Thread: Lucid dreaming withouth RC

WILDs are the only lucid dreams where I don't need reality checks. All my other lucids are DILDs through RCs. There is a very small number of DILDs where I became lucid without them, but it is really a small number.

Perhaps you are a natural lucid dreamer. In any case, I don't think RCs would hurt you, but help you.

All my lucid dreams start without RC's, however there are times where I do RC's during lucid dream just to double check that it is a dream, I also do RC's in awake life. The reason why you need to do RC's in waking life is to raise your awareness, the more awareness you have the more chances to become lucid in your dream. Your mind should be in a state where it will expect to have lucid dream.

Just keep doing RC's when you are awake, whenever you see or feel that something out of order, or something seems strange do a RC. Even if you experience some feelings that are out of order, do a RC. It will become a habit for you and hopefully you will have lucid dreams every night.

Yo, welcome to dreamviews and congrats on progress!
As flowofmysoul said, it's completely normal, the awareness and questioning mindset from reality checks is what really makes us lucid, not the action itself, which means the action in dream is not necessary to get lucid, though still useful for double checking and retaining awareness sometimes. I've had alot of lucid dreams where i got lucid because i 'felt' that i was dreaming. So keep doing RCs in waking life and practicing awareness because it is working!

RC's most important role is to disrupt the automatic patterns of thinking/ reacting to events.Lucid dreaming at it's core is interrupting pre-determined behaviour, your mind doesn't get swept away by events and you observe your thoughts.
Most of the time we live our life in a hazy fog where we act impulsively according to whatever beliefs, social expectations have been imprinted on us since childhood.In the worst cases thinking is never critical, just mental chatter with the sole purpose of maintaining the current program.Now in the dream state this is far more worse since anatomically the region responsible for critical thinking in the brain( Prefrontal Cortex) is normally off, even if the other regions can be fired up.
But even if the region is 'off', the neurons aren't dead, just very inactive.Lucid dreaming practice is just flexing these neurons that normally are off.In your every day life you put more care and reason behind your actions."Why am I mad at this situation","Why am I scared or running from this thing", next time you look at a flower you don't just think "oh a nice coloured flower everyone knows it's nice now I can return at thinking about random crap#145", you look at the pattern of the petals, how deep is the colour is and the way it contrasts with the background, you stop all the mental noise and just pay attention to your sight and smell sense.The RCs you do in the day make you to pay more attention to your emotions, surrounding, people you see, little details.
It's mental workout and it does require effort, and same as physical training, it constantly builds up until you reach the required goal-post.At some point when you go to sleep, some connections will still remain more more active than usually in your pre-frontal cortex and when that number reaches a certain threshold you get lucidity and start questioning your dream.
That's why you hear of people that after a period of lucid dreaming they stop dream journaling/RC because of a too busy life or losing interest, they just can't keep the mental effort anymore because of more troubling issues that eat up mental strength or can't find the motivation too keep up with the practice.After a while they will stop having lucid dreams.You can do all the RCs you want but if they are just automatic in themselves and no effort is made to actually know and feel if you are in a dream or not they are useless.This is the same reason people can do a RC in a dream but they still can't reach lucidity, or in extreme cases the dream flashes a big "are you dreaming" sign and they still won't be able to pull themselves from their murky thought process.
Lucid dreaming is a mental gym, constant practice and dedication will give more and better results.Quit going to the gym for some time and you realize you are basically back to square one.
What I'm describing is basically All Day Awareness and someone doing RC in a good way incorporates it one way or another.

I used to become lucid without RC's (I'm a natural lucid dreamer), though since I started taking RCs more seriously, I've started using them in dreams as a sort of confirmation. I sort of notice something unusual and am pretty much lucid but will RC just to finalise it, so I certainly think it helps. There just may be times where you're close to being lucid and need that little extra push.

