# Sleep and Dreams > Sleep and Health >  >  Can't Distinguish Between Dream And Reality.

## Adanac

However, I am curious as to how that could happen. Isn&#39;t that what RC&#39;s are for?

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## Snowy Egypt

My guess is that some people can&#39;t handel it. Which is hard to belive...

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## Follower

I wonder if you mean a permanent loss of ability to distinguish between dreams and reality or a temporarily one. The latter happened to me and I can explain it, but the explanation must be different, so its only for the latter one.
It happened to me only right after having a vivid lucid dream. I notice how similar the perception of the world was, the perception of my body, the feelings, etc., and decide that it must be a dream again, a fake awakening. There&#39;s no real difference. Usually there&#39;s a difference in the &#39;atmosphere&#39; upon waking, but not after those rare LDs.
RCs are explainable. E.g. reading a book, looking away and reading again. In this case you just think that the dream is so stable that you can read. It&#39;s easy to believe in, because you can find no real difference in the atmosphere. You can try flying as an RC, but you can never be sure why you couldn&#39;t fly. Perhaps it&#39;s still a dream, and its vividness deceives you so much that your mind thinks that you can&#39;t fly. RCs aren&#39;t convincing when you senses are telling you that there&#39;s no difference.
It&#39;s scary, but you wait long enough and see if you wake up or not. After some time passes you know you couldn&#39;t have stayed in a dream so long.

I wonder what people who permanently can&#39;t distinguish feel. That must be hell.

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## Adanac

> I wonder if you mean a permanent loss of ability to distinguish between dreams and reality or a temporarily one. The latter happened to me and I can explain it, but the explanation must be different, so its only for the latter one.
> It happened to me only right after having a vivid lucid dream. I notice how similar the perception of the world was, the perception of my body, the feelings, etc., and decide that it must be a dream again, a fake awakening. There&#39;s no real difference. Usually there&#39;s a difference in the &#39;atmosphere&#39; upon waking, but not after those rare LDs.
> RCs are explainable. E.g. reading a book, looking away and reading again. In this case you just think that the dream is so stable that you can read. It&#39;s easy to believe in, because you can find no real difference in the atmosphere. You can try flying as an RC, but you can never be sure why you couldn&#39;t fly. Perhaps it&#39;s still a dream, and its vividness deceives you so much that your mind thinks that you can&#39;t fly. RCs aren&#39;t convincing when you senses are telling you that there&#39;s no difference.
> It&#39;s scary, but you wait long enough and see if you wake up or not. After some time passes you know you couldn&#39;t have stayed in a dream so long.
> 
> I wonder what people who permanently can&#39;t distinguish feel. That must be hell.
> [/b]



 Alright, I see what you are saying, so I understand how it could happen. But I don&#39;t think it could happen to me. If I thought that I was still dreaming, and I did a RC and it said I was awake, but I was sure I was dreaming, I would just go on as if I was awake. Because if I was dreaming, no loss there except a boring lucid where I can&#39;t fly and blow stuff up with my mind, but if I&#39;m awake, then no harm done either. So if I then woke up, I would be like "Wow, that was weird," and go on with my life.

Just my two cents.


EDIT: And I meant both

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## Follower

> If I thought that I was still dreaming, and I did a RC and it said I was awake, but I was sure I was dreaming, I would just go on as if I was awake.[/b]



You&#39;d trust your senses better than RCs..





> if I was dreaming, no loss there except a boring lucid where I can&#39;t fly and blow stuff up with my mind[/b]



You&#39;d be too scared that RCs and your senses are telling different things to feel so peaceful, that&#39;s all.

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## juroara

wow thats frightening, I didnt know that was possible   :Eek:  

I personally dont do RCs. they dont seem to work for a lot of people in their dreams. I think dream-signs are more reliable. although it can take a while to find yours, once you find it its gold.

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## Follower

> although it can take a while to find yours, once you find it its gold.[/b]



 :smiley:

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## Adanac

> You&#39;d trust your senses better than RCs..
> You&#39;d be too scared that RCs and your senses are telling different things to feel so peaceful, that&#39;s all.
> [/b]




 Oh yeah, I forgot you can read my mind and tell when I&#39;m lying and when I&#39;m telling the truth.  ::roll::

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## Follower

> Oh yeah, I forgot you can read my mind and tell when I&#39;m lying and when I&#39;m telling the truth. 
> [/b]



From what you wrote I deduced that you&#39;ve never been in such a situation. I&#39;m just telling you what would happen if you found yourself in the same situation and why. Don&#39;t be so ungrateful.

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## MoD

The mind is decieved fast. Only weak minds can be fooled into thinking they are dreaming while they are actually not. 

Believe what your mind tells you. RC are 100% foolprof if you check at least 5. Like the readin&#39; the text or looking at the clock RCs. 

And anyways. If a dream is so real that you cant know if its a dream or reality... What diffrence does it make?

