When I was 17 and driving to my junior prom, a late season blizzard set in. Snow was accumulating and the roads were wet. The temperature dropped quickly which created a layer of ice. I suddenly lost control of my car and began spinning in circles down the center of the highway. Finally, the car slid into the ditch but only a moment before an oncoming tractor trailer would have made contact. It was a pretty soft landing in the snow albeit more or less on the car’s side.  I climbed out through the passenger side window and crawled up the snowy embankment on hands and feet. With no cell phone to reach for, there I stood, collecting snow on my tuxedo and watching an occasional car go by until one eventually stopped. No one was hurt and the car wasn’t even damaged but the gravity of the situation haunted me. With each revolution of the spinning car, the truck drew closer as I watched through the windshield. I thought to myself that life is fragile and things can change dramatically and without notice.  Reality check.

In the pursuit and practice of lucid dreaming, the term “reality check” takes on a different kind of meaning. Instead of a realization or grounding perspective that results from something that happens to you, it is an exercise or test that you perform proactively to bring you to a realization. The realization of, “Am I awake or am I dreaming?”

In waking life, bizarre scenarios will occasionally happen that may cause you to ask yourself, “Am I dreaming this?”  For some, this is especially true when something happens that resembles a theme that they commonly experience when dreaming (recurring dreamsign).  Let’s say you often dream that you are not wearing shoes and are looking around for them. Then, one day in waking life, you are late for work and cannot find your shoes. As you search your house, the fleeting thought enters your mind, “Could this be a dream?”

The waking mind tends to ground itself very quickly and easily. “Of course not. I’m awake!” There is an atmosphere of stability and focus combined with self-reflection that evaporates any notion that you may be asleep and dreaming. Furthermore, if you have the presence of mind while dreaming to critically evaluate your circumstances and question whether or not you are dreaming… congratulations, chances are you are off to an amazing lucid dream adventure!

Why, then, are reality checks so important if we don’t really need them to confirm our waking or dreaming state? Let’s explore that further right after we review some of the more popular reality checks that have been put to use:

Popular Reality Checks

1. Read a sentence or paragraph then read it a second time. If you find that upon your second read through, the content has changed, you are dreaming. Also, if you find it to be tremendously challenging to read at all (perhaps the words are moving around on the page/screen), this is also a good indicator that you may be dreaming.

2. Turn off the lights or, turn them on. A commonly reported dream characteristic is the dreamer’s inability to modulate room lighting through the use of light switches.

3. Close your mouth, plug your nose and try to breath. If you are able to breath or find that you do not even need to breath, good news, you are dreaming!

4. Put your hand through a wall or any other solid surface. If it moves through, you are dreaming. And, no, punching through walls does not count!

5. Attempt to gently push the index finger of one hand through the palm of the other. If your finger slides through, you are dreaming.

6. Simply look at your hand, look away, then look at it again. If you see something unusual like too many fingers, underdeveloped fingers, or distortion of the palm and fingers… yep, dreaming.

There are many more reality checks out there but these are some of the more popular ones. Of them, I tend to lean toward numbers three through six since they don’t involve “props” of any kind. For example, you may not have anything to read while in a dream and find yourself wasting valuable time in search of a book or magazine. I don’t like the light switch test mainly because I happen to live in an older house where there are light switches that don’t do anything even when I’m awake. Conversely, whether dreaming or awake, my hands are always available to me and ready to go. Of the hand-based tests, simply looking at them (#6) is my go-to. For me, it’s a sure thing and very fast to perform… just look and look again. When awake, it’s five fingers and the same hand every time (thank you very much). When in a dream, it seems to be something different each time but consistently… unusual. Typically, for me, there will be too many fingers or some fingers will be oddly (and obviously) too short. When I see that, it’s off to the races without even a moment of concern about my deformed hand.

So, back to the original question. What is the real value of reality checks if it’s not to confirm what we already know (that we are awake) or confirm what we strongly suspect (that we are dreaming)? The practice of conducting reality checks has two primary benefits for lucid dream practitioners. First, they can be a means to achieve lucidity in a dream. Second, once lucid, they provide the dreamer with a mechanism to stabilize the dream environment in order to make the most out of their experience.

Reality Checks for Lucid Dream Induction
There are variations on this method but the idea goes something like the following.  About ten times each day, pause briefly and conduct your favorite reality check. It’s best if you are prompted to do this by seeing, feeling, or generally experiencing something unusual or something that relates to one of your recurring dremsigns. For example, you see a car nearly run another car off of the road. Depending on where you live, this may not be uncommon at all but, still, do a reality check. Since it’s unlikely that there will be more than one or maybe two of these opportunities each day, you will have to create other cues. At one point, I set an alarm on my phone that went off once every hour to prompt a reality check.

[If you try this one, let me know when you have your first dream about tossing your phone out of a window.] Whatever method you choose, do it and do it often throughout the day. Also, when you reality check, don’t just go through the motions. A mindless attempt to push your finger through your palm followed by a mental, “nope” will not be effective. You must consciously engage in the process, sincerely evaluate your surroundings, and ask yourself if you are dreaming even if you already know the answer. The reason being, after the consistent practice of critical reality checks, the “habit” becomes prevalent within your waking thought process which will eventually cross into the thought process of your dreaming mind.  An absentminded reality check practice when awake will lead to an absentminded evaluation when you are dreaming and is not likely to lead to lucidity. When it becomes second nature for you to reality check frequently and sincerely (especially when encountering something unusual) you are on your way to successfully inducing a lucid dream.  Perhaps the next time you find yourself “shoe-less” and sitting in your 6th grade classroom, you will pause to conduct a reality check… success.

Reality Checks for Lucid Dream Stabilization
Using reality checks as an induction technique is tried and true but, let’s face it, it takes a great deal of waking life discipline to put it into practice. There are a number of other techniques that may be more favorable especially for beginners. That said, using reality checks for lucid dream stabilization is both easy and highly effective. Whatever it is that happens to trigger you or clue you in to the fact that you may be dreaming, there are some techniques that will allow you to prolong the experience. One technique involves shifting your focus between different people and/or objects.  It is commonly reported by lucid dreamers that focusing on one thing (singularly) for too long will cause the dream to collapse causing the dreamer to wake up and, therefore, shifting focus is an important strategy. Another technique involves the acuteness of your thought as you periodically remind yourself that you are dreaming. This is important as it is common for the lucid dreamer to become caught up in the experience and slide back into autopilot thus losing the conscious connection. Practicing reality checks at the onset and throughout a lucid dream will accomplish both of these objectives. Looking at your hands, for example, will simultaneously shift your focus from one object to another and register a conscious reminder that you are, in fact, still dreaming. In the event that the dream begins to degrade or “collapse”, an applied reality check can, again, serve as a stabilizing mechanism.

One final note pertaining to reality checks as with all other things to do with lucid dreaming… it is important to have fun! As is the case with all things of the Universe, success is not attracted to frustration, impatience, and, most of all, desperation. Remember that everyone has the ability to become aware in their dreams and achieve life-altering goals. However, it’s important to view your pursuit as a journey and not a race. Each step in the process holds a lesson and some significance for you to discover so proceed with love, good intentions, and a light heart.