'Weirdness Censor' causing reality checks to fail

#1

Hello! I’m new to this site as you may have gathered, though I’m far from new to dreams and lucid dreaming… A couple months ago a friend talked about how he was getting into it in a deliberate manner; I’ve always loved my spontaneous lucid dreams and until then didn’t realize you could induce them yourself. Well now I’m here, knowing all my dream signs and having kept a dream journal for the past six years, and entjrely unable to deliberately recognize when I’m dreaming.

The biggest problem I have is that either my dream signs are too normal to prompt a ‘wait that’s weird’ response (for example, trains; I live in a city where public transportation is massive so being on a train is an every day occurrence, so even though I dream about being on trains an insane amount, that’s not weird so I don’t notice it) – or, that even though they’re really weird (like huge heights, dark forests, breathing underwater, being in outer space), my dream-self has this Weirdness Censor that takes a look at me floating above the atmosphere and goes ‘yep, nothing wrong there.’

Now, I can do a reality check every time I’m on a train, and hopefully get into the habit that way so I do it in a dream. But I can’t exactly do the same thing every time I’m in space without a suit, for obvious reasons.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I suppose I should clarify the title. By ‘fail’ I don’t mean they don’t work, I mean my mind doesn’t recognize that there’s something that should cause me to question my reality and so it doesn’t occur to me to do it at all. Sorry for the confusion.

Stacked quotes edited together :rhewin:

EDIT 2: whoooops, I meant to post this in ‘Quest for Lucidity’. My bad. If a mod would be so kind as to move it, that would be awesome C:

#2

What you’re describing is perfectly normal. My dream signs tend to be pretty ordinary as well: being in school (as both a student and as my real-life job as a teacher), bathrooms, and my old house/neighborhood, so don’t think you’re the only one.

RCing only to dream signs does make it difficult to catch all cases, because that’s only part of it. The other half of RCing is making a habit of asking yourself throughout the day if you’re dreaming and reality checking in response to the question (as opposed to making a habit of just RCing without questioning). This will help you with the normal situations, meaning that when you find a strange dream situation to be normal, you still have a chance to RC. Work with these two different reality check triggers instead of one and you’ll certainly see your lucidity rate go up.

#3

The most effective way to get reality checks to occur in your dreams, regardless if you have a “weirdness censor” (which I think we all have when nonlucid) in your dreams, is to make them habitual. If reality checking is something you do habitually regardless of your current situation, there’s a bigger chance they will appear in your dreams. It’s good to have things remind you to reality check so you can make develop a reality checking habit, but those reminders should not be the only thing that brings you to test reality.

Anyways, welcome to LD4all and good luck!

edit: Ninja’d by Thorn!
Dexterity fail :c

#4

Wow, thanks for the swift replies you guys! :smiley:
I do try and reality check often throughout the day (mostly by drawing a Symbol on my hand that I see in my dreams a lot, so that whenever I see it IWL I RC – but I guess that’s the same sort of thing I was talking about before…), but my memory is pretty bad (~~~~ADD~~~~) so a lot of times if I don’t have a reminder I won’t remember. I do RC every time it passes through my head though, and make a point of leaving reminders for myself!
Mostly it’s just incredibly frustrating to wake up and go ‘ARGH! Another missed dreamsign!’ for what feels like the seven millionth time in a row, especially since a lot of them are really obvious.

So, apart from the dreamsigns that occur IWL and setting/drawing reminders, what would you suggest for helping me to remember to question my reality? I really want to do this but my attention deficit means it’s a bit more difficult for me to remember something without something to spark my memory of it.

And thanks a lot!! I really appreciate it C:

#5

There’s not much more to it; start with the reminders and wean yourself off of them. Remember to react thoughtfully, asking if you’re dreaming and using the RC to answer that question. As time goes on, remove the reminders and make an effort to think about dreaming in areas without reminders. It will become habitual with time.

Don’t fret if the habit fades a bit at some point, as it happens to the best of us. Just get yourself back into things, reintroducing a reminder for a bit if necessary.

#6

Will do! I’ll definitely work on seriously thinking about what makes me sure I’m awake a bit more. (Considering I usually can’t remember what I had for breakfast, this should be a Whole Lot of Fun lol)
Thanks a lot for your advice guys! I think that might be a thing to consider for helping me with mundane stuff like remembering to do the laundry, too. So whaddaya know, you helped me in more ways than one~!

#7

One thing I have noticed is that while Reality Checks offer up a chance of lucidity should you do an RC, they’re sort of… only halfway targeting the problem.

Now I’m not saying RCs are bad, just that they train you to occasionally question your reality. The result is you only occasionally test to see if you’re dreaming. Depending on how often you RC you’ll check more often, but it’s still only an occasional process.

What I have been looking into, and still trying to figure out how to get it to work, is Lucid Living (LL) and All Day Awareness (ADA). Rather than relying on a habitual process, you rely instead on a different way of thinking… I’m still trying to determine, at least for myself, what the best way of setting up this different way of thinking is… RCs sort of do this to you, but again that different way of thinking only sticks around while you are RCing and, at least for me, fades rather quickly afterwards…

#8

I agree with scipio. I believe lucid living is the key to lucid dreaming and much more then this, it will make your life really meaningfull.

I also don’t like the habituation process of doing RC. That’s why I focus on training in WILD, getting into dreams directly with awareness. I am not yet very good in this, but I keep practising, every night.

But this lucid living idea, although very appealing, is so damn difficult. If somebody has some good tips about changing your mind towards a more lucid living mind, please feel free to post.

I am afraid that I will have to stop working when I want to develop a life style like this, because I manage to stay aware for some good time, in weekends or holidays, but when working, and all the stress, poof it’s gone. Damn :wink:

#9

I just wanted to pop in here because I had a weird experience in an LD just now. I became lucid and then looked around at my environment, and was astonished how “normal” it was. My house looked exactly the same, nothing different. Usually it looks very different, doors are missing, windows are added, rooms are smaller. I had to walk out the front door and look around to notice that the outside landscape was different. It was like my brain was tricking me. “See you aren’t dreaming like you think you are!!” Maybe I am getting too used to LDs!