I know this thread has probably been made a thousand times by now, but hear me out. I’ve had 5 lucid dreams so far this month, so it’s not that I’m having problems getting lucid. None of these lucid dreams were caused by me doing a reality check. They were caused by me becoming aware of my surroundings, or false awakenings. I think my reality checks are pretty thorough. I count my fingers, try to imagine what my hands look like in a dream, try to put my finger through the palm of my hand, flick the light switch on and off, try to read the time on my phone, and ask myself what I was just doing. It takes about one to two minutes to complete this routine. Recently I’ve been doing this just about any time I see something out of place. For some reason none of this carries over into the dream world. Now that I’m writing this I suppose that it could be that I become aware that I’m dreaming before I have to do a reality check. Can anyone else relate to this?
I think what you experience may be normal rather than exceptional. The theory teaches us that we regularly do RCs throughout the day so we will do them in the dream too, and become lucid. But for many people (me included), RCs inside dreams are mostly useful for verifying it’s a dream after consciousness already kicked it and suspected that it’s a dream.
Still, doing them full of awareness throughout the day is very important I think. Questioning your state of mind and your surrounding is important to reach a level of awareness also inside your dreams that passes the threshold of lucidity required to really “awaken“.
What do you think? How does that sound to you?
In a lot of articles/youtube videos people will say that if your reality checks aren’t working, you’re not doing them right. Like you should just spend more time doing them or do a different reality check. What you said made a lot of sense. I guess I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing since I’ve made a lot of progress.
From your initial post I would a assume you’re already doing a lot of reality checks throughout the day. There’s also a thing as overdoing it, so be careful with the advise of the material you mentioned. If RCs become routine then you have to make sure they don’t become simple auto pilot, because lucid dreaming is the opposite of that. Questioning reality is most important about reality checks, not the mere ritual.
I guess in a sense you could say quality is more important than quantity.
Why do rcs not work?Because you do not.If yiu believe skmething will hapoen,it will.Even if it is a dream.Is a stabiliser real?no,they are tricks which helped people,but the fact is,they are not real.just because people believed it
So you need belief that a rc would work
Apologies thought this might help!
I have lucid dreams where i just intuitively realize I’m dreaming too! Its either a common dream sign like being back at college or a strange nightmare that can’t be real.
But lately, in the few LDs I’ve had, I intuitively realize its a dream, THEN I do a reality check just incase, so I don’t hurt myself if it’s actually not a dream. So then I look at my hand and count my fingers and then jump up and try to fly. I did that in the last LD I had like 4 days ago, and didn’t completely fly but had enough air time that I knew it was a dream. Also I’m a gymnast, so once I know its a dream I do some flips I can’t do in real life! One time the ground became a trampoline during a really fun LD and i did double back flips on it, it had been a pretty long LD but I don’t remember all of it.
I agree about don’t let reality checks become robotic. When you do them seriously and actually consider you are dreaming and be willing to let go of the fact that what is happening is real if it can’t be in real life.