I recently had my 3rd lucid dream, this time with an all-time high level of awareness. I knew for sure I was dreaming, and was thinking pretty clearly, but somehow my brain couldn’t accept that these dream characters weren’t the real thing. I just stumbled upon the fact that I was probably dreaming almost randomly, but to see if I was dreaming, I tried flying. Didn’t work. I was still pretty sure I was dreaming, so I found an open book, read a passage, looked away, and read it again. Sure enough, it had changed!
Later on, I was trying to show another dream character that this was a dream, so I showed them the same passage, telling them to read it, look away, and re-read. I did the same again, over their shoulder. When I re-read it, it read EXACTLY the same words. I tried again with the same results. I found this odd, and the lucid dream slowly faded at this point.
Now although SLB never said this is a fool-proof reality check, I haven't met (or read) anyone saying this RC has failed them. I believe this is due to everyone reading his book or hearing of the method and just assuming it works. The dream is all in their heads, so why shouldn't the writing change? LaBerge discusses his disproving of Ouspensky's idea that when one's name is stated in a dream, one awakens. Of course, when Ouspensky tried it, he awoke, because he was expecting it to happen. When LaBerge tried this, absolutely nothing happen, because that's what he was expecting. As LaBerge himself said, "I'm impressed by the power of expectation to determine what happens in my lucid dreams."
I believe this immense power of expectation holds true with everyone, and I have believed ever since reading it that there is no really good reason why writing shouldn't be able to stay the same. I expected it to be possible for words not to change, so the second time I tried that reality check, they didn't. Ironically I wanted them to, but they sure didn't.
I'm curious if anyone else has had this experience, and if not, I encourage you all to realize writing doesn't have to change, and try to keep writing constant in a dream. Sorry if I'm rambling :smile:
Bipu