Do you have trouble remembering to do reality checks through out the day?
I do. So some day ago I decided to do something about it and bought a watch to remind me of doing reality checks. I had three requirements when deciding which watch to buy.
Digital numbers
Using a digital watch for reality checks is an easy way to check if you´re dreaming.
When you are dreaming, your dream world is constantly changing. Lucid dreamers use this to their advantage. If you look at a digital clock in a dream, look away, then look at the time again, the numbers will have changed. If the time said 11:25 the first time, it might say 17:46 the second time. It might even display something as random as 3Z:L# or hieoroglyphics.
I haven´t tried using an analog watch for reality checks, but I see no reason it shouldn´t work too. The only difference would be that instead of numbers changing the pointers would change place, or that a pointer is missing when you look back. If you´ve tried this with an analog watch, let me know.
Hourly Timesignal
The watch beeps every hour. This was an important requirement for me, because it makes sure I remember to ask the critical question “Am I dreaming?” at least once an hour. The signal is not too loud, so I can have it on during the night too. I won´t wake up, and there´s a chance the signal will get through into my dream and make my dream watch beep.
When you do reality checks, consistency is important. Doing 20 reality checks one day and zero reality checks the day after will not return good results in the long run. The key is to make it a habit. Eventually the habit will carry over into your dreams, which will hopefully make you lucid.
Lighting
This feature wasn´t as important as the previous two, but it´s handy to be able to check the time if you wake up in the middle of the night and it´s pitch black in the room.
I´m now a proud owner of a Casio F-91W
I bought the watch two days ago and I´m checking my reality far often now than before. Maybe because everytime I look at my watch it reminds me of lucid dreaming. It will be interesting to see how many days it will take before my dream-me starts to wear the watch.
Do you have any tips on how to remember to test your reality?
UPDATE:
Last night I had the watch on my wrist in my dream. It took about a week for it to appear in my dreams, not bad! Now I just need to remember to perform a reality check next time I see my watch in a dream. Then it´s lucid time!
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I got used to constantly question everything. What am I doing, why am I doing it, should I do it, am I dreaming, will I wake up, where am I, what is this, who is reading this, who wrote it, why are you reading it…
That´s a great way of questioning reality. Robert Waggoner has interviewed many lucid dreamers and a few had experienced thousands of lucid dreams. One of them said that she was constantly asking herself “What did I just do?”. Making a habit of asking those kind of questions seems to give you alot of lucid dreaming
This sounds like a good method. I keep trying to do reality checks during the day but forgetting. Like i choose some catagory’s, such as every time i walk through a door or every time i see a clock or a spider, but never seem to remember to do them. Actually i chose 6 catagorys to start with, and the only one which i got to become a habit was every time i see a spider (i noticed a few dreams where i saw a spider so wrote that as a dreamsign). I think i might try your method out, and buy a watch so that i will start doing reality checks more when it beeps on the hour. But…. i have spotted an issue. The good thing about making it a habit to test reality every time you walk through a door, see a spider etc, is that when that happens in a dream you should carry on the habit, but won’t the watch just not beep in the dream? or is that you have to become used to doing it when you see the watch, and chances are you will in the dream? So for example you have a dream and wonder what the time is, and look at your watch and ‘oh yeah, reality check’.
Hi Jim,
I´ve thought about that issue too. I don´t know if the watch will beep in the dream. I think it has alot to do with expectation. If I expect the watch to beep in my dream, maybe it will. But instead of relying on the beeps, I´m trying to make it a habit of making a reality check every time I check what time it is. I´ve also started to ask myself the question “How did I get here?” during the day. My thoughts can go like this: “I am at my mothers house, I got here by car 5 minutes ago, my sister dropped me off. Before that I was at my aunts place. I know where I´ve been the last couple of hours, so I´m probably not dreaming. But I´ll do a reality check anyway!”. In a dream my conversation can probably look like this: “I´m at my dads place, I just got here with my two alien friends. Where was I before that? Hmm, I can´t remember! This must be a dream, I better do a reality check!”
I´ve also tried remembering to do reality checks every time I walk through a door. I agree with you, it´s hard to remember. But I think it´s worth the effort. It´s your prospective memory that you´re training. When you get better at remembering to do reality checks you will get better at remembering that you´re dreaming too.
Here´s a quote from the Lucidipedia forum about reality checks that I found helpful:
I think one of my problems with doing the reality checks, was that i was reading Steven La Berges book and it said to choose 5-10 occasions that I should do RC’s… and i made about 6, which i think was too ambitious. Infact I think I’m going to do exactly what you have done- to do one when i walk through doors, when the watch beeps, and when i look at the time. I will use the watch itself for the RC (i have just bought myself a casio), and the nose pinch as a backup, that way i’m not trying to remember loads of times like I was before. I think this may be a better method to begin with. Do you have any tips on how to check the time on the watch? Like do you just read the time, look away, then read it again? I will also think ‘Am I dreaming?’ and try to remember the previous things I have done before doing the actual RC. And the suggestion of ‘how did I get here?’ is good, but i may leave that for a few weeks as this new method is enough to remember, but i will definatly try that out once i’m confident that i’m doing the RC’s and stuff.
I’m going to concentrate on the MILD technique from now on ( i was trying WILD mostly before), as i think that’s supposed to be the easiest or something.
Cheers for the great blog!