Reality checks

[elenka]

Hi everybody,

Are you doing reality checks? Are they any success? And what exactly you do?

I had a funny experience in my dreams that told me to rethink and change my reality check

I work on the computer most of the day and I just set up a reminder to do Reality check every 30 minutes. I think at the very beginning it included more things to check, but after a while it just became "Check you surroundings, ask yourself where are you, ask if everything looks normal and ask yourself if you're dreaming". Finally the reality check worked. I remember asking myself in the dream where I am (I don't remember the answer). Then I remember asking is everything looks normal. The answer was "Yes, everything looks normal". And then asking if I'm dreaming... Well, the answer was "No, I'm not dreaming."

It made me chuckle in the morning. I guess I conditioned myself not just ask if I'm dreaming, but also answer "No" Now I make sure that I look at my hands for a while during "reality check".

Good thing is that reality check really works, and it doesn't take long to see the results, it only took my few days. But it's important to do it right to get useful results.

But it was very funny!


Regards,
Elena

[Matthew]

Hmmm... the computer. Good thinking, elenka!
I set the hourly chime on my watch during the day (and turn it off at night to avoid it waking me up). When I do the reality check, I not only look at my hands- I recreate the feeling of "lucidity." You know, when you realize it's a dream, it feels like you are in a heightened awareness. So, when I ask myself if it is a dream, I also try to turn off my internal dialogue and recreate the feeling I get in a lucid dream. When my mind starts to wander, I tell myself "that would be the end of the lucid dream...stay focused."
Anyway, it has helped me....
-Matthew

[Matt]

Try making yourself find a digital readout in a dream, they almost always appear extremely hard to read in OBEs. If they can be read at all it usually takes a few moments for them to stabilize.

That's the reality check I use when I'm in an OBE that's so realistic that I'm really not sure if I'm actually physical. I look at a digital cooking timer I have and if it looks complex like a jet cockpit I know I'm nonphysical

[Astralonaut]

As far as digital readouts go, I almost became lucid once, when I looked at my alarm clock during a false awakening type dream. The time just did not make sense. I looked again, and the time was completely different. This was about the only time I consciously did a reality check during a dream. I really thought to myself: "Hey, what's going on? Is this a dream?" Unfortunately I came to the conclusion that it wasn't a dream. Only after awakening for real I noticed that it indeed had been one.

[Tom]

Digital clocks, watches, computer screens ... everything works for me in dreams. I can read a page from a book, look away, and then re-read it. No problem. Jumping up to try to fly, I pause and then drop again like being awake. My reality checks never work and I conclude I'm awake.

[reality.failure]

that's what i need to know!

i may have skipped over this part in the intro section but when do we start the RC's? i looked in the index and the first instance i see in the book is for week 2.

so we don't have to begin RCing until then?

[Matt]

Digital clocks, watches, computer screens ... everything works for me in dreams. I can read a page from a book, look away, and then re-read it. No problem. Jumping up to try to fly, I pause and then drop again like being awake. My reality checks never work and I conclude I'm awake.

There was one time that my computer screen was readable and didn't look too complicated, but it still looked very different from the physical version. The time appeared on the lower left corner rather than the right and said something like 39:71. It was stable but it didn't make any sense.

Are you actually able to operate a computer in your LDs or OBEs and do everything like use the internet and so forth?

If you're getting that level of stability, have you tried using OBEs to remote view objects in jars?

[Beekeeper]

Matt, you're my hero at the moment so just ignore this bit because I've told you enough about my failures to get lucid.

I once did a reality check on my hand in a dream. The fingers were all mixed up (wrong order) but I just accepted it. I don't think I do reality checks in the physical with enough frequency or conviction.

[Matthew]

Don't be too hard on yourself, Beekeeper. That's a really good sign!
It seems that lucid dreams come in cycles. When I am at the beginning of a cycle, I start to have dreams where I perform the right actions but don't become lucid. Examples would be looking at my hands and not becoming lucid or seeing a dog with a huge stomach floating through the air and thinking "This must be a dream" and still not becoming lucid. However, when these "failures" start happening, I know that I will be having lucid dreams in the next few days as my dream cycle progresses. (I'll then have lucid dreams for a few days in a row.)
So, stick it out! It really is a good sign.
-Matthew

[Tom]

Frequently I dream of talking with people on the internet, and the computer works perfectly. The monitor looks a little closer to my face than usual, but that is not a big enough detail to trigger lucidity. It is more a matter of how I focus in on the screen. It really does seem to work in the same way as remote viewing as it feels like a way of getting actual new information. The problem is that without lucidity it doesn't really carry over very well into daily life and it isn't really possible to actively guide the experience to get specific information. Being aware of the problem and wanting to change it seems to be gradually making it better.