Now that we’ve covered Dream Recall in Part I, we’re on to Part II:

These techniques should be used in correlation with practicing dream recall.

Reality Checks are when you test to see if you are in a dream. Some examples are:

-Plugging your nose – in waking life, if you hold your nose shut, you won’t be able to breathe. In a dream, you are holding your dream nose shut and your physical body is still able to breathe. So in a dream, when you plug your nose shut, you will still be able to breath. Cool, right? -Looking at your hands – Count your fingers. You have five, right? Count them again. Still five? Then you’re not dreaming. Sometimes in a dream you’ll have more or less than five fingers, or when you count them the number changes — You can count six fingers one way, go back and count seven the other way.

-Poking a finger through your palm – If you can poke a finger through your palm, you are either dreaming or you have just poked a hole through your palm, go to a hospital. In a dream, your hand is not your physical body — you’re able to pass through walls and objects. That is, if you want to. I’ve had lucid dreams in which i’ve tried to pass through a wall and ended up putting a man-shaped dent in the wall.
-Looking at the time – Digital time is preferred. The clock may have strange symbols or may not tell time. If you can see the right time, look away for a second and then look back. Has the time changed? No, you didn’t take six hours and four minutes to turn your head. You’re dreaming!
-Electrical failure – Sometimes in dreams a light switch won’t work or a computer won’t turn on. If this happens, do another reality check.
-Close one eye and look at your nose – Can you see it? Then you’re not dreaming. In waking life we don’t pay enough attention to our nose; this affects our subconscious mind (through habituation) so that in a dream, if you close one eye and look for your nose, it won’t be there!

You should do a reality check about once every hour. A good idea is to set an alarm on your cell phone to ring once every hour and remind yourself to do a reality check. Another technique is to do a reality check every time you pass through a door. You’re bound to pass through a door in a dream, right? And once you do — BAM! you’re lucid!

Dream Signs are things that are out-of-the ordinary, things you usually don’t see in waking life. Dreams have a weird way of making things…well, weird. The funny thing about dreams is that you can see the strangest thing and thing it’s completely normal — you can see a Transformer walk down the street and wave to you, and you’d wave back thinking what a nice thing it was that Optimus Prime said hey. You’ve got to train your senses more, be on the lookout for things that just aren’t normal. When you see something out of the ordinary, do a reality check! An important thing to remember is that you must BELIEVE that your reality check will fail (or pass, however you look at it). You have to believe when you plug your nose, you will breathe through it. And when it doesn’t happen, believe that next time will be the time you are in a dream.

This is where your dream journal comes in. Look through it, try to seek out things that re-occur in your dreams. These are your very own dream signs. Common dream signs also include your teeth falling out, being naked in public, falling, being in places you haven’t been in years or seeing people you haven’t seen in years. So next time you’re naked in public, do a reality check, and if you’re dreaming, walk around showing off your stuff. If you’re not dreaming, best of luck down at the police station.

Remember to always be aware of your surroundings. Every now and then, ask yourself, “Where was I an hour ago?” And do a reality check every hour and when you see something strange. Pretty soon you’ll start to recall more dreams and start to progress towards having a lucid dream!

By the way, some of you may ask: how vivid is a lucid dream? And the answer is: it looks, smells, feels, and even tastes like real life. Sometimes it’s much more vivid than real life — after a few lucids, you’ll be able to become lucid off the vividness of your dream alone.

There’s nothing like that first lucid dream. You’ll see what I mean!

Got it down, take me to Part III!

Related Posts
An Introduction to Lucid Dreaming: Part I
An Introduction to Lucid Dreaming: Part III

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