Originally Posted by Gattaca

RC's most important role is to disrupt the automatic patterns of thinking/ reacting to events.Lucid dreaming at it's core is interrupting pre-determined behaviour, your mind doesn't get swept away by events and you observe your thoughts.
Most of the time we live our life in a hazy fog where we act impulsively according to whatever beliefs, social expectations have been imprinted on us since childhood.In the worst cases thinking is never critical, just mental chatter with the sole purpose of maintaining the current program.Now in the dream state this is far more worse since anatomically the region responsible for critical thinking in the brain( Prefrontal Cortex) is normally off, even if the other regions can be fired up.
But even if the region is 'off', the neurons aren't dead, just very inactive.Lucid dreaming practice is just flexing these neurons that normally are off.In your every day life you put more care and reason behind your actions."Why am I mad at this situation","Why am I scared or running from this thing", next time you look at a flower you don't just think "oh a nice coloured flower everyone knows it's nice now I can return at thinking about random crap#145", you look at the pattern of the petals, how deep is the colour is and the way it contrasts with the background, you stop all the mental noise and just pay attention to your sight and smell sense.The RCs you do in the day make you to pay more attention to your emotions, surrounding, people you see, little details.
It's mental workout and it does require effort, and same as physical training, it constantly builds up until you reach the required goal-post.At some point when you go to sleep, some connections will still remain more more active than usually in your pre-frontal cortex and when that number reaches a certain threshold you get lucidity and start questioning your dream.
That's why you hear of people that after a period of lucid dreaming they stop dream journaling/RC because of a too busy life or losing interest, they just can't keep the mental effort anymore because of more troubling issues that eat up mental strength or can't find the motivation too keep up with the practice.After a while they will stop having lucid dreams.You can do all the RCs you want but if they are just automatic in themselves and no effort is made to actually know and feel if you are in a dream or not they are useless.This is the same reason people can do a RC in a dream but they still can't reach lucidity, or in extreme cases the dream flashes a big "are you dreaming" sign and they still won't be able to pull themselves from their murky thought process.
Lucid dreaming is a mental gym, constant practice and dedication will give more and better results.Quit going to the gym for some time and you realize you are basically back to square one.
What I'm describing is basically All Day Awareness and someone doing RC in a good way incorporates it one way or another.

Great post on RC's.

What is the reason why sometimes RC's fail during lucid dreams and brings you to FA? And why do you think RC's sometimes fail during awake life, meaning you think you are dreaming for some time.

Originally Posted by flowofmysoul

Great post on RC's.

What is the reason why sometimes RC's fail during lucid dreams and brings you to FA? And why do you think RC's sometimes fail during awake life, meaning you think you are dreaming for some time.

I sometimes think in real life that I'm dreaming even after 2-3 reality checks to mentally prepare myself for the moment when an RC will actually fail, or the situation is too damn strange.What if I can read a text clearly like I did numerous times, what if the hands are normal when I look at them, what if my fuzzy logic will just accept me still breathing even if I pinch my nose the same way it accepts other bizarre situations.When doing an RC I always ask myself how I got there, what day is it, can I stop what I'm doing currently.I do this until it's a habit for me to question my dreams.
You get to a sort of paradox, someone new to LD reads in some book that in a dream your hands always look weird, and his dreams will convey this expectation.Next time he will see in dreams his weird hands, but why are the hands more weird than any of the things he saw before?He will reach lucidity if he made a habit of questioning the reality of his surroundings every time he looks at his hands, he sort of trained himself to enter that alert state of mind when he saw his hands.
But someone may think "why can't my hands be normal in a dream?".Now that he doubts even that madness of his dreams, maybe his hands will start looking normal in some occasions. Well what can he do?Is he doomed to never being able to use RCs to lucid dreams because he doubts that RCs can't fail, because it is unreliable to think that dreams are unreliable?
I've read some time about anchoring in NLP "Anchors are stimuli that call forth states of mind - thoughts and emotions. For example, touching a knuckle of the left hand could be an anchor. Some anchors are involuntary. So the smell of bread may take you back to your childhood. A tune may remind you of a certain person. A touch can bring back memories and the past states. These anchors work automatically and you may not be aware of the triggers."More on NLP Anchoring , just one of the first sites that popped now when I googled.
Let's take the looking at your hands RC. According to the site above constant RC will form a reflex triggered by the sight of your hands, no matter how distorted or real they are.The stimuli is visual, and the state of mind is that of alertness, questioning, awareness.
So yes, thinking you are dreaming and doing all you can to be more lucid in real life even if the hands tell you you are not in a dream is a good way of transitioning that behaviour in your dreams next time you see your hands.But these are just my 2 cents on this all RC matter.

