This is the BIG reality check topic. Please post all your RC questions, techniques, etc here. Part II can be found here
Do they work for you?
The reason i ask this is because i’ve been thinking that the more you do RC’s with no actual LD the more you will be used to doing that RC and having the same result, so in a dream you will subconsciously have the same result and the RC won’t work. I think this would only be a problem if you have never obtained a LD from a RC.
For example, you look at your hands. You will know them like the palm of your hand!
So in a dream your subconscious already know what your hand looks like and doesn’t have to try and inven what your hand looks like. So you see your normal hand and think that you’re not dreaming.
I think that the more you RC the less effective it will be. But if you do succeed early on with the RC that you are doing then it may work forever for you.
Maybe a way to combat this problem is to do one RC for a few days to a week then change the RC.
Has this happened to anyone? What do you think about this?
I was actually thinking about this today… I cam to the conclusion that a lot of the time when I am LDing I become lucid by something other than an RC. In short, I think it is more actually doing the RC than the results of it: in my dreams, by the time I think “Am I dreaming?” I am already positive that the answer is yes, because I tend to have strange dreams.
However, perhaps I just have had the passive subconcious situations happen to me a lot and not remember!
Ive wondered about that two…but I dont think its a problem…
Before I had my first LD I couldnt understand how your mind could forget the time on your clock when you’d look at it…but when I was dreaming and looked at my clock…it changed…i couldnt believe it…
Keep trying…if your dreaming and do one RC and it fails…try another one.
I have problems with two types of RCs. The first is the ligth switch, It doesn’t work and i’m not gaining lucidity from it . The other one is reading something and then read it again, I often do this in normal dreams but I just doesn’t notice that its changes before I am awake and recalling my dream. What I do have success with is the clock. A normal analog clock isn’t moving as it should. the sec. pointer is moving up and down in random order, but I don’t have a clock myself so I don’t usualy see any in my dreams so long live the nild and the wild tecnique
I got lucid recently through the oldest RC in the book: looking at my hands. I do it dozens of times a day, and last week I looked at them and I had fuzzy hands with way too many fingers. And I didn’t feel I was dreaming at all up to that point! So I say yes, they do work. Hands are the easiest RC because you have them wherever you go.
“For example, you look at your hands. You will know them like the palm of your hand!
So in a dream your subconscious already know what your hand looks like and doesn’t have to try and inven what your hand looks like.”
Well if you do RC just by looking on them youre right.But the Rc is not meant to be done this way.You supposed to examine your hand and i.e count your fingers few times.Particular reality checks are said to be working for unknown yet reason-electronic devices wouldnt work,hands would melt,clocks are giving funny times.Thats why ppl use them. additionally by counting in a dream you start to making your left(or was it right)part of your brain working.That means you start realizing youre dreaming faster…or better.
Then-back on the old forum we had a poll about RCs- and sadly almost no one gets lds from that.Its a good method for a start it seems.
And again- RCs are not to be standing alone there.They are supposed to work in a combo- along with your dreamsigns and journall.If you do RC just to do one its not enough in a long run.
Take care
Thanks i guess i will continue doing RC’s (my first LD was from one-jumping up and down in fact i only did it once and i got an LD that night)
I think it could also be a placebo effect too, just like every other technique there is.
I did try the hands one i also did it dozens of times a day but it didn’t work and yes i just didn’t look at them i did the stuff Jack said as well. So now i am mainly going to work on the ‘Am i dreaming?’ technique where i examine my environment. All my other LD’s are…well i don’t know what they were from.
The ‘Hands’ RC technique has worked well for me, I usually use it just to make sure, after I realise I’m dreaming. But a few days ago, I did an RC when I had no idea I was dreaming, and it got me lucid, so they do work as triggers too.
last nite i had this dream where i was in some school room , but the people from my soocer team were in there. we were working on some sort of campaign. any way, i went up to the teacher to ask him something and then before he answered me he told everyone that from this moment onwards there will be no more clocks in the room. After he said this i thought to myself, “that will make it easier to do a reality check” (i didnt end up doing one and i dont know why it would be easier either?)
so closeeeee though…
i think certain techniques work for some people and not for others. i have increased my RC during the day for the past week and i think they are going to work for me. i never really took RC’s seriously before, dunno y.
as i read in a post on this forum before, the sub-conscious sure is stubborn.
I realise no one has posted anything on this topic but I think I might as well voice my opinion on the matter.
