not be there taking to them if I was dead as I felt that if I was dead I could not go OBE and ask for help. So I was drowning, I flew out of my body to land, I asked for help, I knew my body was out there and alive but still didnt make the statement "I am dreaming"

What does it take... Peter

Peter wrote: What does it take...

Peter, A couple of thoughts.

First, you're totally on to something with the "stressers". Thanks for mentioning this, because this happened to me just last night in the first of two lucid dreams I had. Stresers seem to me to have a lot of potential as a good dreamsign to kick in lucidity--although, man, that dream you had of having almost drowned certainly was a stresser!

Here's my take on WBTBs and WILDS (and I'm taking this more or less from the LaBerge book). WBTB is the overall technique you do after you've been sleeping for a while. You get up sometime in the wee hours and stay awake for a certain amount of time (--Sorry, you know this already!). Anyway, WILD (or MILD) is the technique you use once you go back to bed to try to induce lucidity. So, getting up and being conscious for awhile just primes the pump--you try to jump start the luciditymobile with your personal method of choice (WILD or MILD).

Any luck so far on the doing reality checks on daylight? If that's something you're noticing, I'd say definitely keep working on it!

I want to create a different post to ask some questions about what I've experienced in these lucid dreams I've had in the last couple of nights. It seems like I've really turned a corner here in my ability to induce lucid dreaming (although I have a feeling it'll be temporary).

But one thing that keeps coming to mind is another item that, I believe, Stephen LaBerge mentions: that having just one lucid dream (no matter how it comes on) increases your chances dramatically for having more of them. In the case of lucid dream, familiarity doesn't breed contempt--it breeds better chances for lucid dreaming. I can honestly say that this seems to be happening to me right now.

Reality checks and dreamsigns still remain elusive and a mystery to me, though. Last night in my second "lucid" dream, placing a bottle of 7-Up on a dream porch kicked me into a type of lucidity where I started willfully controlling things, but wasn't necessarily lucid per se. At least there wasn't that typical "rush" that accompanies the onset, and the overall feeling was very different than the "classically" lucid dream I had early Sunday morning. That soda bottle is strange, because, well, first I don't even drink soda--and I never liked 7-Up to begin with (now, if it had been a beer on the other hand...) But why such a mundane dream object would kick in lucidity in anybody's guess. And was it the bottle itself or the act of setting it down on this "porch"? It puzzling, but very cool in its own odd way--and I realize I need to think about all this a lot more.

Sorry for all the blather. Hope some of this is interesting.

Just two days ago, My little brother convinced me in my dream that I wasn't even dreaming when I was on the verge of lucidity, I counted the fingers on my hands and they counted up to 5 before i even got to the thumb, so i was like hey check this out this is wierd, and he comes up to me and says "no look, its just that your pinky is stuck behind your ring finger" which it was, but that still doesn't make any sense as I counted more than 5 fingers, but I believed him in the dream, and needless to say, was annoyed at him when I woke up.

posted reply and cant find it now... so this might be a repeat.

Your post is interesting and i feel that we micro manage the RC too much. The dreamscape is a reality the same as waking life and has its own character, it feels different and looks different and when we look for a RC I think we are looking for proof of what we already know and so micro managing the event. The most fun in entering a LD is when I just laugh and say I am dreaming without really thinking about it, I want to devlop this skill some more.

I agree with your thoughts on WBTB and WILD and again think that there is a lot of effort on trying for WILD as if it is better or more skilled to enter a LD that way. The end result is the same and the skill of the dreamer is the decider on how, where and what the dream will be (as far as we can influence).

Peter

lawilahd wrote: needless to say, was annoyed at him when I woke up.

Little brat--just kidding! :D

Peter,

I agree with the micro managing RC comment you made. I notice most of the times I pull myself into a LD it had nothing to do with the RC I do, but that may not be why RC are important. In my dream, I question the reality I am in which results in me realizing something is wrong, even if it wasn't one of my RC. I think RC in the physical world is just good to trigger your mind to question any reality it is in, even if it doesn't need to perform the same RC.

-Ryan