Originally Posted by Gattaca

I sometimes think in real life that I'm dreaming even after 2-3 reality checks to mentally prepare myself for the moment when an RC will actually fail, or the situation is too damn strange.What if I can read a text clearly like I did numerous times, what if the hands are normal when I look at them, what if my fuzzy logic will just accept me still breathing even if I pinch my nose the same way it accepts other bizarre situations.When doing an RC I always ask myself how I got there, what day is it, can I stop what I'm doing currently.I do this until it's a habit for me to question my dreams.
You get to a sort of paradox, someone new to LD reads in some book that in a dream your hands always look weird, and his dreams will convey this expectation.Next time he will see in dreams his weird hands, but why are the hands more weird than any of the things he saw before?He will reach lucidity if he made a habit of questioning the reality of his surroundings every time he looks at his hands, he sort of trained himself to enter that alert state of mind when he saw his hands.
But someone may think "why can't my hands be normal in a dream?".Now that he doubts even that madness of his dreams, maybe his hands will start looking normal in some occasions. Well what can he do?Is he doomed to never being able to use RCs to lucid dreams because he doubts that RCs can't fail, because it is unreliable to think that dreams are unreliable?
I've read some time about anchoring in NLP "Anchors are stimuli that call forth states of mind - thoughts and emotions. For example, touching a knuckle of the left hand could be an anchor. Some anchors are involuntary. So the smell of bread may take you back to your childhood. A tune may remind you of a certain person. A touch can bring back memories and the past states. These anchors work automatically and you may not be aware of the triggers."More on NLP Anchoring , just one of the first sites that popped now when I googled.
Let's take the looking at your hands RC. According to the site above constant RC will form a reflex triggered by the sight of your hands, no matter how distorted or real they are.The stimuli is visual, and the state of mind is that of alertness, questioning, awareness.
So yes, thinking you are dreaming and doing all you can to be more lucid in real life even if the hands tell you you are not in a dream is a good way of transitioning that behaviour in your dreams next time you see your hands.But these are just my 2 cents on this all RC matter.

Gattaca, I also sometimes think that I might be dreaming during real life, even after 2-3 reality checks. I understand you so much on paradox that you mentioned, I never read any advanced book about lucid dreaming, and author never wrote in details about RC's. So I never had any expectation that my hands might look weird. I am used to understand where is dream, based on my feelings, on my surroundings, based on how my senses work. Of course there are a lot of exceptions, but that is absolutely another conversation.
You are right regarding that you need to remember how you got there, I also advise people to do that when they fail a RC. But there is one problem with those kind of checks, you cannot do that in the morning. You can be awake and you cannot determine whether it is a dream or not, or you are dreaming and having a FA and cannot determine whether you already woke up or it is a FA. You can go even further, you will wake up into another FA and then into one more, you will FA again and again, every FA will make it harder to RC.



I have a lot of thoughts in my head about this topic, but I will make some conclusions from what I think about it.

I think reality checks during awake life are always useful, reality checks in your dream as a way to become lucid are only good for beginners. As soon as you are able to lucid dream without RC, leave them. Do reality checks only when you are awake, or during extreme situations in your dreams. Forcing your self to do a reality check is also not a good idea, you can do it in the beginning if you forget to do them by your self. Try to reach a state where you mind will automatically bring the idea to you that you might be dreaming, whenever you see something odd, something strange or something out of order you should be already questioning your self if it is all real. Do not think like "oh that is weird, let me do a reality check now".
Using reality checks in your dreams to become lucid is not reliable, you need to feel the transition whenever you enter a dream. You will get to know that feeling and you will not be able to miss it again, this is much better then waiting for your mind to trigger a RC.

Reality check during dream in situations where something bad happened and you need to double check if it is a dream. For example some of your close friends or family died in your dream, you know you are dreaming but there is that little idea in your mind that this might be real, this is where reality checks are useful in your dreams. And now I start questioning even this statement, maybe they are not that useful in our dreams at all. You are lying to your self if you think that you can sustain exactly the same way of thinking and mentality as you have in your waking life. In our dreams we tend to think little bit different, sometimes we even ask our self why did we do a particular action? sometimes in our dreams we even ask our self, why do we think that way? Now add a mixture of expectations that you got from other users on DV and add expectations that you gathered from reading all those books about lucid dreaming and you are getting absolutely unreliable reality check...

So more and more I am coming to a conclusion that it is better to replace emergency reality checks during our dreams with something else. I think it is much better to concentrate on surroundings, on our senses, on behavior of people around you, then remember how you got there. Gathering that kind of information should give you a feeling of whether it is a dream or not.

Originally Posted by Yuwkes

Is this gonna work if I want to have more lucid dreams or do I really have to master a technique to lucid dream more? Can I have more lucid dreams by just becoming aware without any clue or something?

You may think you were unaware, but just becoming lucid in itself means you have developed a decent amount of awareness, even subconsciously. Reality checks are not completely necessary to get you lucid whilst in the dream. In waking life, you reality check in order to enhance your awareness in the present moment . Then, onve you build up that awareness, you will learn to become lucid just by your "internal senses", so to speak. But in a dream, it is AFTER you become lucid that you perform a reality check to confirm you are indeed dreaming. However, there are also times when people reality check while nonlucid and become lucid because of that. The reason for this is because they RC out of habit in waking life, but even then, they would have had some amount of awareness enough to prompt them to RC in the first place.


So to answer your question, yes you can be lucid any way that is best for you. A lucid is a lucid and you are better defined not by which method you got it (since it works differently for everyone), but by what you do with your lucid and how you use it to benefit yourself mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, etc.


Good luck

Also, let's try to keep the discussion pertinent to the OP's original inquiry, thank you