I am pretty new to this, and the only reality check that I have been doing is to occasionally look at my hands and ask myself “Am I dreaming?” throughout the day.
Well, last night, I did the hand check RC in a dream, and my right hand was all gnarled, and I realized that I was, in fact, dreaming.
Unfortunately, I must’ve gotten too excited, because I partially woke up… I fell right back to sleep, but lost lucidity.
It is good to know that RCs work, I am now going to start doing other RCs; I have noticed that I seem to have dreams where I am naked and can’t find my clothes… so I started asking myself if I was dreaming when I got dressed today, and will try to do it whenever I walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night in my underwear too.
I want to start keeping a dream journal (I know, I should already be doing this!) so that I can find other common ‘concerns’ while dreaming, and condition myself to associate RCs with them also.
Which is better for a dream journal: something electronic on my PC, or paper and pencil? (I do keep a laptop on a table next to my bed, so I wouldn’t have to get up to use it.)
I guess the best dream journal is the one which is easiest to use for you. I have an IRL book lying next to my bed. Whatever you use, it should take as little effort as possible.
It’s very easy to get too excited. A common advice is to try to look at your surroundings to calm down.
With the naked business:
According to some people when you sleep you go to the Astral Plane. And when you OOBE you are usually in the Astral Plane. And people dont have any clothes on, so its not uncommon…
Also you dont have a physical body so your conscious mind (weak creativity powered part of mind) tries to create a physical body… but because this is a very complex thing to do, your body (esp. hands) usually melt because your conscious mind can’t keep up with rendering your body.
Congrats man . And I agree with Siiw - just stick a DJ enxt to your bed (with a pen or pencil) and when you wake up you can just reach over, grab it and start writing .
The whole naked in a dream theme is common for everyone and a far more rational explantion is that of fear. Of coarse you’re going to panic if your naked and can’t find you clothes, thus, your sub-c is playing off yer fear .
… never before have I heared that. And I have plenty of reason to believe it’s not true . Everytime I’ve looked at my body in a ND or LD, it’s been right there and perfectly fine :-/.
I agree with Siiw and Sureal about the notebook.
If you very often have naked dreams, your idea of checking reality when getting dressed is good. You also can practise MILD (before sleeping, remember a dream where you were naked and imagine you realize you’re dreaming and do what you planed to do).
I would even suggest for a journal, maybe a tape recorder if you hate writing in the middle of the night, all blind and groggy. Then transcribe it into a written journal.
I agree that keeping a DJ with pen and paper is the best way, as Surreal said, have it next to your bed so when you wake up from a dream, you can write down your dream or even just jot down dot points of your dream…