Quote Originally Posted by essbee View Post
As for reality checks, I understand it's goal but I find it hard to understand how are you supposed to make these checks during your dreams if you are not lucid. I mean, I'm not really controlling myself right now in dreams so I'm not really able to do what I want therefore I can't really make these reality checks, no? And should I try to reality check at the same time I'm trying to improve my dream recalling, 2 things at once?
This was something I really didn't understand when starting out. How am I gonna look at my hands (my form of reality check) in a dream, when I have never ever seen my hands in dream before.
Well, in my first lucid, I suddenly, automatically asked myself "whoa, am I dreaming"? And as I was saying yes, to my greatest surprise, my hands jumped up infront of my eyes and that was my reality check. So, first, out of the blue you realize you are dreaming, and then you do a reality check, just to comfirm.

RE: why is lucid dreaming not well known - try to tell 10 of your friends about it. 8 of them will think you are nuts, or into occultism, or you talking bs. 1 of them will be interested, maybe he will look it up, but that's it. And maybe 1 of them will look it up and start practicing. People just don't believe in it, or they think, we shouldn't mess with our dreams. (that's not what we are doing, by the way)

Some people believe in OBEs (forum Beyond dreaming).

You train your brain to lucid dream by transfering behaviour from daytime into your regular dreams. If during daytime you stop what you doing for a minute and ask yourself "am I dreaming?', you will start doing this in your dreams. Excellent tutorial on daytime awarenes technique.
You practice that, do reality checks, write in your dream journal, say some mantras,be VERY excited about the whole thing and believe in yourself, and in no time you will start having lucid dreams.
Happy dreams