So I was musing about some of the differences I’ve noticed between my dreams and my waking life, and I came up with these things (NOTE: these are tendencies, not absolutes):
- Waking life tends to follow a routine; dream life does not
- Waking life tends to favour familiar locations; dream life favours unfamiliar locations
- Waking life tends to feature LOTS OF devices (phones, laptops, TVs etc.); dream life does not
- Waking life can only change due to cause and effect; dream life can change instantly
- Waking life almost always has a time-based component to what you’re doing; dream life usually doesn’t
- Waking life tends to have mild emotions; dreams have strong emotions
So I came up with a list of times to especially focus on making sure I do RCs (apart from obvious weird moments/impossible things):
- You’re not at work/on a schedule (you don’t have a sense of a routine in place)
- You’re in an unfamiliar place
- You’re experiencing strong emotions
- You’re not in the presence of a phone/laptop/TV screen
- It’s a weekend
- Anytime you’re ‘out of your element’ or not in autopilot
- Anytime you’re tired (since a tired brain is likely more similar to a sleeping brain)
And I’m considering putting myself in these situations more often in waking life so I can make myself more likely to RC in dreams too; assumably if most of your dreams are very different to your waking life, then RCing in waking life will be less effective. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that many of these things would probably result in improvements to waking file.
This is all theoretical, but thought I’d share since it feels like a mini-breakthrough for me. I’d love to hear your thoughts!