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## LucidDreamGod

Yeah I don&#39;t usualy have this problem, if I were to ask if I was dreaming I usualy become lucid, because a dream just feels diffrent then waking life, though I&#39;ve had small occurances in dreams were I could sware it&#39;s real, but I never got that suspitious in waking life.

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## joey11223

o hey my mum had some drugs once for suposidly curing cronic migraines( shehas never found a good remedy though after 3 years she doesnt get many now), anyway one kinda test she tried. The drugs made her have nightmares/terrors and when she woke up she thought everything wasnt real, especially because sometimes colours were off and sounds were distorded.

It only lasted like 10 minutes for her but she got very scraed, especially if the nightmare was me dieing, she would start to think it had happened.

Maybe tell someone of your problems so theycan try and comfort you and convince you your not dreaming, maybe make them pinch you since you dont trust your own judgement enough.

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## Adanac

I still think the best method would to do a RC, and even if you think you are dreaming but the RC says you are awake, to treat it as reality. If it is a dream you have nothing to lose. If it is real, you can rest assured that you are treating it like it is real.

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## MrGrEmLiN

Whenever this happens to me I turn on a TV or the internet and if I&#39;m reading or seeing something I&#39;ve never read or seen then I&#39;m usually convinced I&#39;m not dreaming... Of course, it has to be something logical, not something like the news saying pink elephants are flying through your street at the momment... That would be confusing&#33; 

Sometimes I get these weird toughts that maybe I&#39;m in a coma and my head is making up this big dream&#33; Then reality is pretty hard to distinguish&#33; Anyone ever had those?&#33;

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## PendulumMan

> The mind is decieved fast. Only weak minds can be fooled into thinking they are dreaming while they are actually not. 
> 
> Believe what your mind tells you. RC are 100% foolproof if you check at least 5. Like the readin&#39; the text or looking at the clock RCs. 
> 
> And anyways. If a dream is so real that you cant know if its a dream or reality... What difference does it make?



This is silly. It's a central theme in Taoist philosophy that dreaming can be fundamentally indistinguishable from "reality" and the existential/spiritual significance of such. I've spent quite a while focusing my energy into Lucid Dreaming, and didn't get very far at all before I started to be unable to distinguish reality from dream no matter the RC; there was literally no difference, in novelty or "realness." The only feature which distinguishes them now is the quickly fading nature of their memory. I think this is a more universal awareness, that "reality" is ultimately some form of lucid dream, and there is no real reason any typically characteristic feature of a dream (RCs) would truly mean it is any less real than the "non-dream." I've learned that allowing a "dream" to flow and take place without interfering as if it were "your dream," while maintaining a fully aware and "lucid" mind-state, brings about the greatest value in any "dream" or "real" experience. I'd like to eventually bring this awareness to a level of equilibrium between dream worlds, or ultimately just dream experiences, where they all hold an equal level of "reality" in one's mind. Would be an interesting non-linear state of consciousness.

It is an interesting and somewhat disconcerting thought to honestly attempt to "wake up" from this current dream reality, which we are so very convinced is really really "real." It takes first realizing that, logically, there really is no reason to be so convinced, or be convinced at all.

I believe that when people convince themselves dreams are just dreams because of "dream signs" or "RCs" they all share, they are creating that illusion, basically by being convinced that there actually is a "true reality" and that dreams are somehow less real; without that illusion you begin to see the same "dream signs" during "waking reality" as well, fractal correlations between dreamworlds, which are all very different but also connected.

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## SKA

RC's have never let me down. Sticking my hand through a wall allways works in my dreams and never does in waking life.

Dream experiences and waking life experiences both are largely the same. Dreams just don't have continuity and permaneent consequences.
If you get chased by the police in 1 dream, you won't per say still be on the run from the law next time you have a dream.
If you see someone die in 1 dream, they will just be there in future dreams again. Whatever choices you make and actions you take
in a Dream; before you begin your next night of Dreaming the Dreamworld will be reset and you start with a clean slate.

That discontinuity and lack of permanent consequences is perhaps the most recognisable sign that you are Dreaming.
It was this vague discontinuity, jumping from experience to experience that would make me suspicious and make me do an RC; making me lucid.

However it's been a long tim since I did an RC in dreamland and became lucid.
Need to reinstate that habbit of noticing discontinuity and doing RCs.

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## Lester

There is huge difference in dream and the reality.
we have to work hard to bring the dreams in reality and want to make it the part of the life. Its very simple.

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## Lester

> There is huge difference in dream and the reality.
> we have to work hard to bring the dreams in reality and want to make it the part of the life. Its very simple.



 Any comment.

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## WhiteWind

psychedelics?

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## ishamil

it happens to me quite often actually. i often ask people in reality if this or that actually happened, and they usually give me a wierd look and say no. i guess im just bad at remembering to do RCs.

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## SilverBullet

Well, sometimes it does happen, especially when you have extremely realistic dreams.

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## NrElAx

This could probably happen to someone with schizophrenia.

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## dakotahnok

*I always have memory's that i cant remember if it was a dream or if it was real. Its usually not a big deal though. I have never thought i had superpowers and then jumped out the window to my death.*

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