RC’s are not just meant to be done without REALLY thinking whether you are dreaming - something like what Jack was saying. If you just look at your hands everyday without giving second thought then I can see why RC’s won’t work. But even if someone does do the RC’s PROPERLY and it doesn’t work for them, well I guess that techniques not for them. Some work others don’t. Personally, RCs don’t work for me but I tend to become lucid through dream signs mainly because my dreams seem to be totally out of whack with reality. I had one dream where I asked someone what the date was and they said something like “October 9, 1918.”
In essence, I think it’s the association with the RC’s and asking yourself for a whlie if you’re in reality - kind of like programming your brain to stop and think for a minute when you do the RC.
I had a near-miss with reality checks the other morning.
I had done a half-hearted wake-back-to-bed technique (i was only up for a minute or so to get a drink). In the dream I looked at my hands but, as others have pointed out, this rc is most effective when you take the time to count your fingers. I didnt and my normal-looking hands were enough to convince me that it wasnt a dream!
Well… I think RCs are alright. I’ve had quite a few LDs from them. But usually if I am dreaming and I start to suspect I’m dreaming then I will become lucid anyway. I often do an RC if I am about to do something dangerous and I’m not sure if I’m dreaming (you know how you can become lucid and then a few seconds later still wonder whether you’re really dreaming or not). For this purpose I’ll try putting my hand through a solid object. Usually I will use the reading test. I don’t usually need to look away and back because the writing will be moving, or strangely printed, or psychobabble.
I think a great deal of the value of practising RCs during the day is that it is an exercise in really questioning whether you are dreaming. You have to be really prepared for the possibility that the answer to the question “Am I dreaming?” will be “Yes”. It also helps you to learn that level of detail and realism is not a sign of the real world. It is cultivating that feeling of “oh, maybe this actually really is a dream” that is the important thing - because sooner or later you will be delighted to find that it actually is.
The key to the dream world must be sought in the waking world. This is the fundamental paradox of lucidity.
I use my hands, and get the chilles… then i know im dreaming. This have always worked until recently when i in dreaming ask myself if i always get the chilles when looking at my hands. Last dream i hade to come up with something to enter LD so i made a sommersault in the air, and that made the trick. The LD after i only had to rely on the chilles, cause i had proven to myself that it was all that i needed.
What ever happened to good old logic?
Eg. Im in a dream. Am i dreaming? How did I arrive here? Can i remember waking up this morning? Something Extremely out of place?
A game of chess or some maths before bed should awaken the logic part of your brain.[/b]
Its hard to use logic if one is used to strange things when normal awake. I have experienced alot of “weird” and unexplained things in my normal life. For me its not strange when things gets weird, i cant judge the experience by logic, as it doesent apply.
I gues for some that doesent experience these things in normal awaken state, its much easier to realize the dreaming state?
I think the “Do a reality check when things get wierd in reality” method is a very effective way of getting LD’s. It takes a while (at least a month) before it starts working though. WHen i was really into LDing a few years ago (i now have a renewed interested) these sort of reality checks really worked well. I would just be dreaming and it would cross my mind - “hmm, a ufo in the sky, this is pretty wierd, maybe I’m dreaming”
A very effective reality check I find is jumping in the air. If you are dreaming - you will float back down to the ground. This one is hard to do often though - people might think you are strange for jumping up in the air for no apparent reason.
Like what CloudSurfer said, you have to really question whether or not you are dreaming in reality, not just ask the question to your self. That is why routinely doing reality checks is not going to work - eg doing a RC every time you walk throught he door. It might become a habit, but like most habits, they work on a subconscious level so you won’t be consciously asking the question any more.
My problem is - nothing wierd ever seems to happen at the moment! so i never get to try reality checks. Also, when something strange does happen in reality, it is very hard to remember to do a RC because you are so engrossed in the moment.
Did anyone here do a reality check when they saw the Twin Towers fall on the news?
I also think that the RC-when-something-weird-happens and lucid living methods are great I wasn’t into LDing the september 11., but I am sure I would be, because I was extremely messed up and had hard for believeing that it was reality when I saw about it on the TV and realised what had happend.
i guess it would be better for someone who, in reality, was constantly in the same enviroment (like at home, work) so whenever they went some where they just do a RC as it will be strange to their normal surroundings.
. The other one is reading something and then read it again, I often do this in normal dreams but I just doesn’t notice that its changes before I am awake and recalling my dream. What I do have success with is the clock. A normal analog clock isn’t moving as it should. the sec. pointer is moving up and down in random order, but I don’t have a clock myself so I don’t usualy see any in my dreams so long live the nild and the wild tecnique
I wasn’t into LDing the september 11., but I am sure I would be, because I was extremely messed up and had hard for believeing that it was reality when I saw about it on the TV and realised what had happend.