the BIG Reality Check Topic [part II]

I think I’m right. Try it, you’ll see. A watch is just the kind of thing that always shows different times in a dream, just like a light never works when you try to turn it on. Digital or not. If it works for me, why shouldn’t it work for others too? Btw: I have a watch with hands but there are all 12 numbers written on it in a circle. Anyway, daysong will try it and we’ll see.

Well, what Minako said does make sense to me at least. Yes, a digital watch does have characters, but think about it… Dreams are quite unstable if you aren’t lucid. Your mind has many things to control while in a dream… If you look at a watch with hands, look away, and then look back, I think there would be a good chance that it would change. I’ll post my experiences with it though after I try it out.

does not have to be digital, like minako say.

I have few lds where I look at clock downstair that have hand rather than number, I look at clock, say 6:30, look away, 12:00 midnight. So Must be work with hand clocks too yes yes? ^.^

Alright, I finally went out and bought a non-digital watch a few days ago. I’ve been doing RCs by looking at the time, looking away and telling myself it would be 12:00 midnight (while imagining what it will look like) and then checking back.

I had no results for a couple days, but this morning I was just about to go look for a dragon that my gym teacher spotted, when I just decided “Hey, do a reality check.” So I dug under my sweater and checked my watch. It wasn’t even the one that I had purchased! It was much bigger, and had a white face opposed to my light purple one :eek: Well, then I became lucid.

So even though that didn’t have to do with actually checking the time, it still worked… :peek:

I finally received my Laberge book (Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming) - perhaps that’s why I had another LD last night (besides Ed’s excellent bwgen preset).

In any case, this is what I wanted to point out:

On p.64 it says about the digital watch RC - “this test works only with digital and not with old-style analog watches, which can sometimes tell dream time quite believably. Once when I decided to do a state-test I looked at my watch and found it had been converted to a fairly realistic analog watch. But I didn’t remember trading in my digital watch for the Mickey Mouse watch that was on my wrist, so I figured I must be dreaming.”

So the test with analog watches can work (because the watch itself can fail to give correct/real/believable time), but it can fail (if the watch gives believable time results). Perhaps what we can expect to happen during the LD can affect this, or perhaps it’s just different for different people. Perhaps there is some other factor which influences e.g whether you are artistic or not, who knows…

In my last LD, I could read some words on the wall but some words were unreadable and I thought they were reversed somehow. I think it’s connected.

I found my old watch I got in 5th grade, it’s the greatest digital watch evar!

Radioshack’s talking Watch! :cool:

It says the time loudly every hour and can tell the time at will Plus it’s digital and has words on it. Also, the fact that the thing that holds it to my arm is partially brokens helps me remember to check for Rcs since I have to fix it ever 15-30 minutes.
I used it for about 3 days before I left it somewhere but I found it again today.

Anyway, I’ve had about 2 dreams that dealt heavily with LDs and my inner self. I don’t remember much from them, but I do remember waking up 3 times during one night, I think I might have relized I was dreaming but the shock might have woke me up. The entire dream was about LDs but I had those before and still didn’t become lucid.

Well, I figure after I start wearing it more, I will start having some more LDs. It pisses my teachers off though

Watch: IT’S 11:00 AM!!!

Mr.Koos: GIVE it to me now!!!

My sister’s b/f just bought me a good digital watch (I used to have an embarassing mickey-mouse watch) and I’m starting to do RC’s.

Is it better to set my watch to chime every hour or is it better to do random RC’s without relying on the chime?

my guess is that it would be better to have it set to beep. Just so that your mind knows that it will beep eventualy, so the thaught of it will be lurking in your head. So sometimes your mind will remind you to RC before it beeps… Our biological clock in our minds, whatever its called…

Then it will force a habit on yourself. Perhaps relying on the beep for the first bit would be good. But try withought it some time later and see how your results are…

Ive found exploiting quirks in your “luck” gave me great results… For instance im pretty much a dufus and do a lot of stuff wrong, and nice things never really happen to me… So when im buying a new guitar/F gear i really want i am probably dreaming, or if ive thrown a moldy can of tuna in the bin (without it bouncing of the rim and splattering everywhere) i am probably dreaming lol

i started trying to LD a few years ago after reading Carlos Casteneda’s books.

At the time, the only bit of instruction I had was to look down at my hands and sustain the sight of them whenever I had one of those moments where I would realise I was dreaming.

Apart from occasionally looking at my hands in waking life and reminding myself to do it next time I’m dreaming, I didn’t really look into RC techniques or anything else that might help me to LD.

Pretty soon I started having this re-occurring dream which would make me realise I was dreaming. I would be in a book store and I’d find a book by Castaneda which I knew didn’t exist (as I was collecting his books at the time and knew what I was looking for). Whenever I found one of these made-up Castaneda books, I would realise I was having that dream again.

