5 a day? That is far to few I believe. I’m doing them a little now and then (About 20-35 times a day) It has become a habbit of some sort.
Looking at my hands doesn’t work anymore.
For a while, I looked at my hands. Usually, they were blurry or another finger magically grew if I was dreaming, but soon, my dreams contained more realistic hands. I had to resort to counting my fingers and fingernails. Something was out of place for a while, but soon my dreams had my ACTUAL HANDS. Then, I had to look at my feet and count my toes…
Now, the only RCs that work for me are looking at digital clocks or observing my surroundings such as when I was dreaming and sitting in bed - I have solid-colored flags hanging from my top bunk and I had to take it down and look at it. Checkers appeared on it and I knew I was dreaming…
Hmm…perhaps I should start doing more RCs. Usually I only do them occasionally (maybe one or two a day). I’m going to start making it a habit and doing it often.
“i worry that RCs might become so routine that you could glance at your hands or pull your finger whilst dreaming, not really think about it and not register anything strange. should i be concerned about this as a real possibility?”
Yes, that is very much so a possibility. It’s happens much more than you might think. Look as what Basilus said about his favourite RC… “As for me, it works about 50% of the time.” What do you think happens the other 50% of the time? The RC doesn’t register, and the person does not achieve lucidity.
Reality checks should be used WITH lucid living, not as an alternative to lucid living. This will make them much more effective.
Good luck 
Kind of late I know, but could somebody re-phrase this to a beginner please?
For example, you shouldn’t do a reality check while watching a basketball game and totally concentrating on the game, while ignoring the RC. The act of the RC is not enough. You have to be conscious of it, and you have to remain conscious even after the reality check, throughout the day- always observing and being aware of your surroundings.
That makes a lot more sense.
Thank you for your help.
Hey there people. As you can see I’m quite new here, but I have a question. I hope this isn’t obvious, but I don’t really have any other resources to get my information from. When you guys do a RC with numbers. Is it vital the that numbers be ones that regularly change? (a digital clock?) or would any numbers, say on a sign, found in a dream change when doing a RC?
Thanks,
Ted
So you look at a sign or something that has words or numbers on it and you look away and look back sometimes it doesn’t change the first time, do it again, the sign/numbers should change into something out of the ordinary like gibberish. Also another good RC is you pinching your nose and try to breath through it. If you can breath through it then your in a dream if you can’t then you’re probably awake.
I’ve just started doing RC and up to now I regularly look at my clock, mobile phone, my computer or my alarm clock to control the time. I wonder if this will work and manifest in my dreams. Up to now I have never looked at these item in my dreams as well as I haven’t done any of the other RC.
Do you think it is good to have several different items to do a RC or do you prefer one single? 
Furthermore, do you think the one with the time is reliable? (I think, that I actually have to answer this question by myself using it over a certain time. But maybe you have own experiences there.)
And one important question: If you do RC in real life, do you always answer with something like: “Hmm, I’ve done a RC and it failed. Well I’m not dreaming”.? Would be logical. I just worry the “I’m-not-dreaming” could repeat in my dream!
well, say in your mind , with conviction , and after doing the RC with concentration NO ; IM NNOT DREAMING… than veryfie it a second time , this should keep what you fear here from happening in 99,99% percent of the cases ( but what happens to some here is , that they know they are dreaming , but “dont care” so to say , which leads to many smacked heads upon weaking 
)
Just don’t say “I’m not dreaming” after you’ve done the RC because if you do then you’ll do the same when you’re dreaming.
Would you rather say “I’m dreaming”? Or nothing and just make the RC-’
I have a very similar problem. My hands used to have extra fingers and be all blurry and stuff, but now they’re pretty darn realistic. Also, reading and writing in dreams isn’t much of a problem for me, (normal dreams sometimes, yeah,) but in LD’s I can almost always read something just fine. It’s not jumbled and if I keep turning my head and looking back at it it takes a while to change. The ones that work the best for me now are plugging my nose, (and even then it’s confusing because I can blow air out of my eyes in RL, LOL 
) and trying to use powers.
I did something really cool the other day though. 
I was playing around with a dry-erase marker and I kept drawing on myself, 
then I erased it all and tried to think of just one thing to keep on there, so I decided to write the letters “RC” on my leg, right above my knee. My plan was that every time I saw the “RC” on my leg I would do a reality check of some kind. So I did, and that night in my ND I was trying on a dress for some reason and I spotted something on my leg. At first I was like, “What the heck is that on my leg?” Then I remembered, “Oh! That’s that “RC” thing I drew on it yesterday, better do a reality check.” So I did one and became lucid. 
I was so friggin’ shocked to find out it was a dream. 
I told my siblings and they took the marker to try it, but they left the cap off and now it’s dried out, 
darn them. 
I just had my first LD today (i had some a few times in my life, but accidentaly) and acheived it through reality checks, it was amazing 
I started to get used to RCs in real life (looking at the hands and the digital clock) for 3 days and eventually did one on a dream.
I looked at my hands, one of them started to melt an the other only had 3 fingers 
i almost freaked out but then i realized “of course, it’s happening because i must be dreaming!!!” then i became lucid, like magic!!! I decided also to do the digital watch RC. I looked at it seemed to be fine, but i looked away an then looked back, and the time had changed. I did it 3-4 times, was actually kind of funny.
Then i started to do some of that LD stuff like flying, jumping high, telekinesis and so on. Hope it happens more times /o/
Great. And how did you do RC in real life? Looking at your hands and saying your are not dreaming since they look normal?
Waving in front of one’s eyes is really not mentioned anywhere, even though that it is in my opininion the most reliable RC imaginable. Since eyes can’t really see your hands if you wave too fast IRL, in a lucid dream you actually see over your entire “screen” with a trail of the hand.
Yes, it’s something like that. In real life i just look at them for a few seconds an realize how pretty solid they are and only move when i want to (yeah, of course ¬¬) but in the dream they were melting, distorted, missing fingers, and were somewhat blurry too, like they were made partially of smoke. etc. At least for me, the hands RC worked VERY well.
I also do the digital watch RC, maybe more than with the hands, but that’s because i’m used to having the watch with me all the time for years. Actually in the dream the numbers were fine, but they changed drastically when i looked back.
Today I kept forgetting to do RC’s, so when I was keeping my journal, I decided to write “RC” on my hand so I’d remember. 
The RCs I always use are either holding my nose shut and seeing if I can still breath, or sticking my finger through my hand. The nose one is the easiest and best one in my opinion. They both feel REALLY weird when you do em in a dream.