My Powerful Alternative to Reality Checking

Have you done this?

Yes, sort of. I made an attempt but I stopped when I suddenly thought, “Wait, what if I’m actually dreaming?” I mean the subconscious can replicate things perfectly in dreams, (such as emotion, physical pain, etc…,) I had a lucid dream that night, but I decided not to test it myself… well, at least not yet, but l might try again sometime.

Can you explain how this works around the notion of FLD? It seems like a way to get caught in this trap fairly easily. You also want to make sure that your reality checks work in one direction only if at all possible – that is, they work in dreams and don’t have much support in reality. If I stop in reality and think “This is a dream” and something out of place happens around me, that may back up my erroneous thought.

Well this is actually a form of a reality check, but I won’t get into too much detail on why :razz:.

But yes, this technique can work. In fact, a few dreamers here have gotten to that point. The way it’s been described to me was a sudden realization that there is conceivably no difference between the way a dream and RL feel. This is actually the essence of Lucid Living (LL) that most people, including myself, miss. Now, the way these people got there was through working on their overall awareness. You’re on the right track, but keep going :content:

Hi Archery,

Your idea sounds interesting, and your enthousiasm tickles my imagination, but I don’t quite understand what the differences are between your TILD and the RC’s we do with MILD?

Actually, this is a common practice in the East. Those who do dreamwork in eastern religious traditions such as Dzogchen have a way of thinking which in essence is that “This is a dream” in waking life. There is a great philosophical discourse on this topic that I shall not get into because I would spend the next three days and nights typing it out. But it’s kind of like that childrens song “Row Row Row your boat”. Remember the end? “Life is but a dream!”

But, that you came to the conclusion on your own is impressive! Keep up your critical thinking, and may you have the best of luck in your lucid ventures.

Saying “This is a dream” about fifty times a day greatly adds to the possibility of becoming lucid at night.

I didn’t draw the conclusions myself when I did this kind of self-suggestion a week ago but now that I think of it, I have had two LD-s in quite a short timespan, only six days. And I have been saying to myself the words “Of course it is a dream” when awake.

The last time I had an LD was yesterday at 2.20 am and I didn’t do any RC-s to become lucid or confirm that it was a dream. I was just standing beside my bed and immediately knew it was a dream. It was the longest LD I have ever had.

So I would definitely suggest saying “This is a dream” instead of asking “Is this a dream?” The former has a much deeper quality than the latter and evokes more thought in me. When I say “This is a dream” IWL, I always feel a weird sensation of my consciousness being stretched a bit, widened in some sense.

When I’m doing WILd and see vivid HI, I imagine myself doing a reality check in front of or in it. This is for in case I fall asleep, It will be sort of like a WILD.

oh haha that makes sense thanks for clearing that up for me :smile:

Archery, you have stumbled upon quite a profound realization, and for that you ought to be proud of yourself. If only I had this kind of insight in my daily activities perhaps my life would be more rich. I, however, rely greatly on literature to pry my mind open. It is a weakness of mine, I admit. I have little capacity for original thought, but, thank goodness we have the ability to write down our thoughts, for I have no need of original thought as long as there are others out there, like yourself, who will do it for me :smile:.

thank you :smile:

Man, that is one profound statement. It reminds me of what is called “All Day Awareness (ADA)” which follows the same basic idea.

The good thing is that it works but the bad thing for at least me is that it doesn’t work, say, three days in a row. In the first or second night I might get an LD but after the third the awareness loses it’s freshness and deepness.

The time I had an LD with ADA was when I was really pissed off about the existence of me as a person. I have this idea that the Universe shouldn’t actually exist and even if it does, it shouldn’t contain me. This gave me inspiration to question reality the whole day.

I had an LD, yes, but the energy that it took the day before was a bit too much. The awareness wore off and I may be able to use ADA maybe a week or two from now, I don’t know.

What about this technique? Similar to ADA but less stressful (I can’t concentrate on multiple things at once, it’s really hard and can’t do it for minutes, hours atc.)

[center]SAT - Sporadic Awareness Technique / A DILD Variation[/center]

This is Tibetan Dream Yoga and it has been around for thousands of years. ;]

I don’t know if this is exactly the same phenomenon, but I find that I don’t actually reality check any more. If I have to wonder whether I’m dreaming, I know I’m dreaming. Independent of RC’s, I can return an instant verdict of yes or no whenever I ask myself the question.

huh?

How do you maintain your attention for that long? It’s a real difficulty for me - often forgot about it i’m in a dream (some dream characters prevent me to do RCs - actually my mind tricks me). I give a try to this method and see what I can do in my dreams. I almost lost all my hope in these dream techniques, no matter how positive I think about LD-ing. :neutral:

Tibetan Buddhist dream yogis were doing lucid dreaming 2 millennia ago and longer. Read their translated ancient texts. They clearly were lucid dreamers.

Yes, I have. I wrote this post beforehand, however. I discovered the results are not as promising as I made them sound. They are somewhat powerful, though. More so than reality checks.