After a while, the dream stopped re-occurring and I haven’t been LDing as regularly since then. Lately, I’ve been trying to think of another everyday activity (like the book-shopping) that I could use in the same way.

The thing is tho, that the re-occurring dream that I used to have was something that just happened naturally, without my design.

Beginner’s luck, maybe?

well, many times after you get lucid in a reaccuring dream, it stops reaccuring. What you could do, is incubate a dream (you make your own dream basicly). there is many techniques out there on how to do that. Or you could take dream signs. Such as how you used book shopping as a dream sign. Just take a peek at your dream jurnol (if you dont have one, start one) and read your dreams. Find something similer in them, and once you do, look for that in real life. Once yo usee these things, do a reality check… so now look for other things that seem to re-appeer in your dreams, otehr then book shopping…

It wasnt exacly begginers luck, you did the best thing by using book shopping for dream signs!

that should clarify things, i doubt it will, im sorry, i seem to suck at giving advice :cry:

No, actually I do follow what you’re saying there, Lucian. Thanks for the advice.
Ive kinda been thinking along those lines myself. I’ve been looking at my dream journal and thinking about what kind of locations turn up repeatedly in my dreams.
The other night I had this weird kind of de-ja-vu experience in an ordinary dream where i went to this house that doesn’t exist in real life. I realised in the dream that I had visited that house a year or so ago and then totally forgot about it. I then had a very confusing dream moment where I couldn’t understand how I had forgotten about that house.
When I woke up and thought about it, I realised that I had in fact dreamed about that house a year or so ago. This imaginary house has returned in my dreams after all this time.
Hopefully next time I find myself in that house it will trigger an LD.

no probelm;
ooh, nice , the “haunting” house… teh hosue that haunts for years and years… mwahahha!

when i usualy get a dejavu, i do a RC, its instinc for me, but i dont know why i do it, it isnt like i ever get one of thsoe in a dream!

I have some difficulty doing RC’s during the day… I’m usually at school and having my mobile phone ring every 15 minutes as a combined RC (the phone rings, I check the display and the time, and then stare at my hands extensively), is not appreciated by the teachers. :\ Also staring at my hands normally results in getting weird looks from people (not that I normally don’t get weird looks but it’s just… you know).

Still, recently, out of the blue, I did the hands-finger-counting RC in a dream. And it worked - twice. :o I counted 8 fingers on one hand, heh!

I’m thinking about sticking up a sign in the subway I go with everyday, but the cleaning people will probably yell at me. :neutral:

Also so far most of my RC-to-lucidity moments have been in or around my bedroom. Usually it’s the little things. Like my hair that wasn’t dyed whilst I got it dyed a few days ago, so I figured I was dreaming. Or my friends’ voice through the phone that sounded very weird, so I checked if I was dreaming, and I was (I woke up from that one though)…

There seems to be no real pattern or repetitive check I’m doing. Of course that’s because I don’t check IRL, either.

What bothers me though… during some days my grasp on reality isn’t entirely what it should be. I’m afraid that doing RC’s will only further deteriorate my wobbly grasp on the world around me. :crazy:

aargh! my two RC’s failed today!
I counted fingers and I had 8, but when I counted them again there were 5! “Must’ve been sleepy” - I told myself, but just to be sure it isn’t a dream I held my nose. I couldn’t breathe…
Should I change my RC to another? (It was the second time when the fingers RC failed.)
I’m looking for a RC that doesn’t make you look stupid when people are watching. (I count my fingers by just looking at my hand)

This week I had another dream in which I used the fingers-counting-RC to become lucid. Again, random. Because I don’t practice the RC when I’m awake, and that’s what surprised me most. This time I also remembered to rub my hands together. It still doesn’t make any sense to me.

I too am looking for an RC I can do unnoticed, seeing as I spend most of my time in school or at work. :\

I don’t know if this applies to everyone, but I found that the counting fingers technique also works by feeling how many fingers you have. (Or by stroking one finger discretely across your hand, counting the fingers). This way you don’t have to extend your arm infront of you and look at it, which in turn would make people look at you :wink:

I write this on pen on the top of my left hand; ‘You are dreaming.’
Has it help sometime, hopefulyl before i die of ink poisoning

After reading Pedro’s VILD method I learned about the nose-RC. It has only come back in an ND once, but I find it’s easy to do and doesn’t make you look weird in public. I also don’t forget it that much because well, you blink with your eyes all the time, and often I remember to do an RC then. ^^

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If some of you have trouble to remember to do these checks (like me) you can try my simple RC reminder I’ve programmed.

geocities.com/hans_guenther2 … /jarcp.zip
(Copy&Paste the link into the adress field of your browser)

Well, if you don’t sit in front of your computer for long times, it might not be as useful, but you can also use it as an alarm clock or as an digital egg timer if you like :content:

A 32-bit windows operating system is needed. It might even work with the different windows emulators under linux, but well, I didn’t go that far with testing …

Feedback is welcomed …

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