ok so lately due to many really odd and realistic converstions with people and things in ultra vivid lucids, my thoughts have turned to methods of testing the limits of dreaming and how to verify that it is more than just a visit to my own personal subconscious. there are of course many different interpretations of astral/obe/etc, and although i have yet to prove it to myself through lucid dreaming, i am 99% sure that the things i have experienced through more hardcore methods could not be explained by my crazy subconscious alone. of course i am not looking to start a debate as to the validity, just the methods of verification.

i looked for a similar thread but couldnt see one so i thought i could start a list of potential methods of testing. if ive missed a thread then ignore this.

the most obvious one i thought of is shared dreaming, and i will continue to experiment with that, however it of course has problems with recall and personal interpretations.

another test i have been trying is simply to try to speak to all dream characters and encourage them to come here, or if i know them to contact me throught facebook etc.

then i figure that if you meet someone you know, you can ask them to tell you something that you are not supposed to know. this may be the one i concentrate on for now.

the card test is an obvious one for obe's. i have developed a couple of variations of this. bear with me . firstly if you believe obe's to be 100% real you can just place a card there and try finding it. however if you see the so called real time zone (RTZ) as a contruct of many peoples joined subconscious, then you could get someone you know to look at the card, then hide it. if you believe that all obe's are just a part of your own subconscious yet still want to try a similar test, i thought what you could do is put all the cards face up, then select one at random and flip it over without seeing it. quickly scan the remaining cards so that theoretically your subconscious mind will know which card is missing, yet you do not consciously know which one.

please add any other methods that you can think of, or that have previously proved to you the reality of beyond dreaming.

love to all