Oneironaut: A Guide to Lucid Dreaming

Chapter Two: Reality Checks

This chapter won't be too long and nor will it be so important to commit to but if you're ever having trouble gaining any memory of dreams, I believe it is important to commit to doing regular reality checks.

Reality checks are any thing you do to make sure you're in a wakeful state. Often times when we are dreaming, we go about a dream thinking that we are actually awake because the dream may not seem out of the ordinary from the start. That is only because we are not fully conscious of the moment, and often times it is the case that we are not fully present with ourselves in reality so of course, it would only make sense that we are the same in our dreams.

Look at it this way, every day whether you have a daily routine or go through each day with spontaneous acts, we rarely ever give our presence a second thought. Busy or not, it's a rare thing for us to sit with ourselves and think, "I am here, I am in my house, I see my hands, etc." We only ever think of these things whenever something out of the ordinary hits us and that is not being fully present with oneself while awake.

There is a lot you can do to practice being more self-aware and conscious of your existence but for the purposes of reality checks, we will be focusing on the minor ones. Through this, you will be more aware and able to tell when you're awake and when you're actually dreaming.

So to start, you can ask yourself every few hours during the day "Am I dreaming?" That is important to ask first before you do the actual reality check.

A reality check can be one of many things:

- Look at your fingers and hands. Look away after two seconds and then after two seconds more, look back. If you were awake, your fingers and hands would look the same. If you were actually dreaming, your fingers or hands would look distorted somehow, and it would not be deniable.

- Every time you pass say a doorway, or a symbol that you may or not notice in your usual dreams often (if you remember any at this point), poke your left palm with your right index finger. In a dream, it can happen that your finger goes right through your left palm or something out of the ordinary like that.

- Read a page or text or look at a clock if there is one. Look away afterward and look back. In dreams, the text would not be the same and the clock would be at a different hour each time you look.

- Pinch your nose, close your mouth, and test whether you can still breathe.

You can definitely think of more reality checks along the way. These are usually good and discreet to start with. They can be done as often or as little as you'd like as long as they are done enough times for you to develop a habit. This habit will definitely help you out in the long run.