I’ve started taking a new approach to RC’s about a week ago, after reading some very well thought out posts on the forum here by drow and Robert Waggoner.
What I do, several times throughout the day (but at least once an hour) is take just 15 seconds to:
- Become aware of myself. My senses, my surroundings, my “purpose.” You could say I become lucid IWL.
- Ask myself: “Am I dreaming?”
- Consider where I am and what I was doing in the last half hour or so
Sometimes, if I see something strange while I do this, I’ll actually perform the action of a RC, like my favorite nose-pinch and trying to breathe in. But I found that I usually become lucid in my dreams without needing to perform the action.
By the time I become more aware of myself, I usually just “decide” that I am dreaming, so that’s how and why I’m doing my reality checks the way I do them. By taking the time to become “aware” of myself in waking life, and making that a quick and easy habit, I aim to have this habit manifest itself in my dreams as well. I only need to stop what I’m doing and become aware of myself. I don’t need the actual reality check, because I’m already lucid before I do it (though I sometimes do it just to check and make sure).
Oh yeah, I say I do them at least once an hour, but I don’t go by any clocks or anything. I used hypnosis to root this firmly into my mind, that I want to do it often. I could have done it without hypnosis, by I like to listen to a hypnosis track before I go to sleep. Very relaxing.
This post is the one that made my decide to change my approach.